Huxley versus Orwell: Who was right?

[mamboni]

http://christophercocca.files.wordpress.com/2011/02/amusing-ourselves-to-death2.png

[Bigjon]

It looks to me like we have both 1984 and Brave New World. Try to be an individual and you get to go to 1984, or blend in with the masses and go to BNW.

They are changing the meaning of words, removing words from use, removing books from libraries, removing whole subjects from education, to name a few of the 1984 choices.

[midnight rambler]

Obviously they were both visionary.

[Golden]

Ahem, it's referred to as "burning the candle at both ends".


www.youtube.com/watch?v=xObFgwsIi-E
www.youtube.com/watch?v=xObFgwsIi-E (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xObFgwsIi-E)

Friggin groovy, are we having fun yet? What a scene.

[Serpo]

They where both right and personally Ive had with all the BS as it just goes around in circles into a factor of FEAR.Its over for me and Im not interested anymore in who maybe right or wrong.

[Hatha Sunahara]

They were both right as Serpo says. Orwell's vision was for people who had the capacity to see and react to truth. Huxley's vision was for the sheeple. The state treats those who oppose it the way Orwell said. They treat the useful idiots the way Huxley said.


Hatha

[Horn]

I guess for this we should be grateful the U.S. is returning to the 3rd world.

[Libertytree]

It's just that neither of them is wrong...different means to the same end.

[Dogman]

Double dipped doom, all bases are covered!

[Twisted Titan]

Its means that those of us who saw this coming are twice as smart.

[Golden]

Here's another dynamic duo. A 1-2 punch to the family jewels. A couple of assets if you ask me. meh

www.youtube.com/watch?v=d0nERTFo-Sk

[osoab]

Let's hear from Huxley.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7_YFKyhQMI

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7_YFKyhQMI

[Hatha Sunahara]

Colorado and Washington's legalization of marijuana was a move in the direction of Huxley totalitarianism, and away from Orwell totalitarianism.


Hatha

[Sparky]

Now that I think of it, it's surprising that 1984, Animal Farm, and Brave New World are/were standard high school reading. According to this list (http://northport.k12.ny.us/%7Enphs/english%20college.htm), the two Orwell novels are still widely taught.

Looking at that list of 43 books, I was required to read only these seven:

Animal Farm
Call of the Wild
Catcher in the Rye
Lord of the Flies
1984
The Odyssey
Romeo and Juliet

I also had to read Brave New World, which did not make this list. I read A Tale of Two Cities and A Separate Peace as an adult.

From the Reading List for the College-Bound (found at the bottom of the link), I also was required to read these:

Canterbury Tales
Paradise Lost
The Stranger
Robinson Crusoe
Madame Bovary
Cry, The Beloved Country
The Tell-Tale Heart
Gulliver's Travels
Vanity Fair
Slaughterhouse Five