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Orwell feared the boot stamping on a face forever; Huxley feared no one would even want to resist. This lecture from Academy of Ideas puts the two great dystopias side by side to ask which one we are actually living in now. Orwell’s nightmare was pain and force; Huxley’s was pleasure and distraction. The video traces how collectivism and hedonism shaped both warnings, and argues the West today looks far more like Huxley’s world. The terrifying difference: in Brave New World, people love their own chains.
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If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face forever.
George Orwell’s writings have experienced a spike in popularity over the past several decades and for a good reason.
Modern societies are becoming ever more like the dystopia Orwell depicted in his novel
1984. Whether it be mass surveillance, the incessant use of propaganda, perpetual war,
the manipulation of language, or the cult of personalities surrounding political leaders,
many consider Orwell’s novel to be prescient. While the West remains freer than the dystopian
Society of 1984, the trend of more and more power being concentrated in the hands of politicians
and bureaucrats does not bode well for those who favour a free society.
Orwell believed that the totalitarianism he portrayed in his novel was a distinct possibility
for the West, and at times he went as far as to suggest that it may in fact be inevitable.
Almost certainly we are moving into an age of totalitarian dictatorships.
In this video we will look at the cause of Orwell’s pessimism, focusing on two trends
that increase the risk of a totalitarian future, the movement toward collectivism and the rise
of hedonism.
We then contrast Orwell’s views with those of another author of dystopian fiction, Aldous
Huxley.
Collectivism is a doctrine central to several ideologies in which the goals of a certain
collective, such as a state, a nation, a socioeconomic class, an ethnic group, or a society, are
given precedence over the goals of individuals.
Socialism, communism, nationalism, and fascism are all collectivist ideologies.
Orwell believed that a precondition for the rise of totalitarianism was the widespread
adoption of a collectivist mentality, and all the totalitarian nations of the 20th century
were organized based on some form of collectivist ideology. In the Soviet Union and China, it
was communism. In Germany and in Italy, fascism. Orwell’s view of the connection between totalitarianism
and collectivism has proved puzzling. As Orwell was a staunch leftist, a critic of capitalism,
and a socialist, how could someone who favored socialism, a collectivist ideology, at the
same time write a dystopian novel which portrays a collectivist society in such a horrific manner.
To understand his position, it must first be realized that Orwell did not consider
capitalism to be a viable system. Or as he explains,
It is not certain that socialism is, in all ways, superior to capitalism, but it is certain that,
unlike capitalism, it can solve the problems of production and consumption.
Capitalism was such an inadequate system in Orwell’s mind that, like many other leftists
of his day, he believed it was on its deathbed and would soon be replaced by some form of
collectivism. He saw this as inevitable. The issue for Orwell was what type of collectivism would
take its place. The real question is whether capitalism, now obviously doomed, is to give
way to oligarchy or to true democracy . Following the death of capitalism,
Orwell hoped that democratic socialism would rise in the West. Democratic socialists like Orwell
advocated for a centrally planned economy, nationalization of all major industry,
and a radical decrease in wealth inequality. They were also strong supporters of civil liberties
such as freedom of speech and freedom of assembly, which they hoped could be maintained in a
society which would largely deprive people of their economic freedoms.
The problem, however, which Orwell and other socialists had to grapple with, were the lack
of examples, past or present, of any country successfully adopting democratic socialism.
Furthermore, when a government rids a populace of its economic freedom, the destruction of
civil liberties tends to follow, for a centrally planned economy is rife with corruption, waste,
and mismanagement, and so for a government to maintain power as it parasitically saps
wealth and resources from a populace, it must limit their ability to speak out in protest.
