To be fair, I always considered Brave New World a much less dire dystopy than 1984. I mean you have a really hard time arguing otherwise. People are not free in either but if you could choose, don’t tell me you’d choose 1984.
But this debate is moot anyway, what we are heading towards is a combination of the worst of 1984 and Brave New World combined.
I have always liked that 1984 and A Brave New World are sort of dystopian companion pieces because they explore opposite sides of the spectrum of societies where free will is being suppressed. It has been a minute since I read both, but to me it’s a mistake to compare them in terms of which version is worse to live in because yeah, 1984 would win that competition on the surface.
For me, when it comes to A Brave New World, the scary part is the idea of pleasure being used as a weapon to make people apathetic to the world around them and to thinking. There is something so incredibly sinister about this level of pleasure based compliance because there will be people who look at it on the surface and go: it’s not so bad. Could be worse.
And it could. It can always be worse. I’m pretty sure that everybody would agree that 1984 is a better world to live in than the world of The Road. It’s all relative.
But it’s the idea that someone could read A Brave New World or a similar dystopia that disguises itself as a utopia, and ignore the warning signs and think it’s fine. Because that, to me, means that such a world would be easier to implement. If people comply willingly, get lulled into that life and just let it happen because it feels good, is conventient and makes their dopamine go bzzt, then there is no need to use force. It’s also why several aspects of A Brave New World has become more real in today’s world than 1984 has. We have all walked right into it and we stay there because apathy and the nature of convenience and pleasure is something we don’t want to give up. In 1984, they want to change the system, but fail. In A Brave New World they behold the outsider who tries to scream sense into them like he’s an exotic animal and they do not care to understand his points because to do so would demand effort and hard work for the reward of a free life.
In my country we recently banned smart phones in all schools because the signs of longterm apathy towards learning has started to show in younger generations. Why should they put effort into their homework and assignments when they can get their dopamine hit on tiktok and snapchat with the snap of a finger? In adults in my country, the sense of community and togetherness has dwindled partially because we spend out free time on the phone and don’t get bored enough to get together with our neighbors. There’s a bit more to it than that, among other things that we outsourced child and eldercare to the state, so we don’t really need each other like we used to.
In the world we currently live in, I think it is very important that we keep in mind that if we make everything easy and we waste our time on distractions that doesn’t challenge or build us up, we will become apathetic and easier to control. I’m not talking about the state either. Those who control us are the tech giants and everyone who support them in order to steal our attention and time to waste it on additive, shallow nonsense all so companies can sell you stupid shit through ads.
Brave New World is sinister but it is more of a “hell is paved with good intentions” story, while 1984 is straight hell with no good good intentions anywhere, the only aim is to secure a regime, from which no one is even really benefitting a lot. I mean the elite does have a materialistically better life but hardly a lavish one while being actually the least free. It is not clear but I always liked to think that there is no real “big brother”, no real, guy at the top. The system is just kept up by some double thinkers at the top. Fully exchangeable, with as little freedom as anyone else.
The thing in Brave New World is, that those rejecting the regime are actually free to go. I always found that the world outside was portrayed in a pretty exaggerated way, but one can also believe that this was possible mainly propaganda by the regime itself. Either way, people could leave if they wanted forsake the comfy life and experience struggle and freedom. Even then, when choosing that, their lives would have been materially probably still better than those in 1984.
Like I said, I believe we are heading towards a combination of Brave New World and 1984. The latter was too harsh, there is a benefit in letting people enjoy some things, give them something they can use to forget things. The Third Reich for example figured out along the way. That indoctrination movies were counter productive and rejected by the population. However, harmless entertainment movies, with no or maybe only a mild propagandistic twist helped them much more. People rejected the former but welcomed the latter, so that they don’t have to think about the unpleasant stuff. In our modern world, 1984 type surveillance and the death of democracy will be sold by Brave New World style convenience.
We are heading towards a future that will see marks of both dystopias but we would wish to be in a pure Brave New World instead.
