Orwell was an optimist, and other dystopian authors
In 1949, George Orwell received a snarky letter from his former high school French teacher.
Nineteen Eighty-Four had just been published to great acclaim, but this former French teacher felt differently.
His name was Aldous Huxley.
Huxley starts off the letter praising the book, describing it as “profoundly important.” He continues, “The philosophy of the ruling minority in Nineteen Eighty-Four is a sadism which has been carried to its logical conclusion by going beyond sex and denying it.”
Then Huxley switches gears and criticizes the book, writing, “Whether in actual fact the policy of the boot-on-the-face can go on indefinitely seems doubtful. My own belief is that the ruling oligarchy will find less arduous and wasteful ways of governing and of satisfying its lust for power, and these ways will resemble those which I described in Brave New World.”
Basically while praising Nineteen Eighty-Four, Huxley argues that his version of the future was more likely to come to pass.
In Huxley’s seemingly dystopic World State, the elite amuse the masses into submission with a mind-numbing drug called Soma and an endless buffet of casual sex. Orwell’s Oceania, on the other hand, keeps the masses in check with fear thanks to an endless war and a hyper-competent surveillance state. At first blush, they might seem like they are diametrically opposed but, in fact, an Orwellian world and a Huxleyan one are simply two different modes of oppression.
Big Brother is watching
"The telescreen received and transmitted simultaneously. Any sound that Winston made, above the level of a very low whisper, would be picked up by it, moreover, so long as he remained within the field of vision which the metal plaque commanded, he could be seen as well as heard."
George Orwell, 1984
Joseph Cannataci, the first UN privacy chief, a position created in response to the Edward Snowden revelations, makes a strong case that Big Brother was an amateur compared to today's surveillance state.
“It’s worse,” he said. “Because if you look at CCTV alone, at least Winston [Winston Smith in Orwell’s novel 1984] was able to go out in the countryside and go under a tree and expect there wouldn’t be any screen, as it was called. Whereas today there are many parts of the English countryside where there are more cameras than George Orwell could ever have imagined. So the situation in some cases is far worse already."
It's scary that it's almost impossible to argue with that point.
Cannataci isn't alone in this observation. Edward Snowden shares this opinion.
“The types of collection in the book — microphones and video cameras, TVs that watch us — are nothing compared to what we have available today. We have sensors in our pockets that track us everywhere we go,” he said. “Think about what this means for the privacy of the average person.”
Swedish Pirate Party founder Rick Falkvinge wrote that 'We are far, far beyond the point of Stasi or “1984”. '
This doesn't even address the non-online threats such as facial recognition software and stingray tracking devices.
Almost none of these tools are ever used by law enforcement against actual terrorists as commonly understood.
Suck on that, Orwell
George Orwell once wrote about a perfect society where no one was a thought criminal, we were in a permanent state of war, and everyone loved Big Brother.
Well, I read his book and it didn't contain something as awesome as this.
The report suggests Abu Zubaydah was a broken man after his extensive interrogations. In CIA documents he is described as having become so compliant that “when the interrogator raised his eyebrows” he would walk to the “water table” and sit down. The interrogator only had to snap his fingers twice for Abu Zabaydah to lie down, ready for water-boarding, the report says.
Self-torturing prisoners! How awesome is that!?!
Even Orwell couldn't dream that one up.
Still not convinced? Well consider this quote.
The CIA’s chief of interrogations characterized rectal rehydration as a method of “total control” over detainees, and an unnamed person said the procedure helped to “clear a person’s head”.
Some people spend thousands of dollars every year on vacations in order to "clear their heads". Now we know that all that is needed is to have food shoved up your ass to accomplish the same thing.
I'm not a doctor, so I don't know what the medical connection is between food going up the rectum and the clearing of the head, but I'm sure it is really complicated doctor-speak and I don't have that kind of time anyway.
In 1984 the United States signed the United Nations Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment. It was ratified by Congress 10 years later.
On the 30th Anniversary of the treaty, the U.N. has released a report condemning the United States for torturing, both on foreign and domestic soil.
Police brutality, military interrogations and prisons were among the top concerns of a U.N. panel's report Friday that found the United States to be falling short of full compliance with an international anti-torture treaty.
