A reflection on Orwell’s popular novel, 1984, and whether our emphasis on it is entirely warranted. Within, I talk especially about Huxley’s highly relevant dystopia, Brave New World, and its prescient view of the modern world.
I will say critical things, but I have a tremendous amount of respect for Orwell. That said, he must be appreciated in proper context, as providing a particular dystopian vision. Mindlessly repeating “literally 1984” whenever people you don’t like have power, I dare say, not the proper context.
Maybe “literally 1984” will eventually become so coated in irony that we integer overflow back into sincerity. Only time will tell.
00:00 Intro
02:32 An Overview
05:24 A Brave New World
09:38 Back to 1984
12:38 How does it Begin?
15:03 Outro
#videoessay
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Its pretty straightforward, we are so detached from the original political context of 1984 (1946-47) that now fits into the "insightfull" category, which provides vague notions of something while remaining an icon. The status quo, neoliberalism or whatever you might call it, use 1984 as a tool to bash on anything that goes against the status quo, do you want to raise taxes or ask for more goverment control over worldwide companies? you get the 1984 card, the same way conservatives use the bible (or at least a really weird notion of the bible) to bash on everything they dont like.
Thank you for made this understandable storytelling:)
Hey, new subscriber here. Hoping that we'll have a healthy long virtual relationship.
I appreciate a lot of the sentiments here about the misaligned values of the people and the state (schools), but also think there are some missteps worked into the conclusions. The premise that 1984 is taught while Brave New World is not taught may be mistaken, my understanding is that quite often they are paired together directly (often used in the same sentence in popular culture). A sloppy parallel: Undesirable outcomes may result from a change in temperature; the fact that you may be more likely to freeze while being told you might burn does not invalidate either possibility.
More bothersome: 'should' and 'ought' are loaded concepts that just about ruined the whole essay for me. Countless people have spent lifetimes tying to identify these things, let alone pursue them. (12:05) Buying into freedom as 'the ability to do what one ought to' smuggles in preconceptions of morality. Both of the given dystopias, by way of different means and aesthetics, disrupt the individual's ability to identify and pursue their own goals – whatever those goals may be. From my point of view, the world itself carries out many of the same violences on everyone that exists inside of it. Freedom itself could be illusory or only attainable to degrees, never as a whole in itself… the BNW dystopia could be described as the result of fetishizing freedom, society promising itself the impossible. It is one of the foundational stories of our society that freedom = good.
Thanks for the hard work, it's a well-crafted video.
That’s my thinking. We live in a Brave New World not 1984
Excellent video, spectacular script, beautiful delivery. Subscribing for more. great work
This is the first video from this channel I have watched. This critique of the endless pleasures of modernity reminded me of anarchist-primitivist critiques of modern society. If you haven’t listened to them yet, I recommend giving the Uncivilized podcast a listen to.
1984 was Snitchwell's autobiography. He was the guy who came to love Big Brother, in the form of the woman to whom he betrayed his former "comrades".
IN the end, the life of Snitchwell proves that you can take the boozhie out of the public school but you can't take the public school out of the boozhie. Once an imperial cop, always an imperial cop.
My naive guess as to why we can still study 1984 and books like it are because the powers that be believe/feel that if they allow the truth to exist somewhere, that they are no longer culpable for their actions because we, the people, are now 'informed' and are therefore tacitly allowing the crimes they commit to continue if we don't/haven't objected to them.
Something i disliked deeply about the book is that it makes people confident not in their critical thinking skills, but in their innate common sense, making them think the enemy of truth is external, visible, and intrusive, rather than internalized, invisible and everpresent. So when education and hegemony become the common sense, and also become pleasant and rational, then they have no reason to question the hegemony, and may even think that any critique of the hegemony is "new speak" or "literally 1984" seeking to make them ignore their common sense
Your point about reacting to a minor evil as if it were the devil itself leading us into further evils is very true. Never thought of it in that way
I'm beginning to think people have only read two books. Why in God's name do we need another essay comparing 1984 to brave new world?
No one ever seems to penetrate 1984. I'll just make some sweeping claims and I think I can defend them:
Our 2-Party system in the US is entirely synthetic. It doesn't line up to any natural division, and no one seems to notice this. People have a default, biological-behavioral scheme, and they define themselves negatively as "not them" rather than defining themselves constructively or purposefully. Instead, it's all reflexive. If everyone's bestial, unexamined need is to have an other against which to define themselves, then you technically only need 2 parties, and so no one notices.
