Brave New 1984

[pasithea]

Finished reading Brave New World and I must say I was rather disappointed. I can overlook and forgive the limited understanding of technology and ecology. The book was written in 1930 after all, and for a book that has WWII, the atomic age, and the computer between it and us, there's quite a bit that he got pretty close. There are parts of this country where Ford is a religion and more generally speaking, brands and corporations have in many ways ascended to the power of gods.


On thing that perplexes me. In both BNW and 1984, the writers seem to assume that doing away with religion will lead to the most totalitarian state whereas, it seems to me that religion is a required part of complete control and while part of that can be funneled off into nationalism or brand loyalty, those are limited to the here and now. Our primitive little monkey brains fear death. For most of us, it's inconceivable to imagine what the world would be like without us. The idea that we stop, end of story, nothing more, you don't get to turn the page, see what happens next, is unfathomable. Even the most witless dullard will wonder what happens next. We can't help it. As such, religion will always be around in some form or another, and any iron fist that wishes to rule will find it much easier if they put god on their side.

To that end, Christianity and its ilk are perfectly suited to the totalitarian regime. Religions wholly divorced from nature, promising eternal pleasure or eternal torment and with vaguely defined castes so that it's possible to look down on everyone around you and believe yourself higher in the order. Organized religion is a great con. The left hand of any dictator.

On the whole, I found Brave New World lacking. It's both more gruesome in the details and less gruesome in the overall than our current world. We're much closer to Orwell's 1984 but neither really suffices in that both took a method of control and pushed it to the end of the dial. BNW fixates completely on the reward end and 1984 is firmly stuck at the punishment end with the knob broken off for good measure. That gives the middle a false sense of security, but we can achieve a stagnant society via the middle road just as easily as by taking either end.

We have the police state of 1984 with the vapid distractions of BNW thrown in. Most people hate and fear their government, but a balance has been struck. It's a necessary evil and you're too small to upturn things. You'd just get crushed. Not to mention, it's inconvenient. You could lose your job and end up homeless. Overpopulation is definitely a factor in this control. There's no where you could go. Just wander out in the woods and start new. It'd be a park or someone's private property and you'd be arrested and dragged back to society for your punishment. There's no place for outlaws these days. Robin Hood is dead.

No. Better to stay in our places. Maybe we can donate to a non-profit organization that will do the work for us. If you're really upset, perhaps join and organization and work passionately for your cause... Until you're burned up by the apathy of the rest of the world or you find your own comforts and settle back in your seat. The sheer population, the absolute and permeating power of carefully controlled media has made rebellion impossible. We're well and truly stuck and slowly, ever slowly, sinking into a morass which is every bit at bad as BNW or 1984.

So... What then is the answer? ....
Don't listen to a word I just said. It's crap. The oppressive hopelessness of a world you can't change impairs you from making change but if you realize it's quicksand, you might just make it out. Change is slow, often imperceptible, but if you find your own balance and you keep moving slowly towards the shore, it will happen. We're impatient creatures. We want things right now or not at all but... it just doesn't usually happen that way. You just have to remember that is IS happening and not waste all your energy struggling. 50 years ago, the idea of a black man becoming president was unheard of. A woman as his main competition would be equally laughable. Homosexuality was a felony in most states in the country and seen as a mental disease and electro-shock torture was the rule of the day for 'curing' us. Things are changing and, despite our most backwards leaders, edging slowly closer and closer to real freedom. We can make it.

Comments

Re: Huxley Lecture on Psychecedelic Salon Podcast

[dv-girl.livejournal.com]

Not to excuse Stalin's ruthlessness, but I've heard this so many times it just kind of grates on me. People tend to count 'people who died fighting the nazis' and 'people who starved during a horrible famine which Stalin was not responsible for' among the millions he slaughtered.

Mind you, that still leaves millions more that were slaughtered. I just get tired of one regime out of centuries of bad regimes being paraded around as the show-pony that atheists are evil every time the crimes of the church are mentioned.

For the sake of argument, turn it around for a second. From Stalin's view, they were backwards primitives standing in the way of progress and the strength and power of his nation... A position most Americans at the time would have shared if the 'backwards primitives' were 'indians' rather than 'christians'. For white american's point of view at the time, if the indians would just be civilized and accept society, everything would be fine. Stalin's view was identical. If either group had been willing to give up their old religion for the new one, the victors claim they would have been spared.

Now that's off my chest... Brave New World is written as a cautionary tale and yes, part of it is undoubtedly about communism, but rampant capitalism is nearly identical in all but the details. The names of the main characters are a guy with the last name of Marx, a woman with the first name of Lenina, and 'the savage' who brings religion is called 'John'. It's pretty clear-cut that he's referencing the soviet union. However... The 'god' of the technological cities is 'Ford'. For the first chapter or two, I felt like he was ridiculing Ayn Rand although BNW was written in 1930, well before Rand's crap. Both paths are bad.

Stalin tried to do exactly what is proposed in BNW. He didn't want to abort religion. Far from it. He wanted to subvert it, turn it to worship of the state. Get the people all believing in the idea of making their country 'heaven'. The problem of course is that people just can't agree on what 'heaven' is. One man's heaven is another man's Hell. I was noting that in practice, it just doesn't work too well because no one really likes the state very much if they think about it too hard... and death stays in people's minds, so if the state is your god, you're going to think about it. It was an inherent flaw in Stalin's plan. Man can forgive God much easier than he can forgive the government.

Re: Huxley Lecture on Psychecedelic Salon Podcast

[hakeber.livejournal.com]

I'm not singling out the old Soviet Union, or Stalin. I'm just pointing out that those two authors lived in a time when that was what was in the media. It's what they knew. Today's authors tend to write the opposite, with religion figuring heavily in fictional totalitarian regimes, such as in V for Vendetta and that one with the polar bears. Jump another century, and I'm sure authors will be influenced by something else, and will write with that as the predominant point of view. However, the idea of Dystopia is an old one, with the details of the repression usually being based on what that author was living through in the century in question. And while most folk don't look further back than the late 1800's, I'd say the notion is just about as old as the notion of Utopia, being a backlash at said notion. In that sense, BNW is a backlash toward Stalin's notion of Utopia.

Want something even older, and not talked about as much? Try Jack London's The Iron Heel.