chefranden Posted July 16, 2009 Share Posted July 16, 2009 Huxley vs Orwell Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chefranden Posted July 16, 2009 Author Share Posted July 16, 2009 Huxley vs Orwell Personally I think it will be something else, and we won't see it coming. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
qec Posted July 16, 2009 Share Posted July 16, 2009 Huxley vs Orwell I stopped and thought about it and it became apparent that: All the Huxley examples are good examples of leftist totalitarianism and the end result of it. All the Orwell examples are good examples of a rightist totalitarianism and the end result of it. I personally think we have a combination of the two and it's already happening and will continue to happen as long as people let it; which is to state the very obvious. America after 9/11 isn't the same America as it was before 9/11. The pols in the Bush Junta milked 9/11 for all it was worth, and now we are fucked and Obama's Admin won't rescind the essentials of that raw power, merely the dressings of it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Davka Posted July 16, 2009 Share Posted July 16, 2009 Huxley vs Orwell I stopped and thought about it and it became apparent that: All the Huxley examples are good examples of leftist totalitarianism and the end result of it. All the Orwell examples are good examples of a rightist totalitarianism and the end result of it. I think you're right about Orwell, but Huxley? It's "give the people what they want" taken to an extreme - not so much leftist totalitarianism as a free-market wet dream. Brave New World was a leftist utopia, but that cartoon was . . . idk. Not Brave New World, really. Cause if this is the Brave New World, I want my goddamned soma! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OpheliaGinger Posted July 16, 2009 Share Posted July 16, 2009 The Huxley idea is not necessarily about a left leaning government but of a market that has wanked people off so much that we, as a society, have wanked ourselves to irrelevance. We have gotten to the point that people care more for an American Idol result than what a politician is doing--more people vote for an American Idol contestant than they do for a president. You would have to combine the two approaches to create an authoritarian government while placating the masses. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vigile Posted July 16, 2009 Share Posted July 16, 2009 Personally I think the country has already arrived at where ever it is it is supposed to be heading. Citizens for the most part don't ask too many difficult questions and those who do are easily marginalized. The country has an effective and efficient work force that is well educated to kiss the ass of whatever conglomerate it is they work for. People pretty much bend over and accept that their taxes get funneled to the military industrial complex and other multinational corporate giants and/or whatever lobby group pays the most for access. The media is already run by those same corporate conglomerates so the citizens pretty much accept whatever policy spin they are being fed. There are no riots that can't be easily controlled. There are no threats to the status quo that also can't easily be controlled. Totalitarianism generally emerges out of paranoia from the leaders who fear threats to their rule of power. Since there really are none there's no reason to do more than maintain the status quo and perhaps work out ways to allay potential future threats to the same quo. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ouroboros Posted July 16, 2009 Share Posted July 16, 2009 I think it's a combination of both. The best method for Big Brother to maintain control is to do it less obvious, and give the illusion of freedom. The illusion of freedom and choice is done through a Huxley like society where people become stupefied through their indulgences. The wolfs guarding the sheep. So I answered something else. We don' love consumption, we're made to crave it as a substitute for real liberty. Free expression, free thought, free choice, taken away, because we can pick number 1 to 6 super-sized meal combos at McDonald's Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
qec Posted July 16, 2009 Share Posted July 16, 2009 Personally I think the country has already arrived at where ever it is it is supposed to be heading. Citizens for the most part don't ask too many difficult questions and those who do are easily marginalized. The country has an effective and efficient work force that is well educated to kiss the ass of whatever conglomerate it is they work for. People pretty much bend over and accept that their taxes get funneled to the military industrial complex and other multinational corporate giants and/or whatever lobby group pays the most for access. The media is already run by those same corporate conglomerates so the citizens pretty much accept whatever policy spin they are being fed. There are no riots that can't be easily controlled. There are no threats to the status quo that also can't easily be controlled. Totalitarianism generally emerges out of paranoia from the leaders who fear threats to their rule of power. Since there really are none there's no reason to do more than maintain the status quo and perhaps work out ways to allay potential future threats to