The report by the U.N. Committee Against Torture, its first such review of the U.S. record since 2006, expressed concerns about allegations of police brutality and excessive use of force by law enforcement officials, particularly the Chicago Police Department's treatment of blacks and Latinos.
Amnesty International has been condemning the United States record on torture for some time. While it is no suprise that the torture was widely used under the Bush Administration shortly after 9/11, what isn't as well known is that Amnesty International was condemning the United States for domestic torture when Clinton was still president.
Maine Senator Angus King said, "“This is not America. This is not who we are.”
President Obama has assured us that torture is contrary to who we are, contrary to our values." But if the muslim non-reaction to the report is any indication, they would take Obama's comment with a very tiny grain of salt and maybe a patronizing pat on the head.
Americans are in complete and total denial.
Torture is who we are.
In the 19th century, American slavery relied on torture. At the turn of the 20th, when America began assembling its empire overseas, the U.S. army waterboarded Filipinos during the Spanish-American War. As part of the Phoenix Program, an effort to gain intelligence during the Vietnam War, CIA-trained interrogators delivered electric shocks to the genitals of some Vietnamese communists, and raped, starved, and beat others.
America has tortured throughout its history. And every time it has, some Americans have justified the brutality as necessary to protect the country from a savage enemy.
Kafka's America
Obama’s proposed TTIP treaty with European countries has been so successfully hidden, that even the number of years it will be kept from the public isn’t yet known.
Secret laws are not democracy. This is the opposite of democracy.
Secret trade laws are just the start for this Obama presidency.
Obama has create 19 secret directives that are enforced just like they are laws.
"The only reason we know about it is the sequential numbering of the directives, and realizing they skipped a few," said Steven Aftergood of the Federation of American Scientists, which tracks the directives.
PPD-29 isn't the first to be tacitly acknowledged only by a missing number. Of the 30 PPDs issued by Obama, 19 have not been released. And for 11 of those, the White House has not disclosed even the subject of the order.
"It's not only the public that doesn't have copies. It's also Congress that doesn't have copies," Aftergood said. "It's a domain of largely unchecked presidential authority."
But they have the same legal force as an executive order, forming a body of largely secret law, said Harold Relyea, a political scientist who advised Congress on national security directives before retiring from the Congressional Research Service.
"The difference is that while executive orders are public by law — they must be published in the Federal Register to be effective —- PPDs are not," he said. "It is a kind of secret law. People have to obey it. But it's a directive that can allocate money, direct people or take a course of action."
I would ask how this is any difference from Rule by Royal Decree, except that Royal Decrees generally aren't secret!
How would you even know if you were breaking one of these laws?
“But I’m not guilty,” said K. “there’s been a mistake. How is it even possible for someone to be guilty? We’re all human beings here, one like the other.” “That is true” said the priest “but that is how the guilty speak”
― Franz Kafka, The Trial
If you are like me your first response would be, "This can't be Constitutional." However, the Supreme Court has already ruled in favor of secret laws.
It wasn't until last year that the Obama Administration was finally forced to reveal the legal justification for assassinating American citizens. A justification that hasn't been tested in open court.
"Where was the judge he had never seen? Where was the High Court he had never reached?"
- Franz Kafka, The Trial
I emphasize open court because plenty happens in secret courts, courts in which neither defendants or their representatives ever see.
Federal magistrate judges, in addition to issuing routine search warrants, hear warrant applications for electronic surveillance orders, which grant permission to monitor cellphones, personal computers and other electronic devices. These orders are almost always secret and almost never become unsealed.
In 2006, magistrates issued over 30,000 sealed electronic surveillance orders — more than the entire output of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court since its creation in 1978. These orders constitute a massive body of unpublished case law. “It is as if they were written in invisible ink,” Judge Stephen Wm. Smith said, “legible to the phone companies and Internet service providers who [receive them], yet imperceptible to unsuspecting targets, the general public, and even other arms of government.”
We've all heard about the FISA court and its infamous lack of oversight, but even if FISA went away tomorrow the problem wouldn't go away.
What's more, the Obama Administration has told the FISA court, the formal secret court, to ignore public court rulings. In truth, FISA "has basically become a parallel Supreme Court, but one which operates in almost total secrecy."
""The final verdicts of the court are not published, and not even the judges have access to them; thus only legends remain about ancient court cases."