To make matters worse, all the states that had turned to collectivism in the first half of the
20th century, such as Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia, adopted what Orwell called oligarchical
collectivism, not democratic socialism. Oligarchical collectivism is a totalitarian
system in which an elite few, under the guise of a collectivist ideology, centralize power using
force and deception. Once in power, these oligarchs take away not only the economic
freedoms of their citizens, a move which socialists like Orwell favored, but also their
civil liberties. Orwell was concerned that following the death of capitalism the possibility
existed that the entire western world would succumb to oligarchical collectivism. One of
the main reasons for this fear was his recognition that hedonism was on the rise in the west,
and a hedonistic populace, according to Orwell, is a populace ripe for the taking by totalitarians.
Hedonism is an ethical position which maintains that life’s ultimate goal should be the maximization
of pleasure and the minimization of pain and discomfort. In an increasingly urban and
consumerist West, Orwell believed that many people were structuring their lives in a hedonistic
manner. A hedonistic lifestyle, according to Orwell, weakens people. It makes them feeble
and incapable of mounting any resistance against those who desire to rule over a society with
force. Or as David Ramsey Steele writes, Orwell thinks that any group which gives itself over to
hedonism must ultimately become easy meat for fanatical ideological enemies, which are more
self-sacrificing, more dedicated, and more remorseless. The real enemy is not the lover of
pleasure, but the fanatic who is against pleasure, and the former is conceived as defenseless in the
face of the latter. The West, since Orwell’s death in 1950, has become more hedonistic,
and most people have been indoctrinated to accept collectivism in one form or another,
but this has not led to the permanent entrenchment of oligarchical collectivism.
Rather, Aldous Huxley, the author of another famous 20th century dystopian novel,
Brave New World, may have had a better grasp of the way Western societies would become enslaved
in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. Huxley, like Orwell, was an anti-hedonist,
but his aversion to hedonism differed from Orwell’s. Huxley’s main concern was that
hedonism could be used as an effective tool to oppress a society, because people will willingly
forgo freedom so long as their appetite for pleasure and consumption is fulfilled. If a
society is structured so that people can devote much of their time to pursuing pleasures,
gratifying material wants, and even drugging themselves to escape from reality, then
persuasion and conditioning, rather than coercive force, will be sufficient to exert extreme control
over a society. Under such conditions most people won’t even notice the chains of servitude that
slowly tighten around them. Or as Huxley wrote, in Brave New World, non-stop distractions of the
most fascinating nature are deliberately used for the purpose of preventing people from paying too
much attention to the realities of the social and political situation. Neil Postman, in his book
Amusing Ourselves to Death, contrasts the differing fears of Orwell and Huxley. 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 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. In 1984, people are
controlled by inflicting pain. In Brave New World, they are controlled by inflicting pleasure.
In short, Orwell feared that what we fear will ruin us.
Huxley feared that what we desire will ruin us.
The West, it seems, finds itself in a situation analogous to what Huxley feared.
We live in a society that is drowning in distractions.
Most people spend more time staring at screens than interacting with people in the flesh and blood,
and popping prescription pills or self-medicating with alcohol or illicit drugs
has become the normal mode for coping with any form of distress.
Most people still believe the West is free,
and the overt physical coercion that Orwell thought would be required to enslave a society
has so far proven unnecessary.
Through endless distractions, diversions,
and the easy availability of pleasurable and distracting experiences,
many embrace their lack of freedom
and worship the society which has made their hedonistic lifestyle possible.
The world’s stable now, says the Controller in Huxley’s Brave New World. People are happy,
they get what they want, and they never want what they can’t get.
Before dismissing Orwell’s fears completely, however, it must be noted that Orwell was
familiar with Huxley’s position and he did not deny that the hedonistic society Huxley feared
was a possibility, but he saw it as a temporary stage, creating the ideal conditions for a more
brutal regime to seize control and impose its will on a society composed of weak and apathetic
men and women. Whether Orwell will be proven correct remains to be seen, but as was revealed
in the first few years of this decade, if a societal crisis emerges, most people will accept
the more brutal form of totalitarianism that Orwell feared. So perhaps all that is missing
to throw us permanently into the dystopian world depicted in 1984 is one more major social crisis.
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Source: Academy of Ideas