Winston Smith Overdrive

In honor of Orwell's 100th birthday, cyberpunk grand don William Gibson weights in with a New York Times op-ed on privacy, surveillance, and the differences between the dangers that loom today and those Orwell worried about. Only tangentially related, but I've alway thought Neil Postman got it dead right when he observed that, while Orwell's dystopia is better remembered (indeed, probably the paradigm dystopia), it's Huxley's that we're far closer to realizing.

Comments

[Jesse Walker]

If Wolfe is the RC Cola of dystopias, what's Zamiatin? The original Coke, with the cocaine in it?

[Anonymous]

Rand's Anthem is President's Choice!
and Lucas' THX-1138 is Great Value 😀

[FRB]

Actually, I always thought it was Bradbury's (F451) that we had to fear the most, since we've been realizing it (at least here in the US) for the last 20 years or so: PC-ness, self censorship, "if the kids can't pass their tests, make the tests easier..." etc.

[Rick Barton]

How about a link to the Postman opinion?

[digamma]

I think Jay Nordlinger wrote recently in The New Criterion that this is the reason he finds "Friends" unwatchable: All the characters would make model citizens in Huxley's Brave New World.

It was John Derbyshire in NRO, actually.

[Mo]

I don't mean this to flame, but wouldn't a lot of people who post here be pretty ideal citizens in Huxley's distopia. This distrust of religion, the affinity for drugs and support for genetic engineering to evolve the species are pretty widely held views on these boards (including myself). I mean the strict caste system would be rightly derided here, but otherwise these are all at home in Huxley's World (assuming, of course, we all look like Friends' cast members).

[Mo]

Though to be fair, in Reason's Brave New World, this would all be done by private organizations rather than the Huxley's efficient government (ahh, perhaps that is where the libertarian dystopia comes in) ;).

[Julian]

Mo-
Interesting point, but I think it was the attitude of complacency, the valorization of trivial self-gratification, rather than approval of drugs or genetic engineering as such, that marked the citizens of BNW. In Huxley's world, secularism, mind-altering chemicals, and gene modification were all aspects of the retreat from a meaningful life; all of them, however, could be instruments to that end rather than means of avoiding it.

[fyodor]

I echo Mo. As long as we can make all our kids Alphas, is the Brave New World model so dystopian? I guess the populace prefered cheap thrills to great art, and one can always identify with the alienation of the main character who saw and wanted things differently than he was supposed to, but these things are kinda out of our control. Perhaps there are scarier things in that book that I don't remember....?

I saw the recent movie version of 1984 recently, and while some of the dire "predictions" seemed happily way off the mark, the part about using war to control the population had an eery ring of recognition....!

[Ralph]

Since we're discussing dystopia's, shouldn't we consider "Lord of the Flies" as well?

[anon]

Julian, I think that you inadvertantly hit the nail on the head.

"The valorization of trivial self-gratification" should be Reason's new motto.

[fyodor]

Julian,

I posted before I saw your response to Mo.

Hmmmm. Well again, I don't know if complacency is all that bad, unless there's something else real bad that should but doesn't interrupt our complacency. And maybe complacency is even a sign that things aren't so bad! And I wonder if there really ever was a time when most folks didn't indulge in trivial self-gratification? Anyway, I can't stand Friends or most other situation comedies or most other commerical TV, so as long as the law allows me to turn the thing off, I'm happy to be kibbutzing here while my co-workers get to chat about all those TV shows!

[fyodor]

anon,

Heh!! And you eschew trivial self-gratification for.....?

[N]

What is 'trivial' about self-gratification, I wonder?

[Anonymous]

There's absolutely nothing trivial about self-gratification. In fact, self-gratification is a paramount REQUIREMENT before there can be any other form of gratification.

[digamma]

I also don't mean this to flame, but the pleasure-seeking "alphas" of Brave New World do have things in common with the "strikers" of Atlas Shrugged, a book that many Reason readers see as a statement of their philosophy.

[N]

Bingo. I don't even see Huxley's BNW as a dystopia: sounds like paradise when compared with the nonsense world of today.

