"The primary difference between Huxley's dystopia and that described by Orwell is the methodology through which humanity is controlled by authoritarian governments. Huxley argued that humans would be tricked into embracing their own enslavement via anti-depressants and various hedonistic distractions, while Orwell held that compliance would more easily be achieved through censorship, mind control, and violence.
Bradbury's great contribution to dystopian literature, is that we would choose our own intellectual enslavement as well."
https://quillette.com/2022/02/12/a-pleasure-to-burn-closer-to-bradburys-dystopia-than-orwells-or-huxleys/
Bradbury would see social media and say it falls perfectly in line with a soft, always on distraction that occupies minds. I'm not sure if the radicalization that's so prevalent today was part of Bradbury's vision though.
I was always a huge Brave New World fan and thought of Orwell's book as more a description of Stalinism taken to its limit than a prediction of the future. But then I read 1984 again recently, and so much of it seems well-aimed at contemporary America.
I'm not sure any of the author's is "closer." I see elements of all of them, but I still think the distraction economy of Brave New World is the most compelling. But 1984 resonated for my in 2021 in a way that it did not at all in 1984. I believe all of these touch on some element in contemporary news, not necessarily with respect to the government or even the US, but often that too.
QuoteAnd 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."
QuoteIn the end the Party would announce that two and two made five, and you would have to believe it. It was inevitable that they should make that claim sooner or later: the logic of their position demanded it... The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.
QuoteIn Newspeak there is no word for "Science." The empirical method of thought, on which all the scientific achievements of the past were founded, is opposed to the most fundamental principles of Ingsoc.
QuoteEven the Catholic Church of the Middle Ages was tolerant by modern standards. Part of the reason for this was that in the past no government had the power to keep its citizens under constant surveillance.
QuoteWith the development of television, and the technical advance which made it possible to receive and transmit simultaneously on the same instrument, private life came to an end.
QuoteThe keyword here is blackwhite. Like so many Newspeak words, this word has two mutually contradictory meanings. Applied to an opponent, it means the habit of impudently claiming that black is white, in contradiction of the plain facts. Applied to a Party member, it means a loyal willingness to say that black is white when Party discipline demands this. But it means also the ability to believe that black is white, and more, to know that black is white, and to forget that one has ever believed the contrary.
QuoteThe mutability of the past is the central tenet of Ingsoc. Past events, it is argued, have no objective existence, but survive only in written records and in human memories. The past is whatever the records and the memories agree upon. And since the Party is in full control of all records, and in equally full control of the minds of its members, it follows that the past is whatever the Party chooses to make it. It also follows that though the past is alterable, it never has been altered in any specific instance.
Ergo, I was reading all those quotes and it reminds me of Putin's recent rewrite of history on Ukraine. Putin's book was sent to everybody in the Russian armed services and omits things like the 1930's Great Famine in the the Ukraine caused by Stalin wherein 4 million Ukrainians died. The Ukraine jumped at the chance for independence from Moscow at the end of the USSR for very good reasons. But if you can erase the history you get a free pass.
A relevant read: Amusing Ourselves to Death by Neil Postman
https://amzn.to/3BluR1f
(https://amzn.to/3BluR1f)
>>Amusing ourselves
I always think of that book in the same breath as Brave New World. It is striking that it was written before we even had a WWW.
>>recent rewrite of history on Ukraine
I was mostly thinking of events closer to home - Jan 6, the surveillance economy, Covid denial, QAnon in Congress, etc. But I was also thinking to a lesser extent of China's surveillance state, political orthodoxy on the left, etc. And, yes, Putin's anti-history in Russia.
But nothing happening in China or Russia has surprised me that much. Those states have no tradition of open democratic practices and institutions. As I say, when I read 1984 in 1984, I felt like it was mostly about the USSR. When I read it today, I feel like it is significantly about the USA.