Two of my
favorite books in my youth were George Orwell’s 1984 [published in 1949] and Aldous Huxley’s [published in 1932] Brave New World. Both wrote their books one how the future might go
and both were rather dismal about it. Orwell saw government taking control of everyone’s
lives. His bugaboo phrase was, “Big Brother is watching you.” Huxley’s Brave New World had happy folk in it,
just stupid; they would go along with anything. They reminded me of Eloi in H.G. Wells novel The Time Machine where a time traveler goes to 802,701 A.D. and
finds the rather mindless happy Eloi who are kept happy and well fed by
Morlocks who lives beneath the ground and eat them upon occasion. In Huxley’s
novel it is the year 2540 A.D. where the world population is a stable 2 billion
people. Happy people who do not procreate (bend you mind around that. But don’t
worry they still have sex.) But everyone is conditioned to accept their lot in
life. They live in a caste system ranging from the Alphas, the smart ones on
top to the Gammas who aren’t so smart; but they are all happy doing what they
are conditioned to do.
Bill
Moyers has in his blog a survey running asking folk who was the better prophet
for our society, Orwell or Huxley. The current numbers are 13.35% for Orwell,
61.35% for Huxley, 25% for both and 0% for neither. This will be the basis for
a talk he will be having this week with Marty Kaplan on Moyer’s show. It should
be interesting.
It is a
pleasure or pain type of argument for controlling human behavior. So, what do
you think or does it matter?
Fear
seems to dominate us in political discussion today but is seems to be based on
where we think we can get the most personal pleasure.
Has
anyone seen John the Savage lately?
Fun footnote, H.G. Wells was a known socialist and it comes through in his fiction in interesting ways. The Time Machine illustrates a distant future world, where apparently the 'working class' and the 'bougeoise' diverged into two distinct species, ultimately achieving a very strange symbiotic relationship in an age long after capital ceased to exist: where the former still labors to produce goods for the other though not remembering why, and at the same time using them for food.
ReplyDelete"Has anyone seen John the Savage lately?"
ReplyDeleteI have only read two of the three books you mention. I am assuming that John the Savage is a character in the third one.
But it does remind me of actor John Savage, who has appeared in at least one related dystopic science fiction film.
John Savage is a main character in Brave New World. He is known as a savage, one raised outside the regular culture; a savage.
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