(Ir)religiosity

theology | philosophy | culture

Huxley v. Orwell

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I had an interesting discussion with some friends on Facebook the other day over this comic.  It’s a depiction of a quote from Neil Postman‘s important book Amusing Ourselves to Death. Here’s the full quote from the forward:

What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one. Orwell feared those who would deprive us of information. Huxley feared those who would give us so much that we would be reduced to passivity and egoism. Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from us. Huxley feared the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance. Orwell feared we would become a captive culture. Huxley feared we would become a trivial culture, preoccupied with some equivalent of the feelies, the orgy porgy, and the centrifugal bumblepuppy. As Huxley remarked in Brave New World Revisited, the civil libertarians and rationalists who are ever on the alert to oppose tyranny “failed to take into account man’s almost infinite appetite for distractions”. In 1984, Huxley added, people are controlled by inflicting pain. In Brave New World, they are controlled by inflicting pleasure. In short, Orwell feared that what we hate will ruin us. Huxley feared that what we love will ruin us. This book is about the possibility that Huxley, not Orwell, was right.

Postman goes on to argue, very convincingly, that Huxley was indeed right and that our preoccupation with entertainment and excess of information has negated our ability to determine what is important, relevant, and true.  The book is a must read for anyone, especially people involved in social media.

The conversation I had revolved around the question of whether Postman was completely right.  In the book he argues that Huxley’s prophecy has come to pass (more or less) and Orwell’s has not.  I tend to think that there are elements of both in our culture and at our worst we oscillate between the two.  Which may turn out to be more dangerous than one or the other by itself.

Which do you believe is more present in our culture today? Or is it some mixture of both?

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Written by Blake Huggins

July 17th, 2009 at 12:29 pm

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  • http://www.lisasamson.com/ Lisa Samson

    I totally think it is mixture of both. What our society “looks like” is more Huxleyan, seemingly motivated by pleasure to be sure. However, we're still motivated by fear, a la “the war on terror” and how we were willing to sacrifice our own freedoms (e.g. The Patriot Act) so we could be safe, and maybe going back, free to be trivial amusement seekers. I think both books and authors were very either/or oriented, when society has evolved in a more both/and manner. That would have been very hard to have predicted from mindsets still firmly ensconced in modernity.

  • http://blakehuggins.com Blake Huggins

    That's a good way of putting it. I think that maybe we could even say that the Huxleyan structure of our society — the motivation of pleasure and inundation of information from every angle and on every possible frequency, etc. — creates an environment in which Orwellian suppression can freely occur. We're too preoccupied with “everything else” to notice or care at times.

  • http://notes-from-offcenter.com Drew Tatusko

    what i think is true is that a surplus of choice results in irrational behavior. this has been researched over and over by behavioral economists in the past decade or so.

    what i was pondering the other day as i was waiting to get a haircut was that i think americans honestly get some sort of joissance out of the permission and even reinforcement of irrational thinking our economy gives us. in fact, producers of good and services want us to be as irrational as a slot player in a casino. irrational thinking means that people will rely more on credit, save less, and spent more on things they don't need. they will get more channels, more tabloids, take fox news and others to be the truth and all the while act like a big magnet for advertising and more consumption possibilities.

    heidegger would call this “the standing reserve” that our technocracy has created. he did not discuss the economic impact of this, but it seems that this is where his concept is best served.

  • http://blakehuggins.com Blake Huggins

    I'd say we get a lot of joissance out of it. And the ultimate object of our desire here, at least as far as I can tell, is not the things themselves, though we tend to think that way in our experience, but the excess and abstraction of “more” — more tabloids, more channels, more news, more reality TV, more information. We get off on the act of consumption itself, not necessarily the things which only give momentary pleasure until we realize we need more in order to satisfy the elusive Thing, to put it in Lacanian terms.

    What I have to watch out for is how I fall into that economy even when in my intellectual and academic pursuits when I think I'm avoiding it. Do I really need that book or is that I need more books to satisfy my desire. And so on.

  • http://twitter.com/cmoody91 Collin Moody

    I think that intellectuals especially fall into extreme joissance in ideas and searching after books and knowledge. It's easier to unknowingly fall into abstract unfulfilled enjoyment. I don't have much to add though except to agree wholeheartedly because that is the very thing that motivates my pursuits 85% of the time.

  • http://notes-from-offcenter.com Drew Tatusko

    i look at my goal of healing my debt over the next five years and realize how duped i was. the moment you buy from wal-mart you are contributing to someone's exploitation. capitalism must exploit. the most expensive part of any operation is labor. thus, if you try to cut your overhead by cutting labor (logical move) someone must pay the price in terms of work for a lower price. sweat shops have been the calling cry. but health care and fringe benefits are another sacrifice. it's horrid the levels of irrationality we succumb just to get a feeling of satisfaction that we got the kind of show or shampoo we “really” wanted. the question is how to get out of something that sucks us in like water to a fish…. again, we are heidegger's standing reserve. http://religion-online.org/showarticle.asp?titl…

  • http://blakehuggins.com Blake Huggins

    I need to read more about Heidegger's standing reserve. I haven't come across it yet, but it sounds intriguing.

    Oh, and you have an article on religion online. I'm jealous!

  • http://jonathanbrink.com Jonathan Brink

    Perhaps the answer shifts from time to time. Orwell's version appears during WW2. Huxley's version appears right now. But it could easily shift back to Orwell's version.

  • http://jonathanbrink.com Jonathan Brink

    Perhaps the answer shifts from time to time. Orwell's version appears during WW2. Huxley's version appears right now. But it could easily shift back to Orwell's version.