Australian Politics Forum - Huxley vs Orwell

MeisterEckhart

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Huxley vs Orwell - Who Was Right?
May 12^th, 2025 at 7:26am

Neil Postman wrote of Huxley vs Orwell

“What Orwell feared were those who would ban books.

What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one.

Orwell feared those who would deprive us of information.

Huxley feared those who would give us so much that we would be reduced to passivity and egoism.

Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from us.

Huxley feared the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance.

Orwell feared we would become a captive culture.

Huxley feared we would become a trivial culture, preoccupied with some equivalent of the feelies, the orgy porgy, and the centrifugal bumblepuppy.

As Huxley remarked in Brave New World Revisited, the civil libertarians and rationalists who are ever on the alert to oppose tyranny "failed to take into account man's almost infinite appetite for distractions."

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Yadda

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A cat with a view

Re: Huxley vs Orwell - Who Was Right?
Reply #1 - May 12^th, 2025 at 9:23am

A few George Orwell quotes....

"If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face, forever."
- [from] 1984 - George Orwell

Journalism is printing what someone else does not want printed; everything else is public relations.
- George Orwell

"If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear."
- George Orwell

"The further a society drifts from truth the more it will hate those who speak it."
- George Orwell

"In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act."
- George Orwell [even if this quote is mis-attributed to Orwell, the pursuit of truth remains a great virtue]

"It is difficult to see how Gandhi's methods could be applied in a country where opponents of the regime disappear in the middle of the night and are never heard of again.
Without a free press and the right of assembly, it is impossible not merely to appeal to outside opinion, but to bring a mass movement into being, or even to make your intentions known to your adversary."
- George Orwell i.e. LEFTIST subversive political tactics are not tolerated, in a nation like China, in 2020 !!!

"If thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought."
- George Orwell

>>>>>>>>>
"England is perhaps the only great country whose intellectuals are ashamed of their own nationality."
- George Orwell

"I consider that willingness to criticize Russia and Stalin is the test of intellectual honesty."
- George Orwell, to his friend John Middleton Murry, a wartime pacifist

"Nothing is gained by teaching a parrot a new word. What is needed is the right to print what one believes to be true, without having to fear bullying or blackmail from any side."
- George Orwell
ideology vs. truth

"To admit that an opponent might be both honest and intelligent is felt to be intolerable.
It is more immediately satisfying to shout that he is a fool or a scoundrel, or both, than to find out what he is really like."
- George Orwell

WAR IS PEACE
FREEDOM IS SLAVERY
IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH
- Party slogans from 1984 novel

“War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength.”

“Doublethink means the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one’s mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them.”

more......

Power is in tearing human minds to pieces and putting them together again in new shapes of your own choosing.
- George Orwell, 1984

Orthodoxy means not thinking – not needing to think.
Orthodoxy is unconsciousness.
- George Orwell, 1984

“Power is not a means; it is an end.
One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution;
one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship.
The object of persecution is persecution.
The object of torture is torture.
The object of power is power”
- George Orwell

George Orwell, he understood 'the human condition'.

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"....And he said unto him, If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead."
Luke 16:31

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MeisterEckhart

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Re: Huxley vs Orwell - Who Was Right?
Reply #2 - May 12^th, 2025 at 9:40am

Yadda wrote on May 12^th, 2025 at 9:23am:

George Orwell, he understood 'the human condition'.

So did Huxley.

He commented that when he wrote the book 'Brave New World' in 1931, he was imagining a dystopia further into the future than his grandchildren's lives.

He changed his mind just before he died in 1963, when he, by then, believed it would start to happen 'very soon'.

Was his change of heart wrong?

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Frank Gold Member Offline Australian Politics Posts: 51441 Gender:	Re: Huxley vs Orwell - Who Was Right? Reply #3 - May 14^th, 2025 at 5:01pm https://theconversation.com/nineteen-eighty-four-and-brave-new-world-should-be-r...
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MeisterEckhart Gold Member Offline Australian Politics Posts: 15125 Gender:	Re: Huxley vs Orwell - Who Was Right? Reply #4 - May 14^th, 2025 at 7:19pm An argument for Huxley is the experience that emergency services often report when using Narcan (Naloxone) to reverse a fentanyl or opiate coma in victims. Often the victims are furious that they have been brought out of their state and whine that it could take days to get the money to get back into it.
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Frank

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Re: Huxley vs Orwell - Who Was Right?
Reply #5 - May 14^th, 2025 at 7:29pm

MeisterEckhart wrote on May 14^th, 2025 at 7:19pm:

An argument for Huxley is the experience that emergency services often report when using Narcan (Naloxone) to reverse a fentanyl or opiate coma in victims.

