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[Closed] 1984 or Brave New World? Which was most accurate?
[url= https://www.theguardian.com/media/2017/feb/02/amusing-ourselves-to-death-neil-postman-trump-orwell-huxley ]Article here...[/url]
This is crucial...
First: treat false allegations as an opportunity. Seek information as close to the source as possible. The internet represents a great chance for citizens to do their own hunting – there’s ample primary source material, credible eyewitnesses, etc, out there – though it can also be manipulated to obfuscate that. No one’s reality, least of all our collective one, should be a grotesque game of telephone.Second: don’t expect “the media” to do this job for you. Some of its practitioners do, brilliantly and at times heroically. But most of the media exists to sell you things. Its allegiance is to boosting circulation, online traffic, ad revenue. Don’t begrudge it that. But then don’t be suckered about the reasons why Story X got play and Story Y did not.
Third: for journalists, Jay Rosen, a former student of my father’s and a leading voice in the movement known as “public journalism”, offers several useful, practical suggestions.
Finally, and most importantly, it should be the responsibility of schools to make children aware of our information environments, which in many instances have become our entertainment environments, but there is little evidence that schools are equipped or care to do this. So someone has to.
We must teach our children, from a very young age, to be skeptics, to listen carefully, to assume everyone is lying about everything. (Well, maybe not everyone.) Check sources. Consider what wasn’t said. Ask questions. Understand that every storyteller has a bias – and so does every platform.
1984 is the conspiracy theorists' Bible.
Brave New World is the government's Bible.
Handmaid's Tale is the closest to the truth
thanks for the link. thoughtful article.
Nobody will read all that, cant you just summarise in a snappy headline.
Very simple premise, and a good book (amusing ourselves to death).
We're already there, question now is can the bullwarks of rational thinking hold out(journalism, science), and if they can, will anyone actually listen (or read!) 😆
I'm not sure we can include journalism in the "rational thinking" type these days. Some? Yes. But they are becoming increasingly the minority.
Read that this morning found it very interesting. Personally I've always found you can fight any fight but there's no competition against a liar. What's even scarier is the condition of the masses lapping all of this up and just following like cattle.
Give it a year and it'll be The Hunger Games.
://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/feb/03/kellyanne-conway-refugees-bowling-green-massacre-never-happened
Sorry didn't link that we'll but just an example of what's going on.
Search you tube for the Trumps man Spicer holding a press conference and saying Iran attacked a US ship. The jouno's correct him it was a group backed by Iran that attacked a Saudi boat.
The correction was lost in noise so I imagine lots of Americans are waking up today thinking Iran has attacked a US ship.
1984 had some great ideas... like how the country suddenly changed being at war from one country to another and all the people tore down the banners and they were replaced. Brave new world also had some fantastic ideas like those in each class were bred from birth to be in that class and when the 'savage' was beating himself in the countryside all the others took it as entertainment. Things like that you don't quite get it at the time you read it but it stays with you and you just happen to think of it and you realise what a blinding piece of writing it is.
Handmaids tale isn't really a scifi novel about a distopian future, even though it is! it's a femenist novel about modern society.
I think it is more 1984 as false news is being spread
I also think the internet means you can get "News" from a source that is essentially distorted confirmation bias
For example how many folk think the EU is undemocratic - what % of them could explain how the EU elects folk or what the three layers are etc
They think they know fact when they dont have even the vaguest concept of what the actual truth is- they also dont seem to mind our unelected queen or the lords either whilst criticising the lack of democracy elsewhere.
I think the real issue her is how rational educated fact based folk counter the emotive fear based half truths
Clearly preying on folks emotive base reactions with false news is more effective than facts
That is a very worrying situation for the world.
I think it is more 1984 as false news is being spread
But in 1984 the government controls the media. Our current world is the precise opposite, media controls government to a much greater extent. If Murdoch and Co. decided that they'd had enough of May she'd be out in very short order, for example. It's far harder to dislodge the editor of the Mail than it is to get rid of the PM, as we saw last year...