- Franz Kafka, The Trial
It seems only logical that with secret courts ruling on secret laws that you must also have secret prisons for secret prisoners to do secret interrogations on.
In some cases, the facilities in Cuba, Iraq, Lithuania, Thailand, Romania, Afghanistan and Poland are still in operation, more than six years after the Obama administration banned the enhanced interrogation tactics detailed in a lengthy report on the CIA's surveillance program released Tuesday.
Drink your soma
"What you need is a gramme of soma. All the advantages of Christianity and alcohol; none of their defects."
"Take a holiday from reality whenever you like, and come back without so much as a headache or a mythology."
"Take it," insisted Henry Foster, "take it. Stability was practically assured." ...
"And do remember that a gramme is better than a damn." They went out, laughing.
- Brave New World
Aldus Huxley continues to bother people.
Satires tend to tire with time, but not Brave New World : It still manages to offend. Last year American librarians ranked it among the top 10 novels that readers wanted to see banned.
First of all, there are drugs.
Nearly 70 percent of Americans take at least one prescription drug and more than 50 percent take two, scholars writing in Mayo Clinic Proceedings say. Antibiotics, antidepressants and painkilling opioids are most commonly prescribed, they found. 20 percent of patients are on five or more prescription medications, according to the findings.
It's not a coincidence that the most heavily medicated society on the planet is also oblivious to the evolution of a scary dystopian present. Why worry about things when being worried is a medical condition that can be cured.
Aldus Huxley saw that one coming a mile away.
When Philip K. Dick wrote Minority Report, he probably didn't imagine that the United States would simply substitute "precogs" with flawed computer algorithms, but that is where we are going today.
Yet discussion of this alarming trend is almost entirely absent. Why is that?
“Predictive policing used to be the future, and now it is the present.”
- Police Officer William Bratton
Comments
This is the finest essay on this subject I've read. Straight to
the point with no fluff and excellent sources. I like the fact that that you brought in Huxley chiding Orwell.
Very sorry that this is all true.
"The justness of individual land right is not justifiable to those to whom the land by right of first claim collectively belonged"
It's all so true
Conditions today are a mess. The continued economic stagnation of the west (As evidenced by the stagnation in real wages) is leading to failing social institutions(neo-liberalosm).
The result is not a pretty picture.
I keep reading essays from an author who is very pessimistic about the current situation - Umair Haque.
He writes that there will definitely be pain in the years to come even if he holds out hope that sensible and radical thinking people will come together and start to turn around this downward spiral.
Here is his essay on the subject from this September:
https://umairhaque.com/the-chaos-factor-edad9e111aa7#.sjvuqrjp6
Always compelling if not too optimistic.
I want a Pony!
Reading your work consistently gives me chills, gjohnsit
I feel so grateful to have come across your work. To be able to read this essay, at this particular time, it's so perfect and appropriate ... and knowing that it comes from you, I also know that it is wise and true. Thank you.
~OaWN
Yet discussion of this alarming trend is almost entirely absent.
"Why is that?"
"That is how the guilty speak."
Asked and answered ... Very nice essay!
Sexuality
has become one of the main means of authoritarian control along with other pleasure center things like recreational drugs. (And even torrenting movies and books, the only way most of us can afford them). Between the laws concerning the two (three) they have the power to destroy or bully most everyone's lives.
Then they go along and try and bully other, freer countries into becoming police states.
From the Light House.
Sorry, can't get behind Puritanism, even to stick it to the man.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
Could you please spell "Aldous" correctly?
Thank you.
The ruling classes need an extra party to make the rest of us feel as if we participate in democracy. That's what the Democrats are for. They make the US more durable than the Soviet Union was.
We have been fucked for a long time
More of us are finally waking up to that fact.
"You can't just leave those who created the problem in charge of the solution."---Tyree Scott
I think you're really wrong about drugs.
People take drugs because this world is intolerable, and they haven't yet decided to commit suicide.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
I agree - prescribed opiate painkillers are the 2nd or 3rd
most prescribed drugs.
The average American has two prescriptions for medicine, more than any other country
The pain index - both physical and psychic - is very high compared with other industrial countries.
"The justness of individual land right is not justifiable to those to whom the land by right of first claim collectively belonged"
How is that different?