Sane, healthy people only get into politics because a single issue actually affects their lives. People who dwell in party politics are, by definition, neurotics. Maybe 90% of partisans are undeveloped and 10% may or may not be developed but are there to feed, opportunistically, on the neurotics. They become leaders. Just stop and think, to be a partisan you have to start by imagining almost exactly half of the population has all of the virtue and wisdom, and the other half all of the malice and error, and that this division lines up with what is printed on their voter registration cards. That's straight up batshit. Again, no one questions it because it feels good to them.
In 1984, Winston is a Party member who hates the Party and yet he wants to remain in the Party. It never occurs to him that living freely as a townie, outside of the Party, would be a better life. It's revealed that his family was destroyed by war and his psychological need for belonging is what keeps him there. He never questions it… until he does. And when he does, O'Brien gives him the book to help him feed his newly-emerging sense of independence. O'Brien isn't a villain, setting Winston up for a fall. He's someone who identifies Winston as a rare one who might just graduate into intellectual autonomy, and that's what he helps Winston to do.
Winston's liberation from his mind and his past and the Party is equivalent to a religious experience that liberates a person, but it looks the opposite of that – everything appears the opposite of what it is because Winston is an unreliable witness. He doesn't know himself, and therefore he doesn't understand anything else, either, except that he has a place and a rank in the Party, and it's the acceptance and approval he so desperately needs.
Every time you watch political figures or news shows, you're being invited to join the 2 Minutes of Hate. And people don't have to be asked twice. In real life, people are full of insecurity, anxiety, and will aim their fear and hatred at whomever they think they can, and if they are rewarded and feel a sense of belonging when complaining about The Other with their 'tribe', they are indulging in the 2 Minutes of Hate. 1984 is exactly where we are, only it is so close to us that we can't see it.
The reason people don't immediately understand that Winston is unreliable is because, like LGBTQ+ Pro-Hamas protesters, the reader reflexively identifies with an underdog through resonance. Young people and particularly those who feel put-upon, alienated, who do not identify with their own social elites and who feel powerless, reflexively identify with the underdog in any conflict where one side clearly has more power than the other. Has nothing to do with dispassionately reasoning through things. It's all immediate, emotional resonance. "That's me, too! The one who is put upon!" And Winston is not put-upon. He establishes early on that he's a liar and lies to everyone so he can keep his "position". He, like other Party members, is a miserable, undeveloped, weakling having no strength of will or character and no vision. All he knows is he wants stuff.
So what you’re saying is that the worst communism isn’t as bad as the ideal capitalism?
Actually pretty based take for a christian, jesus would be proud!!
We're headed for a cyberpunk dystopia if idiots like Elon Musk get their way.
We actually live in clockwork orange
Was dismissed as the thoughts of a fantasy writer or a a madman instead of someone who saw the future and was trying to warn us in a way that people could relate with more than reality…Fiction… Unfortunately this is why we are doomed. The truth is that we've been warned many times and through many vassals of information or entertainment for a long time now. we chose not to believe it and thought everything would turn out better than what we experienced. Unfortunately the reality is our children will be brought up in an everchanging , turbulent world that does not at all resemble what we grew up in. If we are lucky they don't have to fight their peers for fuel food and water. (Mad Max music)
I don't think you can handwave this idea that a drive for a world that maximizes pleasure while reducing suffering is "bad".. because "addiction". Addiction is bad for many reasons, but not because it causes pleasure or reduces suffering.. its actually pretty much the opposite. Most addiction leads to suffering.. at least when its called an addiction. You wouldn't generally say someone has a serious addiction to jogging, despite the fact that it causes the release of endorphins, which are endogenous opioids. If someone could be given a drug that causes the same level of euphoria as heroin without having a negative impact on their health, relationships or mental wellbeing.. I think that is not obviously bad. Whether or not you want to "think like a human". Which honestly just sounds like a call to abandon logic. And really I get the sentiment, but I think people living in comfort like to romantize the idea of what it would be like to have lived a few hundred years ago.. without thinking about the actually reality of living in those conditions.
Agreed. 1984 is viscerally more horrifying, but that's all the more reason people would rebel en masse against it. BNW is more seductive; more irresistible. Like the Matrix, you might not even realize you're inside such a thing. tavi.
My favorite bumper sticker says FUCK BIG BROTHER.
It turns out that neoliberal capitalism is as capable of creating unaccountable beaurocracy, ideological blinders, and a police state as Stalinism. OOPS
It's just crude anticommunist propaganda.
Orwell didn't exaggerated anything at all. He described the world exactly as planned by the fabian socialists.