What do you make of Orwell's take on "Brave New World"?

[Raphael]

People sometimes compare and contrast the two probably best-known English-language dystopian novels of the first half of the twentieth century, Aldous Huxley's Brave New World and George Orwell's 1984. In a blog post more than ten years ago

https://zompist.wordpress.com/2012/03/0 ... new-world/

zompist quotes Margaret Atwood with the observation that 1984 is more famous, but Brave New World is more likely.

Now, as it happens, Orwell himself did once briefly comment on Brave New World. In his fairly short essay Prophecies of Fascism, in which he discussed a few early-20th-century dystopian works, he wrote

In Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, a sort of post-war parody of the Wellsian Utopia, these tendencies are immensely exaggerated. Here the hedonistic principle is pushed to its utmost, the whole world has turned into a Riviera hotel. But though Brave New World was a brilliant caricature of the present (the present of 1930), it probably casts no light on the future. No society of that kind would last more than a couple of generations, because a ruling class which thought principally in terms of a “good time” would soon lose its vitality. A ruling class has got to have a strict morality, a quasi-religious belief in itself, a mystique. [Jack] London was aware of this, and though he describes the caste of plutocrats who rule the world for seven centuries [in London's novel The Iron Heel] as inhuman monsters, he does not describe them as idlers or sensualists. They can only maintain their position while they honestly believe that civilisation depends on themselves alone, and therefore in a different way are just as brave, able and devoted as the revolutionaries who oppose them.

So, what do you think? Does a hedonistic outlook inevitably doom the position of a ruling class? That sounds like a very questionable idea these days, but perhaps it just looks questionable to us because our current rulers' follies haven't yet caught up with them?

[xxx]

both describe our current society well,
1984 with its intrusive and manipulative technique of states,
BNW with its cult of compulsive consumption, including sexual consumption, which replaces all other human values...

in our societies, the artificial paradise described by BNW makes a fine screen
for the manipulations of 1984, which are presented for the good of users,
and no longer need to be imposed and defended by constraint,
as everyone consumes them for "pleasure"...

it's the amalgam of the two that makes it possible to apply totalitarian wartime techniques
to our pacified societies, until their users are asleep...

Hence the importance of pursuing consumption to excess,
even if it means destroying the planet,
and promoting technology, that increases control...

[Raphael]

both describe our current society well,
1984 with its intrusive and manipulative technique of states,

How worried are you that the thought police will trace this statement back to your real-life, offline identity, and then disappear you?

[xxx]

because the thought police don't need to find me,
if I go over the limit, they'll eliminate my online speech...
they won't even need to recruit anyone,
free and unpaid, "for the fun",
they'll find defenders of these manipulations,
that allows their digital consumption that gives meaning to their lives...

[zompist]

In Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, a sort of post-war parody of the Wellsian Utopia, these tendencies are immensely exaggerated. Here the hedonistic principle is pushed to its utmost, the whole world has turned into a Riviera hotel. But though Brave New World was a brilliant caricature of the present (the present of 1930), it probably casts no light on the future. No society of that kind would last more than a couple of generations, because a ruling class which thought principally in terms of a “good time” would soon lose its vitality. A ruling class has got to have a strict morality, a quasi-religious belief in itself, a mystique. [Jack] London was aware of this, and though he describes the caste of plutocrats who rule the world for seven centuries [in London's novel The Iron Heel] as inhuman monsters, he does not describe them as idlers or sensualists. They can only maintain their position while they honestly believe that civilisation depends on themselves alone, and therefore in a different way are just as brave, able and devoted as the revolutionaries who oppose them.

So, what do you think? Does a hedonistic outlook inevitably doom the position of a ruling class?

Thanks for finding that quote! It was new to me.

The immediate irony is that what Orwell thought were the serious bad guys— the Nazis and Stalinists— all fell, while the more BNW-like US continuted on.

In other essays Orwell criticizes the contemporary British ruling class as far weaker and stupider than their predecessors of a hundred years ago. That in turn echoes old communist complaints that the socialists of their day, unlike themselves, were too weak-chinned to stand up to the reactionaries. For that matter it resembles the "Fremen Mirage" where reactionaries accuse the elite of weakness and hedonism and praise "barbarian" and militaristic states. I don't think these ideas have held up well. Sometimes brutal people can only be defeated by people more brutal than themselves. But the opposite happened in WWII, and brutal regimes since then have largely been impoverished and brittle.

But I'd add that Orwell misread the book. The "ruling class" of BNW is not the pleasure-addled masses; it's the World Controllers like Mustapha Mond, who is by no means an idler or sensualist, and who in many ways is the most articulate and clear-headed character in the book.

On the other hand Orwell isn't entirely wrong. When historians, if any are left alive, look back at the postwar period, surely they'll conclude that apolitical complacency contributed to the problems that were coming. To some extent Europe and the US were trying to build a non-ideological world where people wouldn't have to care about politics. And that may be a great goal! But we far underestimated the persistence and unscrupulousness of the reactionaries.

[Ares Land]

I re-read Brave New World recently, as it happens. I don't know much about Aldous Huxley's life or politics, but in the introduction he comes across as an out of touch old reactionary.

Other than that the Alpha class as portrayed in the book feels familiar: a work-hard, play-hard bunch of fratboys. I think it's best read as satire that still feels relevant. (Our upper class seems likewise equally obsessed by business and their skiing holidays.)

In some ways the book aged badly. For instance, it seems the reader is meant to be shocked and disgusted by contraception -- and that's a huge part of the book that doesn't work anymore. We're still shocked by the eugenism; but the effect is definitely not the one it would've had on the 1932 reader -- when eugenism was viewed as scientific, rational, and obviously desirable.

