Orwell and Huxley

By Chris Hedges www.anu.org

The two greatest visions of a future dystopia were George Orwell’s “1984” and Aldous Huxley’s “Brave New World”. The debate was between those who watched our descent towards corporate totalitarianism. Who was “right”?

Would we, as Orwell wrote, be dominated by a repressive surveillance and security state that used crude and violent forms of control? Or would we, as Huxley envisioned, be entranced by entertainment and spectacle, captivated by technology and seduced by profligate consumption to embrace our own oppression? It turns out that Orwell and Huxley were both right. Huxley saw the first stage of our enslavement and Orwell the second.

We have been gradually disempowered by a corporate state that, as Huxley foresaw, seduced and manipulated us through sensual gratification, cheap mass-produced goods, boundless credit, political theater, and amusement. While we were being entertained, the regulations that once kept predatory corporate power in check were dismantled, the laws that once protected us were rewritten and we were impoverished. Now that credit is drying up, good jobs for the working class are gone forever, and mass-produced goods are unaffordable, we find ourselves transported from “Brave New World” to “1984”. The state, crippled by massive deficits, endless wars and corporate malfeasance, is sliding towards bankruptcy. It is time for Big Brother to take over from Huxley’s “Feelies”, the orgy-porgy and the centrifugal bumble-puppy. We are moving from a society where we are skillfully manipulated by lies and illusions to one where we are overtly controlled.

Orwell warned of a world where books were banned. Huxley warned of a world where no one wanted to read books. Orwell warned of a state of permanent war and fear. Huxley warned of a culture diverted by mindless pleasure. Orwell warned of a state where every conversation and thought was monitored and dissent brutally punished. Huxley warned of a state where a population, preoccupied by trivia and gossip, no longer cared about truth of information. Orwell saw us frightened into submission. Huxley saw us seduced into submission. But Huxley, we are discovering was only the prelude to Orwell. Huxley understood the process by which we would be complicit in our own enslavement. Orwell understood the enslavement.

Now that the corporate coup is over, we stand naked and defenseless. We are beginning to understand – as Karl Marx knew – that unfettered and unregulated capitalism is a brutal and revolutionary force that exploits human beings and the natural world to the point of exhaustion or collapse.