I agree with the premise of the OP's link, [url= https://twitter.com/mintimperial/status/826419965121163264 ]I said as much on Twitter the other day[/url]. The point of BNW is basically that if the government satisfies the basic needs of most of it's population and provides the majority with access to sedating substances and undemanding entertainment then it will have no problem controlling the people. That's far closer to our world than an authoritarian dystopia where the state sticks you in a box and tortures you for keeping a diary.
The government doesn't give a shit about the subversive inner thoughts of the odd political weirdo, so long as the vast majority of people are just shovelling crap into their faces in front of the telly. That's Brave New World, not 1984.
Anyone who cycles on UK roads probably has finely tuned logical argument skills.
Doesn't stop it feeling like a losing battle.
I have a psychologist friend with links to scandanavian countries and sometimes discuss with him how those countries seem to make rational desicions whilst we often make decisions on misconseptions.
My opinion (not his) is that it goes back to a poor equality and the resulting variation in education levels.
Read [i]V for Vendetta [/i]that's close to the bone
The government doesn't give a shit about the subversive inner thoughts of the odd political weirdo, so long as the vast majority of people are just shovelling crap into their faces in front of the telly.
very much this, rightly or wrongly.
so long as the vast majority of people are just shovelling crap into their faces in front of the telly
A very sad reflection of today's world. Reference the number of "TV listing" magazines screaming headlines about what is happening in fictional worlds / artificial reality and the number of people who discuss it as though real.
We looking for the most accurate representation of the authors imagination?
You do know these books are fiction, right?
Yes, but they are discussions of real events. Orwell was not simply daydreaming when he wrote that. It's only part novel.
Anyhow! 😆 For books to feed paranoia, I'll chuck in Kafka's, The Trial and The Fixer by Bernard Malamud is another good book.
molgrips - Member
Yes, but they are discussions of real events. Orwell was not simply daydreaming when he wrote that. It's only part novel.
I know, I've read lots of Orwell, he's just really warning of the dangers of totalitarianism, left or right imo(More from the left in his point of view I think, evidenced by him sticking in some communists later in his life). You can draw literal parallels, but tbh I think that's wasted time. He's more predicting a future if we carried down certain roads, which largely we didn't (depends on your point of view mind you.)
He's more predicting a future if we carried down certain roads, which largely we didn't
I agree. And that's why I get cross with people comparing Facebook etc with 1984. It's not the same thing.
So 1984 is not a history book written in 1949?You do know these books are fiction, right?
Everyday is a school day
you do wonder at times the way people go on.Junkyard - lazarus
So 1984 is not a history book written in 1949?
No 'the machine stops' by EM Forster is about Facebook.
You do know these books are fiction, right?
Fiction is a lens, a device for examining the world. The reason why people go on about 1984 is that some of the notes Orwell hits resonate incredibly strongly with our own experiences and ideas of modern life. It helps us understand what's happening in the world - not all of it, obviously, but bits of it hit very close to home, stuff like constant surveillance, and distortion of facts by the media, for example. As molgrips says, Facebook isn't remotely the same as the surveillance state in 1984. But books like 1984 help us consider what our reality is and how to respond to it by giving us something to measure it against.
Dismissing fiction because it's "not real", like history is (ha), is totally missing the point. Our conception of many important ideas is "not real" (the metaphors we use to try to understand chemical interations, subatomic physics, deep time, or the vast distances of space, for example), but that doesn't mean that these unreal ideas aren't useful. Same goes for novels like 1984 and Brave New World - they are thought experiments, testing our ideas about reality to see what might happen.
Christ that's a lot of waffle, sorry. I feel like an undergrad all over again. I have an overwhelming urge to skip the rest of the afternoon's schedule and **** off down the pub for the rest of the day like a proper English Lit student...
