/r/interestingasfuck gets hold of a comic on 1984 & Brave New World - you can guess where this is going
Yet again, redditors jerk on the "truth" of what seems to be the only two books they read from their highschool reading list.
This comic may appear an extreme oversimplification of both novels, as well as a melodramatic view of modern life, but if you think that you're sheeple, as many redditors are keen to point out:
Why does it have to end with "Huxley, not Orwell was right"? It's very clear today that BOTH Huxley and Orwell were right.
And what is most terrifying is that they were both right.
I would say both where on the money to an extent. Huxley was right that we wouldn't need to ban books, but there are still censorship committee's like Orwell feared. While neither thought the others predictions true, they seem to work in tandem in today's western society.
To continue the jerk, we have complete misunderstandings of the book's message:
How is Brave New World not a Utopia? Everyone loves their lives, or at least 99% of people who do. The people who don't? Well they get to go somewhere and have exactly what they want too. It's been years since I read it, but that's what I took away from it.
While at least this comment suggests something a bit different, (though personally I wouldn't describe a world in which humans are genetically engineered to be inferior epsilons and then psychologically brainwashed to love their capitalist society as a utopia,) this comment merely sets up the next masterpiece:
Because, man, the people can't, like, think for themselves. They're told what to do by the government, man, it's like a horrible fascist dictatorship. It's pretty ironic, it seems to me like the people who are most adamant about how horrible BNW is only feel that way because they don't know how to think outside of their conditioning, their current context. A world where no more progress or freedom is needed than the status quo scares them, because they've been so conditioned to think of progress and freedom as the ultimate goals.
The counter-contrarianism is almost too much for me to understand - people don't understand how conditioning is good because of their conditioning which conditions them not to like conditioning?
More contrarianism:
There is the erroneous assumption of the inherent value of reading. We are told by reading that a literate society is superior to a non literate one. The problem of cultural control by publishers is ignored. A literate society is chained to the past , unable to develop new ways of thinking and adapting to the world.
The anti-English/humanities jerk taken to its pinnacle, it is best to be literally illiterate.
All I remember is nigga kills himself at the end
Of course, we can't miss out on the use of a random racist slur, because the last thing this thread needs is less edge.
if you reference either book (less so for BNW), you are mostly dismissed as some nutjob nerd/tinfoil hat weirdo.
I'm sorry Reddit, but you are just not special for reading 1984. It is terribly famous, popular piece of literature, reading it does not make you a "nutjob."
It's both... as long as you stay docile and continue to CONSUME and remain passive you don't get beat on. If you stand up or become a source of discomfort for the entrenched power elite you get beat on.
Something told me that this commentor was a teenager who spent all his time playing video games indoors, yet writing comments about sticking it to the MAN. However never one to make baseless, stereotypical accusations I did a little profile snooping... and yes, he spends all his time in gaming subs and r/adviceanimals.
And finally, the comment which made made me close the thread:
Orwell was actually a good writer though, Huxley was terrible. Have you ever read A Brave New World? Huxley actually included in his "Master work" the phrase "orgy porgy"
I honestly have no words.
Huxley wrote like someone still in high school. Orwell wrote like someone who had been doing it his whole life. Lets see here, Huxley had a Brave New World.....and that's about it as far as people know.
Translation: "I don't know any other books that Huxley wrote because his only book reddit ever mentions is Brave New World."
Christopher Hitchens wrote "Why Orwell Matters" not why huxley matters
I feel like I've been taken in by a very elaborate troll.
Fortunately there are quite a few comments from reasonable people in the thread calling the original comic out for the bs it is, but the amount of redditors STILL jerking over 1984/BnW is frankly amazing.
Posted Jun 29, 2014, 6:44 PM UTC
I hate the whole "Orwell was right (not talking about communism lol)" attitude
I read the comic and thought that Huxley was closer to today's society (at least in western countries).
You sure have to ignore a whole lot to get there, though. Like, BNW had irradicated all war, whereas NEF featured three major superpowers in a perpetual state of cold war. Today's society contains nationalism, riles people up for war with xenophobia and ignorance of foreign peoples, and produces radicals who want to destroy the system through terrorism -- all featured in NEF. BNW, on the other hand, where there is no human conflict, instead has its would-be radicals focus inward, seeking a nostalgic retreat into primitivism. That is also a feature of our world, but BNW fails to describe reality because it explicitly makes a point of the absence of the other things.