# Huxley to Orwell: My Hellish Vision of the Future is Better Than Yours **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [May 11, 2019, 9:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/huxley-to-orwell-my-hellish-vision-of-the-future-is-better-than-yours/833836 "2019-05-11T21:46:15Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![MortSahlFan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/3bc359/32.png) [@MortSahlFan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MortSahlFan)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2019, 9:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/huxley-to-orwell-my-hellish-vision-of-the-future-is-better-than-yours/833836/1 "2019-05-11T21:46:15Z")
> **[Huxley to Orwell: My Hellish Vision of the Future is Better Than Yours (1949)](https://www.openculture.com/2015/03/huxley-to-orwell-my-hellish-vision-of-the-future-is-better-than-yours.html)** > > In 1949, George Orwell received a curious letter from his former high school French teacher. > > Orwell had just published his groundbreaking book Nineteen Eighty-Four, which received glowing reviews from just about every corner of the English-speaking... ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2019, 9:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/huxley-to-orwell-my-hellish-vision-of-the-future-is-better-than-yours/833836/2 "2019-05-11T21:52:55Z")
Breaking Cafe Society news from 70 years ago? ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2019, 9:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/huxley-to-orwell-my-hellish-vision-of-the-future-is-better-than-yours/833836/3 "2019-05-11T21:55:34Z")
Could you give us your take on this, rather than just a bare link? ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2019, 9:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/huxley-to-orwell-my-hellish-vision-of-the-future-is-better-than-yours/833836/4 "2019-05-11T21:56:01Z")
This just in: Mark Twain was [no fan of Fenimore Cooper](http://twain.lib.virginia.edu/projects/rissetto/offense.html). ---
**Author:** ![MortSahlFan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/3bc359/32.png) [@MortSahlFan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MortSahlFan)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2019, 10:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/huxley-to-orwell-my-hellish-vision-of-the-future-is-better-than-yours/833836/5 "2019-05-11T22:44:00Z")
> [@Colibri](#): > > Could you give us your take on this, rather than just a bare link? I think Huxley was more accurate; how easily people acquiesce to power. ---
**Author:** ![MortSahlFan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/3bc359/32.png) [@MortSahlFan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MortSahlFan)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2019, 11:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/huxley-to-orwell-my-hellish-vision-of-the-future-is-better-than-yours/833836/6 "2019-05-11T23:05:03Z")
> [@MortSahlFan](#): > > I think Huxley was more accurate; how easily people acquiesce to power. (I hit REPLY too soon, and couldn’t edit)… I think there would be resistance with “jack-boot policing”, so they edge the line of tolerate behavior. When people conform and just go along with either X and/or Y, the power drunk become addicted and keep trying to get away with their objectives… The Public Space now isn’t the Town Square, its communication like Facebook, Twitter, etc… If someone is banned, there is no other Twitter. I’m sure there are many who spent years trying to build the online audience (as opposed to the traditional), and the threat is enough for people to self-censor. Of course, they mention a few names that most people don’t like, so the general population think “Oh well, its not ME”. ---
**Author:** ![Ukulele\_Ike](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/df788c/32.png) [@Ukulele\_Ike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ukulele_Ike)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2019, 12:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/huxley-to-orwell-my-hellish-vision-of-the-future-is-better-than-yours/833836/7 "2019-05-12T00:23:24Z")
Yeah, Ive always thought Huxley was more prescient than Orwell. Keeping the masses subjugated under the iron fist would get to be exhausting after a while. Much easier to keep them under control with endless bread and circuses. And sex and dope. ---
**Author:** ![Kent\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kent_clark/32/105_2.png) [@Kent\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kent_Clark)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2019, 2:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/huxley-to-orwell-my-hellish-vision-of-the-future-is-better-than-yours/833836/8 "2019-05-12T02:30:38Z")
> [@Ukulele\_Ike](#): > > Yeah, Ive always thought Huxley was more prescient than Orwell. > > Keeping the masses subjugated under the iron fist would get to be exhausting after a while. Much easier to keep them under control with endless bread and circuses. And sex and dope. When do we get to the fun stuff? ---
**Author:** ![JRDelirious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jrdelirious/32/9531_2.png) [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2019, 3:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/huxley-to-orwell-my-hellish-vision-of-the-future-is-better-than-yours/833836/9 "2019-05-12T03:40:50Z")
> [@kunilou](#): > > When do we get to the fun stuff? Well, so far we got Reality TV. Not exactly mass public rave orgies, right? Put that on the “SF lied to me” list with the jetpack, robot maid, and PanAm Shuttle to the Moon. But as \*\*MortSahlFan \*\*mentions, “new media” and the creation of a dependency thereon opens up a horizon of behavior redirection that leaves the Fascist/Communist propagandists looking quaint. Especially as it keeps the subjects convinced that they are actually doing their own thing and not being part of the sheeple. One has to consider, in 1948 people had hard evidence of their own lives and flesh in the effectiveness of violent totalitarianism. The end of WW2 and of Hitler was just 3 years prior and Stalin was still going strong. Meanwhile many of the elements in BNW were still years or decades from becoming practical to establish. So 1984 was more “realistic” in that contemporary readers could imagine it happening as a direct progression of their time. ---
**Author:** ![nightshadea](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/7ba0ec/32.png) [@nightshadea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nightshadea)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2019, 9:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/huxley-to-orwell-my-hellish-vision-of-the-future-is-better-than-yours/833836/10 "2019-05-12T09:04:43Z")
there was a video game called "we happy few " that crossed the two … and it was grim … but legalizing drugs and free open sex is easier and more logical trying to breed human thought and emotion out of people ---
**Author:** ![PatrickLondon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/patricklondon/32/4422_2.png) [@PatrickLondon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PatrickLondon)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2019, 10:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/huxley-to-orwell-my-hellish-vision-of-the-future-is-better-than-yours/833836/11 "2019-05-12T10:31:50Z")
Ove the last 70 years, “actually existing” jackboot-in-the-face societies have, on the whole, tended to mutate towards more subtle means of control (China), a confused not quite one thing or the other (Russia) or collapsed altogether (East Germany and the other satellites), so to that extent Huxley was right. On the other hand, the germ of always-on internet and data-gathering combined with artificial intelligence is there in the Big Brother screens of 1984, but you could also see what it offers to people (as distinct from how it can be used to manipulate them) as a form of Huxley’s Soma. Orwell was extrapolating from what could already be observed in existence, Huxley from the potential that could be perceived in new developments. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2019, 11:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/huxley-to-orwell-my-hellish-vision-of-the-future-is-better-than-yours/833836/12 "2019-05-12T11:44:28Z")
[Moderating] If you have something you wish to discuss, then discuss it. Don’t expect us to put more effort into your threads than you yourself are. This thread is closed.