Often the victims are furious that they have been brought out of their state and whine that it could take days to get the money to get back into it.

Trump is the emergency services.
The numbed coma victims whine and bitch and want back.

That's the point - you wouldn't need Trump if you hadn't overdosed on shite.

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MeisterEckhart

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Re: Huxley vs Orwell - Who Was Right?
Reply #6 - May 14^th, 2025 at 8:07pm

Frank wrote on May 14^th, 2025 at 7:29pm:

MeisterEckhart wrote on May 14^th, 2025 at 7:19pm:

An argument for Huxley is the experience that emergency services often report when using Narcan (Naloxone) to reverse a fentanyl or opiate coma in victims.

Often the victims are furious that they have been brought out of their state and whine that it could take days to get the money to get back into it.

Trump is the emergency services.
The numbed coma victims whine and bitch and want back.

That's the point - you wouldn't need Trump if you hadn't overdosed on shite.

Brought Trump into this thread, then.

Don't let Leroy read it... He's just ordained you an alpha priest on this forum, complete with your own altar boys and everything... He might have to label you a TDS sufferer,

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Frank

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Re: Huxley vs Orwell - Who Was Right?
Reply #7 - May 15^th, 2025 at 11:31am

MeisterEckhart wrote on May 14^th, 2025 at 8:07pm:

Frank wrote on May 14^th, 2025 at 7:29pm:

MeisterEckhart wrote on May 14^th, 2025 at 7:19pm:

An argument for Huxley is the experience that emergency services often report when using Narcan (Naloxone) to reverse a fentanyl or opiate coma in victims.

Often the victims are furious that they have been brought out of their state and whine that it could take days to get the money to get back into it.

Trump is the emergency services.
The numbed coma victims whine and bitch and want back.

That's the point - you wouldn't need Trump if you hadn't overdosed on shite.

Brought Trump into this thread, then.

Don't let Leroy read it... He's just ordained you an alpha priest on this forum, complete with your own altar boys and everything... He might have to label you a TDS sufferer,

Oh?! So your OP and thread is really about mid-20th century Britain with zero relevance to or questions for the contemporary social, cultural and political world?? Really??

No.

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MeisterEckhart

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Re: Huxley vs Orwell - Who Was Right?
Reply #8 - May 15^th, 2025 at 11:45am

Frank wrote on May 15^th, 2025 at 11:31am:

Oh?! So your OP and thread is really about mid-20th century Britain with zero relevance to or questions for the contemporary social, cultural and political world?? Really??

No.

Orwellian and Huxleyan ideas concern modern societies since about 1945, so unless Trump has been a main protagonist of human societies' march towards either, or both, isms since he was 2 years old, his immediate effect is not relevant.

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thegreatdivide

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Re: Huxley vs Orwell - Who Was Right?
Reply #9 - May 15^th, 2025 at 11:58am

MeisterEckhart wrote on May 12^th, 2025 at 7:26am:

Neil Postman wrote of Huxley vs Orwell

"Huxley feared those who would give us so much that we would be reduced to passivity and egoism.

Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from us."

Such 'philosophical' statements avoid the nitty-gritty of how to create an economy which works for all...

Therefore I doubt any of the posts following the OP can enlighten us re creating a better world, though I stand to be corrected.

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Frank

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Re: Huxley vs Orwell - Who Was Right?
Reply #10 - May 15^th, 2025 at 12:01pm

MeisterEckhart wrote on May 15^th, 2025 at 11:45am:

Frank wrote on May 15^th, 2025 at 11:31am:

Oh?! So your OP and thread is really about mid-20th century Britain with zero relevance to or questions for the contemporary social, cultural and political world?? Really??

No.

Orwellian and Huxleyan ideas concern modern societies since about 1945, so unless Trump has been a main protagonist of human societies' march towards either, or both, isms since he was 2 years old, his immediate effect is not relevant.

We are reading the world in which today Trump, too, is a sign. A simulacra as we "follow the movement of the showing". That's the différance.
Or to put it another way, we are too Jung to be Freuded.