FYI: Huxley later repudiated his anti-drug, anti-genetic engineering attitudes.

[Anonymous]

http://www.winstonsmith.com/gallery/book1/big/people.html
http://www.winstonsmith.com/gallery/albums/big/werenot.html

[Eric Deamer]

"A world of informational transparency will necessarily be one of deliriously multiple viewpoints, shot through with misinformation, disinformation, conspiracy theories and a quotidian degree of madness."

I don't know about Huxley vs. Orwell etc. but Gibson sure describes Hit and Run, Reason Magazine, and Julian Sanchez's "Notes From the Lounge" pretty well right in this very op-ed piece.

[Madog]

Nancy Kress has written some SF novels which follow society over decades as human genetic modification becomes more advanced. It ends up with a genetic class system, but with the added twist that other advanced technologies (such as robotics) mean that there's no real purpose for anything other than the brightest and most enhanced. The US has split into the classes of the taxpayers who actually make money and control things, and voters who do nothing, are uneducated and unenhanced, but basicly are supported by the wealthy in exchange for votes.

[fyodor]

N,

Huxley's last novel, Island, sure takes a different view of psychoactive drugs! Although, perhaps he saw the psychedelics used for initiation and renewal in Island as not being as "trivial" as his mythical feel-good drug, Soma, which may be comparable to cocaine?

[Anonymous]

http://www.bloodyspew.com/thirteen.html
http://www.bloodyspew.com/thirtyfour.html

[anon]

Fyodor--

I try to eschew trivial self-gratification for meaningful (ennobling) self-gratification.

For instance, I plan to read _The Brothers Karamazov_ and I hope to like it.

The operative word in the first sentence is "try."

We should all try to demand the best of ourselves, which means, in part, attempting to do things that are hard.

--anon
(trying not to sound like a pompous ass)

[SM]

Have to completely disagree with Julian on this one. How on earth are we closer to Huxley's distopia ? I read it around 10 years ago so i could be getting the details wrong. But -
1. Dont want to argue the government/private sector issue except to note that the government is'nt forcing anybody to take pleasure pills & is not engineering caste functions into citizens, unless there are some black ops we havent heard about. Its been argued by the usual suspects that since only the rich & successful will have access to biotech etc, therefore we are on the road to a caste system. Well maybe & maybe not - Gregory Stock has argued against this quite persuasively, IMHO. He suggests that the rich are more likely to want to block bio-tech since it destroys any artificial advantage they may hold over plebes. In any case, society in BNW world maps with a greater degee of verisimilitude to earlier societies, viz the Ottoman empire, chinese society, the hindu caste system etc. Anybody who thinks affluence, tech etc hav'nt leveled the world needs urgently to be lent a copy of Daniel Dennet's "Freedom evolves".
2. Sure we have access to all kinds of new tech, and are an affluent society - do people only want put these to shallow use & transform into shinyhappy people ? The occasional billionare heir may want Wolverine claws for effect, but a cursory reading of magazines like Wired should suggest that a majority see tech and pills as a means to significant ends. For eg - terraforming, bio-enginering the humanbody for survival on hostile habitats etc. Stop laughing, this is Reason not New Criterion, right ? We may even find cures for hereditary diseases, but thats the wrong priority by me. Mars Dome first.
3. Finally - i read BNY & the Doors of Perception back to back and ended up with a what's wrong with this picture view of Huxley. The first is a dytopian society where people take drugs and play "endless tennis" & generally ignore shakespeare. In DOP on the other hand people take drugs & thru' the powerful tools of (mostly) eastern mysticism are afforded a window into profundity & meaning.
Hmm ... Nope, i'm not leaving California.

[joe]

I think Vonnegut's "Player Piano" would be a dystopia that libertoids love to hate.

[SM]

One more thing and i'll shut up.
Can someone define the terms "self-gratification" and "meaningful life" ?

[Anonymous]

masturbating kids

[donatien]

Sado-Masochist, the government isn't forcing anybody to take pills (except in schools)

The government isn't engineering caste functions into citizens (except in Mexican ops.)

The government isn't placing people in long queues (except in hospitals.)