Serious question
It's different like this:
It's not a coincidence that the most heavily medicated society on the planet is also oblivious to the evolution of a scary dystopian present. Why worry about things when being worried is a medical condition that can be cured.
The people I'm talking about are far from oblivious to the scary dystopian present. And the drugs don't make one oblivious. Being worried can't be cured, but with drugs, it can be endured.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
they have the same legal force as an executive order,
Nope. Secret laws, unknown to anyone but the President, and who he sends to enforce them, are nothing more than bullshit, and will be treated accordingly.
Then the Supreme Court has rendered itself bullshit, and will be treated accordingly.
Nope. Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.
"I’m a human being, first and foremost, and as such I’m for whoever and whatever benefits humanity as a whole.” —Malcolm X
But who's going to muzzle that Godzilla?
(It's much, much worse than mice voting to bell a cat.)
There is no justice. There can be no peace.
It's going to take more than a muzzle.
"I’m a human being, first and foremost, and as such I’m for whoever and whatever benefits humanity as a whole.” —Malcolm X
"and will be treated accordingly"
When?
I try to be very careful when discussing appropriate action, because with the pervasive control of everyone's lives, the only door remaining open appears to be insurrection ("soap box, ballot box, ammo box"). That's fine for the fascist pseudo cowboys, but the rulers will stomp down on any of us with giant boots.
and will continue to, until someone stands up to them.
"I’m a human being, first and foremost, and as such I’m for whoever and whatever benefits humanity as a whole.” —Malcolm X
Sexting. Where does one fit this into Orwell and Huxley. . .
and present day totalitarianism? Kik, An app often used by early and mid teens for sexting, ran into it trying to figure out what sexting vis-a-vis Weiner (on a bit deeper level) is. . . note the commentary in this article is interesting.
http://www.bewebsmart.com/internet-safety/is-kik-okay-for-kids/
A sincere question because I don't get it. Is it true there are hundreds of thousands of teens and tweens sexting? Are there really thousands of pervs surfing around looking for teens to sexting with? If it is true, is it confined to the US and Europe or do Bolivians and Angolans do it? Is it just some sort of entrapment/control scheme? What is being sold here? Whats the message they want uninformed reader to learn? Where does Weiner fit into this?
Noye in small type: Now and again on FB I get weird friend invites from "hottie" looking young women who may or may not be underage. They go into the block/spam pile.
From the Light House.
Great post gjohnsit
Very interesting read as usual. Also I could give a rats ass about misspelled or incorrectly spelled names or words as long as I can determine what is being written about and it is the least of my worries with all the use of acronyms now.I don't come here for spelling or grammar lessons but to get informed.
The present is worse than any future dystopia
Is the Present Worse Than Any Fictional, Futuristic Dystopia?
More in the article
Who needs soma?
When we have Tylenol.
The current working assumption appears to be that our Shroedinger's Cat system is still alive. But what if we all suspect it's not, and the real problem is we just can't bring ourselves to open the box?
Bruno Latour - one of most important thinkers alive
An announcement if you are near Notre Dame
From a talk at Cornell on 10/25
article begins
.
we are no where and going no where or ...
How do we find a place
Bill Mckibben Eaarth book - makes important point about .. the same land we thought we knew needs to be discovered (more here about rediscovering earth)
I well recall reading the German Neo Kantian philosopher, Ernst Cassier and his claims that reality takes place in a space time framework. Well, if we don't know how to orient ourselves in space, nor in time, ... disorientation big time.
Lots more in the article
Is Geo-logy the new umbrella for all the sciences? Hints for a neo-Humboldtian university Cornell University, 25th October 2016 Bruno LatourIs Geo-logy the new umbrella for all the sciences? Hints for a neo-Humboldtian university
This was given at 40 th anniversary of SSS, Social Studies of Science and in the article called STS, Science and Technical Studies
Here is the link to the talk at Notre Dame
http://english.nd.edu/events/2016/11/03/bruno-latour/
If the World Were a Petri Dish
If the World were a petri dish, we'd be to the point of the various biota turning on each other and battling for survival. We fill all the agar, we're climbing up the walls. The
economists"researchers" have put a cap on the dish with a tiny little vent and set a massive price on vent access. This is our experiment.Big Corporate & the Oligarchs think they are going get out. I don't think the rabble are going to stop it, but I also don't think we will let them get away with it.
“Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat.” ~ Sun Tzu
All three of these dystopian
authors were predictive of our Brave New World along with many others like like Phillip K Dick. Speaking of which his novel 'Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?' (Blade Runner) is another dystopian book that is in play. how about 'Brazil' the movie one of the most frightening movies ever. I don't take prescription meds. to cope with the reality were living in. I escape by blogging and imbibing substances that are made from stuff that grows in the dirt. Sex, Drugs and Rock and Roll in moderation and at home due to my introversion helps. Me and my cat mimi rock out and I dance her around the house occasionally.
Strange to seek solace on the net as it's because of the net that I know what Axelrod's 'world as we find it' is about. People are waking up yet some prefer to believe the reality that's pumped out by the propaganda machine, newspeak. If maintaining your comfortable life stye requires you to believe in the story line that's considered reality it's hard to take a look at what is really going down.
When Senator Obama signed FISA I knew intuitively that instead of being a right wing coup this was a global New World Order. Sounds dystopian heh? It's not. Although I find hope politically in the fact that both Obama and Bernie were preaching the same gospel and that people overwhelming went for it. Perhaps when it gets worse and worse it will get, more people wioll join the ranks and stop believing that this reality including Big Pharma is not inevitable.
I also take hope in the fact that these want to rule the world assholes always go to far and humans have to take them out. The technology available these days is a wet dream come true for these psycho's. One of the predictions advocated these days by the pols and the techie big buck cappies is Artificial Intelligence. That and freaking robots. Anyway thanks for the great essay.
In many ways, “Brazil” has proved to be totally prophetic.
Just to name one: government officials and civil servants engaged in the torture and murder of people who have been merely mistaken for terrorists, without the slightest trace of regret of any kind.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brazil_%281985_film%29
Orwell v Huxley
Perfect!
I've seen lots of changes. What doesn't change is people. Same old hairless apes.
Life is not binary
They were both right. Kafka, Camus, Dick and assorted other also were right. One -person's vision of hell to come does not negate anthers take on their visions of what has come to be.
When I was in High School we thought that Brave New World was
utopia, not dystopia. As you may have guessed, we were male.
I've seen lots of changes. What doesn't change is people. Same old hairless apes.
They were all optimistic
As things are going the world will end soon because of nuclear war or global warming or artificial intelligence Level III gone bad (we are at Level II as we speak).
Great post gjohnsit.
The political revolution continues
Thank you. So well put together,
can't say I've seen its equal. Can this be published elsewhere, for wider distribution? Not thinking Orange State,* but it really should be widely spread.
*Where it's not only "OKIfYouAreDemocratic" it's actually BETTER if you are a Dem.
Orwell: Where's the omelette?
gjohnsit, Medium.com is a Site That Hosts Quality Blog Content
and doesn't seem to be ideologically selective. I've posted a couple of my pieces on their site. It might be a good place to check out. It's owned by Twitter, I think.
I think you should un-silo a bunch of your work to get it more visible to a wider swath of ideologies.
“Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat.” ~ Sun Tzu
Excellent essay, looking beyond the trivial
to the essential.
I'm not worried about the puppet-show election. I am more concerned about the corporate elite: the puppet masters. Our next big challenge will be opposing [TTIP] Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership. This is where the shadow government in charge of the puppet show will share the wealth with each other across the Atlantic.
Canada has already signed a preamble, NAFTA extension called CETA Comprehensive Economic Trade Agreement, whereby our Prime Minister has given away the fishing rights on the Atlantic coast. The protected economic zone will no longer be able to ban any European fishing ship. That's only one give-away, the other is having dispute resolutions ruled by investors. There's a lot more in the TTIP but the overall description is corporations on both sides of the Atlantic sharing the wealth with each other no matter where the resources are situated and no matter the environmental protections of any country. It's a win-win for Pete Peterson and his group of economists.
PM Justin Trudeau had to delay his trip to sign CETA over French Belgium's temporary opposition, then his plane was turned around for mechanical problems. Those were two bad omens. Besides he inherited CETA from former ultra right-wing PM Stephen Harper. CETA is not finalized and the Peterson Institute for International Economics is worried about the anti-globalization movements on both sides of the Atlantic calling them "knee-jerk" reactions
TTIP is the pathway to global dystopia.
To thine own self be true.