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MeisterEckhart

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Re: Huxley vs Orwell - Who Was Right?
Reply #11 - May 15^th, 2025 at 12:12pm

Frank wrote on May 15^th, 2025 at 12:01pm:

MeisterEckhart wrote on May 15^th, 2025 at 11:45am:

Frank wrote on May 15^th, 2025 at 11:31am:

Oh?! So your OP and thread is really about mid-20th century Britain with zero relevance to or questions for the contemporary social, cultural and political world?? Really??

No.

Orwellian and Huxleyan ideas concern modern societies since about 1945, so unless Trump has been a main protagonist of human societies' march towards either, or both, isms since he was 2 years old, his immediate effect is not relevant.

We are reading the world in which today Trump, too, is a sign. A simulacra as we "follow the movement of the showing". That's the différance.
Or to put it another way, we are too Jung to be Freuded.

'A simulacra', eh! He didn't invent the causes of either ism, and, if anything, he's an extreme example of a rampant American capitalist of the post-war era... not a character fresh out of either book. He may want to end the opioid epidemic, but out of his disdain for drugs... not for ideological reasons that Orwell or Huxley would recognise.

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thegreatdivide

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Re: Huxley vs Orwell - Who Was Right?
Reply #12 - May 15^th, 2025 at 3:43pm

MeisterEckhart wrote on May 15^th, 2025 at 12:12pm:

Frank wrote on May 15^th, 2025 at 12:01pm:

MeisterEckhart wrote on May 15^th, 2025 at 11:45am:

Frank wrote on May 15^th, 2025 at 11:31am:

Oh?! So your OP and thread is really about mid-20th century Britain with zero relevance to or questions for the contemporary social, cultural and political world?? Really??

No.

Orwellian and Huxleyan ideas concern modern societies since about 1945, so unless Trump has been a main protagonist of human societies' march towards either, or both, isms since he was 2 years old, his immediate effect is not relevant.

We are reading the world in which today Trump, too, is a sign. A simulacra as we "follow the movement of the showing". That's the différance.
Or to put it another way, we are too Jung to be Freuded.

'A simulacra', eh! He didn't invent the causes of either ism, and, if anything, he's an extreme example of a rampant American capitalist of the post-war era

Yes, but now Trump is dealing with mainstream neoclassical orthodoxy, as manifested in WTO "free-trade rules" which have caused the deindustrialization of the US - a dangerous outcome for the US, now that China is the world's factory.

So Trump thinks he can eliminate US taxes by imposing tarffis on trade, surely the wrong policy to MAGA (stay tuned).

Quote:

... not a character fresh out of either book. He may want to end the opioid epidemic, but out of his disdain for drugs... not for ideological reasons that Orwell or Huxley would recognise.

You are both talking about '-isms' and a global financial system which existed before Nixon (who got rid of the gold-standard) and which was replaced by the fiat currency era.

Your capitalism versus communism - battle of the -isms - is obsolete.

Carry on navel gazing, while Trump is forcing the biggest changes in global relations and global finance since Bretton Woods in 1944, and the UN a year later.

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MeisterEckhart

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Re: Huxley vs Orwell - Who Was Right?
Reply #13 - May 15^th, 2025 at 4:07pm

thegreatdivide wrote on May 15^th, 2025 at 3:43pm:

You are both talking about '-isms' and a global financial system which existed before Nixon (who got rid of the gold-standard) and which was replaced by the fiat currency era.

Your capitalism versus communism - battle of the -isms - is obsolete.

Carry on navel gazing, while Trump is forcing the biggest changes in global relations and global finance since Bretton Woods in 1944, and the UN a year later.

So, are we in an Orwellian or Huxleyan world, or a bit of both, within the contexts that the authors suggested?

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Jasin

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Re: Huxley vs Orwell - Who Was Right?
Reply #14 - May 15^th, 2025 at 4:30pm

Great Opening Post btw.
I admit I haven't read Brave New World as I have probably a flawed presumption that it's 'world' only speculates on the future of just one 'region' of the world without taking into account the influence of the other x7 regions. Not very 'worldly' then.

As for Orwell. Let me offer some advice. Re-read 1984, but with the awareness that Big Brother and Oceania (the enemy) are one and the same. Wink

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AIMLESS EXTENTION OF KNOWLEDGE HOWEVER, WHICH IS WHAT I THINK YOU REALLY MEAN BY THE TERM 'CURIOSITY', IS MERELY INEFFICIENCY. I AM DESIGNED TO AVOID INEFFICIENCY.

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