Gee, you sure do your moniker justice.

[SM]

Donatien,

Tell the truth - You have not read BNY, have you ?

[SM]

BNY should be BNW. The book not the movie, OK donatien ?

[fyodor]

joe,

Doesn't Player Piano end with a great revolution against machines (probably stolen from a hallucination in Hesse's Steppenwolf), which results in everyone being miserable and missing the machines? I seem to recall that a preacher of some sort who supported the uprising is happy that everyone is miserable and when someone calls him on it, he gets furious and simply retorts, "I am a man of God!" I thought Vonnegut was balancing his lefty ludditism with an acknowledgement that it was human nature to want and like machines and it was all a paradox, with the preacher's attitude reflecting the triumph of religious fervor over pragmatism. Seems like the final result would fit into a libertoid's POV. Hey, we all wanna smash machines some time or another, but that doesn't mean we should build a philosophy around taking that sentiment seriously!

Speaking of smashing machines, Dostoevsky was kinda against material progress, nutty genius that he was! So I hope you get through the BK's, anon, and maybe even enjoy it! And feel free to demand "the best" of yourself, however you define it. All a libertoid wants is for you not to make demands on me1

SM, me & N were discussing Huxley's differeing views on drugs earlier. N claims he disavowed his earlier view. I suggested that consistent with his later views as expressed in Island (forgot about DOP, d'oh!), but added that it could possibly reflect differeing views on different types of drugs!

[Anonymous]

no, that's the matrix.

[SM]

Fyodor,

Is "Island" the story where an 18nth century french nobleman invents a longevity potion and a 20th century academic is trying to decipher his papers ?

[fyodor]

donatien,

Excuse my possible naivete, but does the government actually _force_ ritalin on kids??

[joe]

fyodor,

The Revolution at the end of PP is organized by a clandestine elite to fight a political system, but because of the secrecy and lack of popular ground work, the proles who rise up take to destroying the sewage treatment plant.

Anyway, I was refering to the corporatist political/economic/social system, in which degrees from tightly regulated colleges were the only way to gain advancement, and to the fact that 90% of the population was either in the army or a vastly overstaffed public works authority.

[Warren]

Going with the flow?
I recognized right off when I first read BNW (I forget how many decades ago) that it was a sham. The drugs, genetic engineering, etc. actually WAS a BRAVE NEW WORLD, one to be ushered in ASAP. The dystopia aspect of BNW was the direct result of an oppressive central authority.

Orwell on the other hand got it right, and served it up hot on the plate. 1984 laid it straight out: Big brother will rule every aspect of your drab, joyless life, this is how he will do it, and you will love him for it.

When PC emerged from the left, I thought, "Holy shit! It's Newspeak! They're actually engaged in a systematic program to control people's thoughts by controlling the language". Now from the right we're getting the 'Ministry of Peace' and the whole 'doublethink' thing. The only thing left is the omnipresent propaganda and surveillance, and I hear that's coming right along too.

[Eric Deamer]

I have just reached the tipping point of total exasperation with this site so please forgive this if it falls into the "flaming" category. I'm truly sorry and I'll leave you all to your elitist myopia after this.

But again, I must restate: "A world of informational transparency will necessarily be one of deliriously multiple viewpoints, shot through with misinformation, disinformation, conspiracy theories and a quotidian degree of madness."

"Deliriously Multiple Viewpoints": The viewpoint here, which completely excludes itself from external viewpoints, is certainly
a result of the delirious multiplicity of contemporary media. In the past, with fewer choices one would have had to encounter some dissenting views.

"Misinformation and disinformation": Faithbased initiatives are a tenet of neoconservative thought. Ronald Reagan and Barry Goldwater's politics were at odds with neoconservatism. George Bush said exactly what Haaretz reports Abbas reports he said.

"Conspiracty theories": The neocons are responsible for all of America's and all of the world's ills.

"Quotidian Madness": All of the above viewpoints were either espoused by this magazine's staff or in pieces that were linked to approvingly by the staff, just today.

So, Gibson's piece was dead on about our present information age, much like 1984 said a lot about 1948.