The Circle by Dave Eggers is a good modern treatment of the facebook / Google dystopia, reading it at the moment. There's a film of it coming out soon so should get some attention.wilburt - MemberNo 'the machine stops' by EM Forster is about Facebook.
Would love to see one of the great modern writers tackling this area, but I think most of the real masters are too old to get properly inside of it [Plus Huxley and Orwell's shadow looms extremely long].
Eggers nails it with brilliant skill in The Circle, but doesn't have the writing to go along with his vision.
You could view social media as a kind of voluntary telescreen. Those who don't have it, or publicly seen to value privacy are seen as subversives ("what have you got to hide?"... etc.
you couldn't at all, there's not someone at the other side looking at you, or giving you instruction.jambourgie - Member
You could view social media as a kind of voluntary telescreen.
There's a cookie/setting applying your advertising preferences.
mintimperial - Member
You do know these books are fiction, right?
Fiction is a lens, a device for examining the world. The reason why people go on about 1984 is that some of the notes Orwell hits resonate incredibly strongly with our own experiences and ideas of modern life. It helps us understand what's happening in the world - not all of it, obviously, but bits of it hit very close to home, stuff like constant surveillance, and distortion of facts by the media, for example.
I could maybe get that if you come from 1970s belfast, but most don't.
The things you mention as well, are just factors of modern day society, and are nothing like the overpowering authoritarian state portrayed in 1984.
It's 2+2= 56000.
Oh shut up and have a pint. 😉
mintimperial - Member
Oh shut up and have a pint.
Good point. Well made! 😆
Make mine a Victory Gin.
you couldn't at all, there's not someone at the other side looking at you, or giving you instruction.
There's a cookie reading your advertising preferences.
And the country's bristling with CCTV so there's that...
jam bo - Member
you couldn't at all, there's not someone at the other side looking at you, or giving you instruction.
There's a cookie reading your advertising preferences.
http://www.cam.ac.uk/research/news/computers-using-digital-footprints-are-better-judges-of-personality-than-friends-and-family
Is there someone about to kick your front door in if you don't put in the allocated facebook hours, or switch it off?
jambourgie - Member
And the country's bristling with CCTV so there's that...
An as I say, each individual thing on it's own does not equate to a totalitarian state controlling every aspect of your life(the important point). It's just not happening, no matter how much people wish to believe it.
Sure, but there are some similarities.
Like the 'fear of Goldstein' is similar to the 'fear of yoot/crime/terrorists' which excuses the cameras everywhere. But if you moan about it it's all "if you've got nothing to hide..."
For dystopia, social media, and a sedated populace, let's not forget Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451
jambourgie - Member
But if you moan about it it's all "if you've got nothing to hide..."
You putting words in my mouth there.
My point of view more comes from the fact that I believe people ego's are that big, that they actually believe people are watching them. Which isn't the case with big data, it's about look at and finding bigger trends in the hive mind, groups etc etc(And plenty other things I wouldn't even think off).
Big Data isn't scary. Quite a good development imo.
It being a thing isn't an indication of totalitarianism. it could be a tool for that philosophy mind, but equally it can be a tool that's very useful to us.
Kafka's, The Trial
tried to read it, and The Castle, dunno if it's the translation but they read like something written by a 12yr old and really couldn't get into them.
It's not the translation, crashtestmonkey...crashtestmonkey - MemberKafka's, The Trial
tried to read it, and The Castle, dunno if it's the translation but they read like something written by a 12yr old and really couldn't get into them.
Know where you're coming from, it was a difficult read. Could be translation issues. Could be done better I think.crashtestmonkey - Member
Kafka's, The Trial
tried to read it, and The Castle, dunno if it's the translation but they read like something written by a 12yr old and really couldn't get into them.
Found the same with the bothers kamarov by dosteyevski, just a really bad translation, so I didn't get very far into it. On the other hand I though crime and punishment was excellent and couldn't put it down. Guess the translation can make all the difference.
Been a long time since I read it, so would need to see what version I read, if I've even still got it!