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survival
Big Wall climber
Terrapin Station
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Topic Author's Original Post - Mar 5, 2016 - 02:24pm PT
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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 egotism. 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, Orwell added, 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 our desire will ruin us.
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Craig Fry
Trad climber
So Cal.
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I was distracted by irrelevance and the centrifugal bumblepuppy
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Reilly
Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
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Huxley feared that our desire will ruin us
That's the McDonald's business plan as near as I can see.
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MattB
Trad climber
Tucson
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Are you referring to LaVoy's masterpiece? But yeah, wisdom, seeking, understanding, caring slip away without a whimper
But material burdens weigh heavy
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ecdh
climber
the east
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Yep. And if you expand a bit; those who push against Orwell's vision get tortured and subjugated, those who push against Huxleys get trivialized by common neurosis.
Good to see such a post.
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MattB
Trad climber
Tucson
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I say there is more ignorance now... all data (and analysis) is available at a few clicks, no reason to think on your own.
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survival
Big Wall climber
Terrapin Station
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Topic Author's Reply - Mar 5, 2016 - 03:21pm PT
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We used to depend on newspaper journalism and TV news almost exclusively. These media are still available but are now not the only source of knowledge.
The problem is the validity of those sources, and peoples willingness to dig for the truth. I can't tell you how many people I know who basically don't read!! Paper pages or digital images either one. They want to be fed visual images, of which there are too many to count.
I fear that Huxley was right, we are being buried in our own bullsh#t.
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LOWERme
Trad climber
NM
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But I don't want comfort. I want God, I want poetry, I want real danger, I want freedom, I want goodness. I want sin. - Brave New World
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MattB
Trad climber
Tucson
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Did Joyce or Faulkner delve into imagined societies?
Jim, no doubt many MANY great world saving works are done now, as always.
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survival
Big Wall climber
Terrapin Station
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Topic Author's Reply - Mar 5, 2016 - 03:56pm PT
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Tme's passage ranks Huxley well below the likes of Joyce and Faulkner in literary merit. He couldn't write a dynamic, as opposed to static, female character to save his life.
In 1999, the Modern Library ranked Brave New World fifth on its list of the 100 best English-language novels of the 20th century. In 2003, Robert McCrum writing for The Observer included Brave New World chronologically at number 53 in "the top 100 greatest novels of all time", and the novel was listed at number 87 on the BBC's survey The Big Read.
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MattB
Trad climber
Tucson
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Yes, read ulysses. Internalization of the world? The last bit is as good erotic lit as some of the bible. Very creative, too many lit references for me. Tried Finnegan's Wake.... need a better brogue I ken
Edit. Faulkner, historic fiction?
Yes very brilliant writer... the tortured souls within most novelists makes me hesitant to give them much credence beyond what i give a typical barfly
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survival
Big Wall climber
Terrapin Station
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Topic Author's Reply - Mar 5, 2016 - 04:07pm PT
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BNW is not Hamlet, King Lear or Ulysses. You are out of your depth here.
Who said it was, Captain Cousteau? I don't recall asking to be at your depth anyway.
I only found the passages that I originally posted very interesting and somehow relevant to the modern synthetic world we live in.
It's not my fault that some other people called BNW among the greatest novels ever written.
Sheesh, lighten up Mr. Diving Bell.
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MattB
Trad climber
Tucson
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What are those quotes from, survival?
Back on track, bread and roses drumpfs all else
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Ghost
climber
A long way from where I started
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I teach literature. Do you?...
You are out of your depth here.
Do you have any idea of the level of contempt most writers have for critics and teachers of literature? Maybe the people you are insulting on this thread are not the only ones out of their depth.
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jgill
Boulder climber
The high prairie of southern Colorado
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BNW is not Hamlet, King Lear or Ulysses. You are out of your depth here. The ST scintist or engineer resembles BNW's John the Savage, who spends much of the novel misquoting Shakespeare with perfect confidence. (sycorax)
I detect religious intensity here, not unlike Largo's raw awareness exhortations.
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survival
Big Wall climber
Terrapin Station
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Topic Author's Reply - Mar 5, 2016 - 04:48pm PT
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What are those quotes from, survival?
MattB, I simply lifted them from Wiki as I was skimming numerous things, working on re-inspiring my youngest son on reading. They have all been great readers forever, but in this case the boy has set it all aside for a bit too long.
18 year old Amber went out today to buy BNW at a used bookstore.
I was trying to pry him away from a video, and he has a HP Lovecraft book from City Lights that he put down. I wanted to nudge him back into it. That's what started me off on the whole deal.
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Jaybro
Social climber
Wolf City, Wyoming
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While clearly not the stylist or poet that Joyce was, Huxley had an insightful view of the future and where we're going that Joyce didn't have. But they were each trying to do different things.Joyce talked more about innate human nature."yes my mountain flower" while Huxley was piecing out the future that that nature brings.
To get back to the original question, I thing we are moving through an Orwellian mode, more and more into a Huxley one. But where do we go now? I thing Malcom McLaren, Andy Warhol, and Keith Haring , illuminate some of this. " The media, IS the message." or to misquote Gill Scott Heron, The revolution is the televising.
I'd like to hope we are more following Samuel Beckett " I can't go on, I'll go on"
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Jaybro
Social climber
Wolf City, Wyoming
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Also, I think a useful contemporary literary lineage to point toward the future is A. Huxley- William Burroughs- William Gibson. There are gaps, but that covers a lot of it.
Edit, Nice Jim!
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StahlBro
Trad climber
San Diego, CA
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Not one mention of Island? That was a masterpiece. With a strong female character.
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Do you have any idea of the level of contempt most writers have for critics and teachers of literature?
and that is relevant, how? writers aren't all good at teaching or at criticism, they are good at writing (if they are good).
The amount of contempt that writers have for anything probably doesn't amount to much of significance, unless it inspires the production of good literature.
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