the same quo. The first bold-ed thing is something that people just don't seem to get: We have a thoroughly corporate driven media and have for some time now. This means that journalistic integrity is practically non-existent; in fact it's been phased out over the last 30 years I would say. Also, after 9/11 whatever we had left sharply dropped as the nation got caught up in utter hysteria and George Bush milked our freedoms away from us while merging corporatism with the government. What we have nowadays in the media is a "business", and you can't upset the apple cart too much because then that would either A. Be bad for ratings, or B. Get Uncle Sam on your ass, or C. Displease your corporate sponsors (big no no). The second bold-ed is not exactly true in the way you think it is Vigile. I go to ride the T here in Boston and one can easily hear on the electronic signs/loudspeaker "Safety is our number one priority..as our eyes and ears in the system...please be alert and aware and ready to report any suspicious activity to an MBTA transit official" or "Now more than ever it is important to be alert and aware and ready to report any suspicious activities.." The state is fucking paranoid and I was talking about this very thing with other atheists the other night when I went to see Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince. The state is freaking the fuck out more and more as things slide downhill. Cameras where put up inside the subway trains and buses and that message was playing well before Obama got elected. The thing is-and I am stating this for your benefit as well as everyone else here- how is that kind of "Security Theater" to quote the words of Bruce Schneier: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Security_theater, going to stop even a suicide bomber? It's easy to beat that box, you just remote detonate with a cell phone and have your friend drive alongside the bus or the tracks of the train, and BOOM game over, he and you get "72 virgins". These things are designed to do one thing and one thing alone: scare people into submission to the police state, and intimidate people. They are designed to make people feel safe; they are designed to make people feel superficially safe and terrorized at one and the same time. A fence will keep people out, but it can also keep people in..... As in communist countries.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Legion Posted July 16, 2009 Share Posted July 16, 2009 Actually, I think my descendants will all become uber-Morlocks like the one Jeremy Irons played. They’ll eat Eloi all day and plays pranks on one another with their advanced mind control techiniques. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mriana Posted July 17, 2009 Share Posted July 17, 2009 IF the delusional people don't come to their senses, what will kill us or at least give us a nuclear holocaust, is their desire for war in the name of their god (which is really a nuke). This war in the Middle East, it is nothing but a religious war and if the religious nutter encouraging it don't stop, they will kill us all. They are all, Islamic extremists, Fundamngelicals, Jewish extremists, are all insane enough to do it too, right up to that dick-tator in Iran. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mwc Posted July 17, 2009 Share Posted July 17, 2009 The first bold-ed thing is something that people just don't seem to get: We have a thoroughly corporate driven media and have for some time now. This means that journalistic integrity is practically non-existent; in fact it's been phased out over the last 30 years I would say. Then you need to read up on people like Hearst. His empire started way back in the 1800's and he lied about most everything. He made up stories for his own purposes and did pretty much whatever he liked. Helped kill hemp farming because he owned forests. Lots of stuff. But really, he'd steal stories and release them under fake names and all sorts of things. To say that corporate driven media and the lack of integrity is a recent innovation is not true but it is a current belief. I just went to the wiki page on Hearst and here's a quote from one of his contemporary critics: According to Sinclair, Hearst's newspaper employees were "willing by deliberate and shameful lies, made out of whole cloth, to stir nations to enmity and drive them to murderous war." Does that sound familiar? Seems things don't change much. These things are designed to do one thing and one thing alone: scare people into submission to the police state, and intimidate people. They are designed to make people feel safe; they are designed to make people feel superficially safe and terrorized at one and the same time. A fence will keep people out, but it can also keep people in..... As in communist countries.. Totalitarian regimes want to turn people into dependents. Then they wish to hold them there using authoritarian methods. They also wish to control the personal aspects of your life such as morals and the like. At this stage of the game we're being turned into dependents of the (federal) state and there are any number of ways to achieve this end. It doesn't have to be all about fear though once you're dependent it will and fear can take many forms and come from many directions. Oh, and I'm kind of looking for a meteor or gamma ray burst to wipe us out so I picked "other"... mwc Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mwc Posted July 18, 2009 Share Posted July 18, 2009 Hmmm...maybe it will be Orwell : This morning, hundreds of Amazon Kindle owners awoke to discover that books by a certain famous author had mysteriously disappeared from their e-book readers. These were books that they had bought and paid for—thought they owned. From here. mwc Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RankStranger Posted July 18, 2009 Share Posted July 18, 2009 I agree with Hans. There's no reason why Orwell's and Huxley's versions of control have to be mutually exclusive. We have plenty of carrots AND sticks here in America. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vigile Posted July 18, 2009 Share Posted July 18, 2009 These things are designed to do one thing and one thing alone: scare people into submission to the police state, and intimidate people. They are designed to make people feel safe; they are designed to make people feel superficially safe and terrorized at one and the same time. A fence will keep people out, but it can also keep people in..... As in communist countries.. All good points Q. I guess what I was arguing is that I personally don't see the US going the whole East German/Romanian route. They have, as you well pointed out, moved in a direction toward intimidation. It seems to be working well in its more subtle forms. Like Hans said above you, the illusion of freedom offers the most sustainable totalitarian state as it doesn't invite backlash. Ignorance must truly be blissful. I'm still glad I am one of those who pays more attention though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vigile Posted July 18, 2009 Share Posted July 18, 2009 This war in the Middle East, it is nothing but a religious war There is religion in the ME and many who fight are religiously motivated. There is religion in the US and many supporters of the fighting are religiously motivated. The fighting has virtually nothing to do with religion though from a national perspective. From a national perspective fighting has almost always been for dominance, for land, or for resources. It's just very easy to wrap up the fighting in religious colors in order to gain widespread acceptance for it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chefranden Posted July 18, 2009 Author Share Posted July 18, 2009 Hmmm...maybe it will be Orwell : This morning, hundreds of Amazon Kindle owners awoke to discover that books by a certain famous author had mysteriously disappeared from their e-book readers. These were books that they had bought and paid for—thought they owned. From here. mwc I was thinking of getting one of these things. Now I will save $300 plus books. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ouroboros Posted July 18, 2009 Share Posted July 18, 2009 So... Kindle is the name of the device on which the books were "burned" (removed)... The irony... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
oddbird1963 Posted July 18, 2009 Share Posted July 18, 2009 Hmmm...maybe it will be Orwell : This morning, hundreds of Amazon Kindle owners awoke to discover that books by a certain famous author had mysteriously disappeared from their e-book readers. These were books that they had bought and paid for—thought they owned. From here. mwc I was thinking of getting one of these things. Now I will save $300 plus books. WOW! That is astounding and enraging! I was thinking about getting a Kindle. But if they have the capability to delete books from them, no way! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tabula Rasa Posted July 19, 2009 Share Posted July 19, 2009 I've read the cartoon, and I really don't know if we'll get Big Brother or a Brave New World. But as for the end? Highly unlikely. Humans have survived a lot of shit in our 200,000 year history, one example being the eruption quite possibly explosion of the volcano Toba in Sumatra 75,000 years ago. It sent so much smoke and dust into the atmosphere that it blocked out the sun and started a six year global winter. Millions of species died, and the human population was reduced to not more than 1,000. Out of that 1,000 humanity started over.Since then, humanity has suffered through earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, tsunamis,drought, famine,pestilence, wars, civilizations rising and collapsing, and we're still here. Maybe I'm being a Pollyanna, but as tenacious as humans are, I'm thinking nothing short of the entire planet being destroyed is going to get rid of us.It's both insult and compliment, but humans are cockroaches that walk on two legs. (This is not to say we shouldn't respect the earth and try to take care of, I'm just saying as a species, we're very hard to kill.) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OpheliaGinger Posted July 20, 2009 Share Posted July 20, 2009 Despite whatever distopian society we may begin to live in, we will survive--unless we nuke ourselves to extinction, or a super volcano goes off, or a huge asteroid hits the earth (ala dinosaurs). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OpheliaGinger Posted July 20, 2009 Share Posted July 20, 2009 You know, there is the Ray Bradbury way of Fahrenheit 451. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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