As for your question... eh, I don't know, historically the ruling classes were both imbued with mystique and pretty hedonistic. That description fits many a monarch.

[Raphael]

Thanks for finding that quote! It was new to me.

You're welcome! By the way, later in the same essay, Orwell discusses Ernest Bramah's What Might Have Been/The Secret of the League,

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Secret_of_the_League

which, judging from the description, was apparently a pro-capitalist forerunner to Atlas Shrugged.

The immediate irony is that what Orwell thought were the serious bad guys— the Nazis and Stalinists— all fell, while the more BNW-like US continuted on.

In other essays Orwell criticizes the contemporary British ruling class as far weaker and stupider than their predecessors of a hundred years ago. That in turn echoes old communist complaints that the socialists of their day, unlike themselves, were too weak-chinned to stand up to the reactionaries. For that matter it resembles the "Fremen Mirage" where reactionaries accuse the elite of weakness and hedonism and praise "barbarian" and militaristic states. I don't think these ideas have held up well. Sometimes brutal people can only be defeated by people more brutal than themselves. But the opposite happened in WWII, and brutal regimes since then have largely been impoverished and brittle.

OK, that's a good point.

But I'd add that Orwell misread the book. The "ruling class" of BNW is not the pleasure-addled masses; it's the World Controllers like Mustapha Mond, who is by no means an idler or sensualist, and who in many ways is the most articulate and clear-headed character in the book.

Another good point.

[xxx]

Other than that the Alpha class as portrayed in the book feels familiar: a work-hard, play-hard bunch of fratboys. I think it's best read as satire that still feels relevant. (Our upper class seems likewise equally obsessed by business and their skiing holidays.)

but the program isn't just for alphas:
non-reproductive sexuality and drugs are sought after by everyone...

the whole thing is just a little more rationalized and therefore pacified than it is nowadays,
where unemployment and the importation of workers from beyond the electric fences
make it possible to satisfy the production of consumer goods,
with the abolition of the current engines of the race for money, class changes,
and the illegality of the means of obtaining consumption of goods, sex and drugs...

and virtual reality addiction is missing as an additional drug,
but what's the point of monitoring a society set in stone by genes...

[Raphael]

Other than that the Alpha class as portrayed in the book feels familiar: a work-hard, play-hard bunch of fratboys. I think it's best read as satire that still feels relevant. (Our upper class seems likewise equally obsessed by business and their skiing holidays.)

but the program isn't just for alphas:
non-reproductive sexuality and drugs are sought after by everyone...

Oh no, people are having sex and doing drugs! The horror! The horror!

[linguistcat]

...
and virtual reality addiction is missing as an additional drug ...

It's funny you mention that because they did have something similar to VR: the feelies. They were analogous to movies in some ways but that's explained by movies being a recent technology, especially "talkies" which only started in 1927. But the feelies would have been a good precursor to VR in that they included not only sight and sound but other senses, hence the name.

I think, like most dystopian lit, BNW did foretell a few things but not always the ones it was particularly serious about. And as others have pointed out some things that were neutral or even wanted are onerous now and some things that were seen as horrific in it's time are seen generally as positive now.

[hwhatting]

Just coming across this while catching up. Huxley also had an opinion on how his dystopia stacked up against 1984.

[zompist]

Just coming across this while catching up. Huxley also had an opinion on how his dystopia stacked up against 1984.

Thanks for finding that!

It's thoroughly weird, and I can only wonder what Orwell thought of it.

I tend to agree with Huxley's point that totalitarian states require too much energy and there are easier ways to perpetuate a regime, though I doubt that hypnosis is one.

[xxx]

there are easier ways to perpetuate a regime, though I doubt that hypnosis is one.

the telescreen no longer simply watches over us, it fascinates us, drawing our dazed gaze all day long, replacing our thoughts...

[Raphael]

It's thoroughly weird, and I can only wonder what Orwell thought of it.

I think at that time, Orwell was already pretty close to dying.

[Moose-tache]

Brave New World is not written in Huxley's usual style. A better representation of his work would be After Many a Summer Dies the Swan. It has a good encapsulation of his political and scientific beliefs, and it all reads like he's on drugs, because he was. The man was an absolute Whacko. And he was into axolotls way before they were cool.

As for Orwell's review, I have a couple of history degrees, I've taught history courses at a number of grade levels, so let me teach you a trick. Any time someone is talking about How Society Works, or what causes history to go, do a ctrl+f for the word "vitality." It it appears in the text, you may safely close the tab, and nothing of value will be lost. In this case, it smacks of this bullshit that has been making the rounds since the 1840s. Orwell seems to juxtapose pursuing pleasure with having a unifying ideology, which I guess means the Roman Empire lasted as long as it did because the Roman elite were a bunch of ice-chewing Protestants, famously not bathing and eating all of their meals sitting in ladder-back chairs. These people are all dilusional, and you can ignore them as easily as the people peddling racial explanations.

EDIT: Also, wear goggles for this one:

But temperamentally [Jack London] was very different from the majority of Marxists. With his love of violence and physical strength, his belief in ‘natural aristocracy’, his animal-worship and exaltation of the primitive, he had in him what some might fairly call a Fascist strain. This probably helped him to understand just how the possessing class would behave when once they were seriously menaced.

Mee-YOW, George! You catty bitch.

[Raphael]

EDIT: Also, wear goggles for this one:

But temperamentally [Jack London] was very different from the majority of Marxists. With his love of violence and physical strength, his belief in ‘natural aristocracy’, his animal-worship and exaltation of the primitive, he had in him what some might fairly call a Fascist strain. This probably helped him to understand just how the possessing class would behave when once they were seriously menaced.

Mee-YOW, George! You catty bitch.

I'm not sure what the problem is. Sounds like a pretty spot-on description of Jack London to me.