[Anonymous]

"Excuse my possible naivete, but does the government actually _force_ ritalin on kids?"

Maybe not now. Maybe not anymore (since we so vociferously began complaining.) But during the previous admin, when the first lady and her paramour were in power, most certainly, yes!

[Anonymous]

"Excuse my possible naivete, but does the government actually _force_ ritalin on kids?"

Maybe not now. Maybe not as much anymore (since we so vociferously began complaining.) But during the previous admin, when the first lady and her paramour were in power, most certainly, yes!

[fyodor]

joe,

Ewww, that WOULD suck!

SM,

Island is where some guy gets shipwrecked on an island which, instead of being a dystopia, is a well organized near utopia. The first half of the book is the guy lying in a hospital bed and being told what takes place on the island and how great it all is, which made it pretty boring as literature goes, which is why mostly only hardcore Huxley fans know about it, one of whom recommended to me. Anyway, they take psychedelic mushrooms and climb a mountain for their teenage initiation rite, and then continue to take the shrooms twice a year for the rest of their lives. Near the end, the main character takes the shrooms and experiences the "eternity that's as real as shit." And then some outside army comes and invades and ruins the whole gosh blarn wonderful experiment. Oh well, so it goes........

[Anonymous]

I see black helicopters !

[Jesse Walker]

Hi, Eric. Ordinarily, we Reason staffers are too busy excluding ourselves from external viewpoints to notice the ton of external viewpoints that get posted in the comments section of Hit & Run every day. But I thought I should mention that neocons *do* tend to push "faith-based initiatives" as part of their domestic agenda. And that Goldwaterism and neoconservatism are indeed rather different beasts. (Reaganism is trickier: His crowd and the neocons did overlap quite a bit. I presume Crane & Niskanan were trying to pry the quasi-libertarian and traditionalist Reaganites from their onetime neocon allies.)

Anyway, I look forward to hearing where one of us claimed that neocons are responsible for all the world's ills. Once you've found it, you can ponder whether Julian was trumpeting the Habbas story as unimpeachable news or having fun on a blog with a funny quote. And then you can go back to gnashing your teeth over our "elitist myopia."

[Jesse Walker]

Yikes. I mean Abbas, not Habbas.

[fyodor]

Eric Deamer,

"In the past, with fewer choices one would have had to encounter some dissenting views." That's why I can't see what you're writing and am not responding to it (once again, that's sarcasm, boy!).

Hell, take two aspirin and call me in the morning!

[thumbsucker]

Jesse, is it really true that you Reason staffers are ordinarily too busy excluding yourselves from external viewpoints to notice the ton of external viewpoints that get posted here every day?

Really? You're shittin' me!

You mean you initiate all these deep thoughts, and then go duck and and hide? Like starting fires and then making a dash for it??

Man! No wonder they call it "Hit & Run."

Reminds me of my Mom: "Here, kids! Here are your rattles. Now go play," ... as she disappears into the kitchen.

[Douglas Fletcher]

Huxley was on drugs.

[Nixon]

"Huxley was on drugs."

(No-o-o kidding!)

"A frog's ass is watertight."
"A bears shits in the woods."
"The pope is catholic."

C'mon, Doug, let's play "Redunancy Ping-Pong." It's fun.

[Eric]

Okay, last one I swear. After this you won't have old conservative mcgee to kick around anymore.

Jesse,

Its telling that opinion among the staff writers who blog here is so monolithic that one can easily respond to a comment in place of another and assume they know what the other meant in the orginal post. Its very borg-like, as if you all have access to some kind of collective mind (sorry for the geeky reference).I guess this is what I meant by excluding external view points. I probably should have said excluding diverse view points. At the much-maligned "The Corner" for instance there is an actual diversity of opinion amongst the posters. The reason there were so many posts on the gay marriage issue there, for example, is that there was a real debate going on, something I see a lot less often here.

The best critique of the Crane and Niskansen itself I have seen so far is on porphyrogenitus here:

http://www.porphyrogenitus.net/archives/week_2003_06_22.html

I imagine you've read it already but if you haven't you really should. Its a beautiful articulation of what's wrong with Crane and Niskanen's thesis.

