This IS NOT Just Like 1984 People.

[DistressedAmerican]

It's bright, shiny, clean and well lit here in the neo-fascist future. Just like a Walmart.

Not dark and openly grim at all.

Orwell clearly didn't know what the hell he was talking about.

:rofl:

[SmokingJacket]

1. And it wasn't 100 degrees plus for weeks at a time.

Orwell didn't even THINK about global warming!

[DistressedAmerican]

2. See. What a Moron!

:evilgrin:

[Virginia Dare]

3. I HATE unnatural light...

and I do think it is some sort of fascist plot against us all.
:beer:

[POAS]

4. And where is the Anti-Sex League?

[arcane1]

6. the fundies are working on that 24/7

[Ron Green]

5. It's more like "Brave New World," IMO.

Soma, anyone?

[Monkey see Monkey Do]

13. Do you know Neil Postman's "Amusing Ourselves to Death"?

If not, this is Postman's introduction:

We were keeping our eye on 1984. When the year came and the prophecy didn't, thoughtful Americans sang softly in praise of themselves. The roots of liberal democracy had held. Wherever else the terror had happened, we, at least, had not been visited by Orwellian nightmares.

But we had forgotten that alongside Orwell's dark vision, there was another - slightly older, slightly less well known, equally chilling: Aldous Huxley's Brave New World. Contrary to common belief even among the educated, Huxley and Orwell did not prophesy the same thing. Orwell warns that we will be overcome by an externally imposed oppression. But in Huxley's vision, no Big Brother is required to deprive people of their autonomy, maturity and history. As he saw it, people will come to love their oppression, to adore the technologies that undo their capacities to think.

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.

A 20th anniversay edition of the book was published last year with an introduction from Neil's son

http://journalism.nyu.edu/pubzone/weblogs/pressthink/2006/01/30/ams_intro.html
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/014303653X/

Well worth checking out (as is all of Postman's work).

[zonkers]

7. Give it a little time.

[Ravy]

8. And I *distinctly* recall that the book 1984 had an ending. (n/t)

[unpossibles]

9. yeah, but not a happy one (spoiler ...lol)

I just reread it again, and it ends with Winston accepting BB and (it is assumed) shot in the back of the head.

[anakie]

10. a pretty scary end though

with Winston copping a bullet and the regime living/going on.

[Democrats_win]

11. Digital clocks don't strike 13: First line of 1984, clock strikes 13.

"It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen."

http://www.online-literature.com/orwell/1984/1/

[acmejack]

12. They do if you use 24 hour time!

Simply set your computer to the proper time format & you will be that much closer top that April day...

[Journeyman]

14. Oceania and the rest only developed after limited nuclear war. . .

so all speculation as to Orwell's accuracy remains speculation absent that catalyst.

From Emmanuel Goldstein's The Theory and Practice of Oligarchical Collectivism, Chapter III, "War is Peace":

. . . atomic bombs first appeared as early as the nineteen-forties, and were first used on a large scale about ten years later. At that time some hundreds of bombs were dropped on industrial centres, chiefly in European Russia, Western Europe, and North America. The effect was to convince the ruling groups of all countries that a few more atomic bombs would mean the end of organized society, and hence of their own power. Thereafter, although no formal agreement was ever made or hinted at, no more bombs were dropped.



On an historical and philosophical note, you are incorrect to assert that Orwell envisioned a neo-fascist future in 1984. Orwell was too astute for such a limited viewpoint. Indeed, he recognized that fascism and communism had been discarded long before by the limited movements of his own day, which had morphed into totalitarian regimes with little connection to the confining precepts of their originating ideologies. In 1984, the remaining vestiges of totalitarian ideologies were discarded and power for the sake of power -- unrestained by any limitations of ideologies -- became the purpose of the Powers. O'Brien explains this to Winston Smith just before Smith is cast into Room 101.