To be fair, I always considered Brave New World a much less dire dystopy than 1984. I mean you have a really hard time arguing otherwise. People are not free in either but if you could choose, don’t tell me you’d choose 1984.
But this debate is moot anyway, what we are heading towards is a combination of the worst of 1984 and Brave New World combined.
I have always liked that 1984 and A Brave New World are sort of dystopian companion pieces because they explore opposite sides of the spectrum of societies where free will is being suppressed. It has been a minute since I read both, but to me it’s a mistake to compare them in terms of which version is worse to live in because yeah, 1984 would win that competition on the surface.
For me, when it comes to A Brave New World, the scary part is the idea of pleasure being used as a weapon to make people apathetic to the world around them and to thinking. There is something so incredibly sinister about this level of pleasure based compliance because there will be people who look at it on the surface and go: it’s not so bad. Could be worse.
And it could. It can always be worse. I’m pretty sure that everybody would agree that 1984 is a better world to live in than the world of The Road. It’s all relative.
But it’s the idea that someone could read A Brave New World or a similar dystopia that disguises itself as a utopia, and ignore the warning signs and think it’s fine. Because that, to me, means that such a world would be easier to implement. If people comply willingly, get lulled into that life and just let it happen because it feels good, is conventient and makes their dopamine go bzzt, then there is no need to use force. It’s also why several aspects of A Brave New World has become more real in today’s world than 1984 has. We have all walked right into it and we stay there because apathy and the nature of convenience and pleasure is something we don’t want to give up. In 1984, they want to change the system, but fail. In A Brave New World they behold the outsider who tries to scream sense into them like he’s an exotic animal and they do not care to understand his points because to do so would demand effort and hard work for the reward of a free life.
In my country we recently banned smart phones in all schools because the signs of longterm apathy towards learning has started to show in younger generations. Why should they put effort into their homework and assignments when they can get their dopamine hit on tiktok and snapchat with the snap of a finger? In adults in my country, the sense of community and togetherness has dwindled partially because we spend out free time on the phone and don’t get bored enough to get together with our neighbors. There’s a bit more to it than that, among other things that we outsourced child and eldercare to the state, so we don’t really need each other like we used to.
In the world we currently live in, I think it is very important that we keep in mind that if we make everything easy and we waste our time on distractions that doesn’t challenge or build us up, we will become apathetic and easier to control. I’m not talking about the state either. Those who control us are the tech giants and everyone who support them in order to steal our attention and time to waste it on additive, shallow nonsense all so companies can sell you stupid shit through ads.
Brave New World is sinister but it is more of a “hell is paved with good intentions” story, while 1984 is straight hell with no good good intentions anywhere, the only aim is to secure a regime, from which no one is even really benefitting a lot. I mean the elite does have a materialistically better life but hardly a lavish one while being actually the least free. It is not clear but I always liked to think that there is no real “big brother”, no real, guy at the top. The system is just kept up by some double thinkers at the top. Fully exchangeable, with as little freedom as anyone else.
The thing in Brave New World is, that those rejecting the regime are actually free to go. I always found that the world outside was portrayed in a pretty exaggerated way, but one can also believe that this was possible mainly propaganda by the regime itself. Either way, people could leave if they wanted forsake the comfy life and experience struggle and freedom. Even then, when choosing that, their lives would have been materially probably still better than those in 1984.
Like I said, I believe we are heading towards a combination of Brave New World and 1984. The latter was too harsh, there is a benefit in letting people enjoy some things, give them something they can use to forget things. The Third Reich for example figured out along the way. That indoctrination movies were counter productive and rejected by the population. However, harmless entertainment movies, with no or maybe only a mild propagandistic twist helped them much more. People rejected the former but welcomed the latter, so that they don’t have to think about the unpleasant stuff. In our modern world, 1984 type surveillance and the death of democracy will be sold by Brave New World style convenience.
We are heading towards a future that will see marks of both dystopias but we would wish to be in a pure Brave New World instead.