As far as my pitiful editions to the fray, I'd just like to note that the original Crane and Niskanen Op-Ed, Julian Sanchez's post, multiple comments, and now your comment all use the term "neo-con" without even attempting a definition. The fuzziness of the term is then utilized so that the author can assert that neo-cons are behind whatever policies the author disagrees with, from the Patriot Act to the War In Iraq, to torture warrants, to a greater federal role in local education. Saying that you or Julian Sanchez or the op-ed itself assert that neocons are responsible for all the ills of the world may be a bit hyperbolic (Hey! I'm having fun like Julian!) but I don't think its that far off the mark.

For the record, I'm pretty sure the original meaning of the term neocon when it was coined in the 70's was a former liberal who rejected the left's innate distrust of the American military ever being a force for good. (Please correct me if I'm wrong. I'll read but won't post again). They were called neocons because other conservatives were isolationists or realists in foreign policy. By this logic, one should include Irving Kristol and Norman Podhoretz but not their sons even. Even if you don't define the term this narrowly, it still takes a lot of explaining to get us up to faith-based initiatives 25 years later. Goldwater was not a neocon, but the real issue is whether or not he would have done things differently than the current administration. He might not have supported the Patriot Act, but you'd have a hard time convincing anyone that he would have followed a more dovish or isolationist foreign policy. John Ashcroft is certainly not a neocon. The majority of both houses of congress who passed the Patriot Act couldn't possibly all be neocons. The vast majority of Americans who supported the war in Iraq surely aren't all neocons, are they? Tony Blair isn't a neocon.

All of these points are made a million times better (faint praise I know) in the link above. The basic idea is that if you disagree with the policies, fine, but if you want to convince people that they're wrong its a lot more effective to argue the polices themselves as opposed to just saying that they're all the fault of neocons and therefore, automatically, bad.

[Sage]

Absolutely. I think Jay Nordlinger wrote recently in The New Criterion that this is the reason he finds "Friends" unwatchable: All the characters would make model citizens in Huxley's Brave New World.

[Justin Slotman]

And Bernard Wolfe's the one we never talk about. It's the RC Cola of dystopias....

[JW]

Eric, what do you mean by, "After this you won't have old conservative mcgee to kick around anymore."

Are you going somewhere? Heading out? Is it hasta la vista?

[Jesse Walker]

It's kind of a pain to redefine "neocon" every time you use the word, Eric. I've done it before, and if you're curious what I had to say, go here:

http://jessewalker.blogspot.com/2003_01_26_jessewalker_archive.html#88218031

Meanwhile: Reason staffers differ on all sorts of issues, most notably foreign policy and intellectual property law. We don't usually argue about these things in the blog -- there are better venues for debates -- but if you read our separate posts you might notice that, for example, some of us thought the Iraq war was a good idea and some of us didn't.

I suppose it's possible that similar disagreements exist within the Borg -- I'm not much of a Star Trek fan, so I can't really say.

[Kevin Carson]

Eric,

Please don't take your ball and bat and go home. Your posts, if curmudgeonly, are at least substantive and well argued.

As for neocon, you're right. It started out referring to Cold War liberals of the Art Schlesinger/Adolph Berle/Daniel Bell type who didn't like where McGovern and "the kids" were taking the Democratic Party. It was later expanded to enclude ex-trot leftists and the Kristol/Glazer crowd. Which makes sense by way of analogy because, like the Schlesinger "vital center" types, they had come to "conservatism" from a vastly different tradition, had no cultural background in it, and were ideologically tone deaf in understanding what made traditional conservatives tick. Case in point is the Ur pencil neck geek, David Horowitz, trying to drink longnecks at the Crawford ranch and empathizing with the Red States.

[George Orwell]

A man may take to drink because he feels himself to be a failure,
and then fail all the more completely because he drinks. It is
rather the same thing that is happening to the English language. It
becomes ugly and inaccurate because our thoughts are foolish, but
the slovenliness of our language makes it easier for us to have
foolish thoughts. -- Politics and the English Language [1946]