Why Orwell Is Superior To Huxley, 1984 reveals how censorship and language are used to control people today, Thought Criminals, Destruction of language, Rewriting history
“the Times of the nineteenth of December had published the official forecasts of the output of various classes of consumption goods in the fourth quarter of 1983, which was also the sixth quarter of the Ninth Three-Year Plan. Today’s issue contained a statement of the actual output, from which it appeared that the forecasts were in every instance grossly wrong. Winston’s job was to rectify the original figures by making them agree with the later ones.”…George Orwell, “1984”
“And if all others accepted the lie which the Party imposed
–if all records told the same tale–then the lie passed into
history and became truth. “Who controls the past,” ran the
Party slogan, “controls the future: who controls the present
controls the past.”…George Orwell, “1984″
“”You’re a traitor!” yelled the boy. “You’re a thought criminal!””…George Orwell, “1984”
“1984” by George Orwell was being written while I was in my mother’s womb.
It was published shortly after I was born.
It was required reading in High School (Thank God).
“1984” reentered my life prominently in 2008 as the election cycle unfolded shortly after Citizen Wells began.
It had become abundantly clear that we had entered the age of Big Brother.
The vicious attacks of those labeled “Thought Criminals”, those asking any questions about Obama, the destruction of language and definitions (Natural Born Citizen) and the revision (rectification) of history were in my face, as if in the body of the protagonist, Winston Smith.
I immediately began quoting “1984” and still do almost every day of my life.
This should scare the hell out of every person on this planet.
And once again this morning, “Thought Criminal” Julian Assange.
From Zero Hedge November 16, 2018.
“Why Orwell Is Superior To Huxley
One of the frequent comparisons that comes up in the Dissident Right is who was more correct or prescient, Orwell or Huxley.”
“But while initially convincing, the case for Huxley’s superiority can be dismantled.
Most importantly, Huxley’s main insight, namely that control can be maintained more effectively through “entertainment, distraction, and superficial pleasure rather than through overt modes of policing and strict control over food supplies” is not actually absent in 1984.
In fact, Orwell’s view of sex as a means of control is much more dialectical and sophisticated than Huxley’s, as the latter was, as mentioned above, essentially writing a parody of the naive “free love” notions of H.G.Wells.
While sex is used as a means to weaken the Proles, ‘anti-Sex’ is used to strengthen the hive-mind of Party members. Indeed, we see today how the most hysterical elements of the Left — and to a certain degree the Dissident Right — are the most undersexed.
Also addictive substances are not absent from Orwell’s dystopian vision. While Brave New World only has soma, 1984 has Victory Gin, Victory Wine, Victory Beer, Victory Coffee, and Victory Tobacco — all highly addictive substances that affect people’s moods and reconcile them to unpleasant realities. Winston himself is something of a cigarette junkie and gin fiend, as we see in this quote from the final chapter:
The Chestnut Tree was almost empty. A ray of sunlight slanting through a window fell on dusty table-tops. It was the lonely hour of fifteen. A tinny music trickled from the telescreens.
Winston sat in his usual corner, gazing into an empty glass. Now and again he glanced up at a vast face which eyed him from the opposite wall. BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU, the caption said. Unbidden, a waiter came and filled his glass up with Victory Gin, shaking into it a few drops from another bottle with a quill through the cork. It was saccharine flavoured with cloves, the speciality of the cafe…
In these days he could never fix his mind on any one subject for more than a few moments at a time. He picked up his glass and drained it at a gulp.
But while 1984 includes almost everything that Brave New World contains in terms of controlling people through sex, drugs, and distractions, it also includes much, much more, especially regarding how censorship and language are used to control people and how tyranny is internalised. The chapter from which the above quote comes, shows how Winston, a formerly autonomous agent, has come to accept the power of the system so much that he no longer needs policing.
But most brilliant of all is Orwell’s prescient description of how language is changed through banning certain words and the expression of certain ideas or observations deemed “thought crime,” to say nothing of the constant rewriting of history. The activities of Big Tech and their deplatforming of all who use words, phrases, and ideas not in the latest edition of their “Newspeak” dictionary, have radically changed the way that people communicate and what they talk about in a comparatively short period of time.
Orwell’s insights into how language can be manipulated into a tool of control shows his much deeper understanding of human psychology than that evident in Huxley’s novel. The same can be said about Orwell’s treatment of emotions, which is another aspect of his novel that rings particularly true today.
In 1984 hate figures, like Emmanuel Goldstein, and fake enemies, like Eastasia and Eurasia, are used to unite, mobilise, and control certain groups. Orwell was well aware of the group-psychological dynamics of the tribe projected to the largest scale of a totalitarian empire. The concept of “three minutes hate” has so much resonance with our own age, where triggered Twitter-borne hordes of SJWs and others slosh around the news cycle like emotional zombies, railing against Trump or George Soros.
In Huxley’s book, there are different classes but this is not a source of conflict. Indeed they are so clearly defined – in fact biologically so – that there is no conflict between them, as each class carries out its predetermined role like harmonious orbit of Aristotlean spheres.
In short, Brave New World sees man as he likes to see himself — a rational actor, controlling his world and taking his pleasures. It is essentially the vision of a well-heeled member of the British upper classes.
Orwell’s book, by contrast, sees man as the tribal primitive, forced to live on a scale of social organisation far beyond his natural capacity, and thereby distorted into a mad and cruel creature. It is essentially the vision of a not-so-well-heeled member of the British middle classes in daily contact with the working class. But is all the richer and more profound for it.”
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https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-11-16/why-orwell-superior-huxley
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