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[Hoborobo234]

I just finished reading 1984 by George Orwell only today. 

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

I found the ending insane. The book is the most life changing book I've ever read, it chilled me to the bone and the ending is brilliant, the reader just feels so horrified, how they managed to change Winston.

Are there any other books like 1984 that i should read (not theme, but sheer brilliance and relevance)? Also, have you read it/reading it? What are your views and thoughts on the book?

[KaelGotDwarves]

In my opinion, Huxley's Brave New World is far more relevant to us today than 1984. Especially if you're American or a member of most capitalist modern societies.

Spoiler: Large image (click to show/hide)

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[Aqizzar]

I think they're both ridiculous stories founded on wildly overblown and starkly rigid appraisals of human nature.  1984 essentially assumes that all people are spineless idiots who can be conned into anything if you push them hard enough; Brave New World cops out of the whole question by presenting a world where all the people are built to be placid conformists from the zygote up.

I put them both in the same realm of literature as the Illuminatus! books.  Hamfisted cautionary tales reflecting a manic illogical conclusion of the speculations of their times.  Except Illuminatus was trying to be funny.

[cowofdoom78963]

Reality would be both of the books mushed together.

[KaelGotDwarves]

I think they're both ridiculous stories founded on wildly overblown and starkly rigid appraisals of human nature.  1984 essentially assumes that all people are spineless idiots who can be conned into anything if you push them hard enough;

Native American massacres, Holocaust, Cambodian genocide, Rwanda... List goes on and on. Those that control information control people- and can make them do horrible things.

Brave New World cops out of the whole question by presenting a world where all the people are built to be placid conformists from the zygote up.

Buy more shit! It's good for you! Go to school to get a good job! Get a good job to have a good retirement! Die! Don't do anything to upset the order set in place! There's no actual meaning to life besides being satisfied with what you're given. Everything is perfect, now move along citizen!

You're right though, they're both cautionary tales.

[sproingie]

One of the reasons to exercise literary license in the first place is to project one's dreams or fears into a world that is fantastic and unreal.  The fact that the world hasn't turned out exactly like 1984 or Brave New World is not the point, it's the parallels that can be drawn to the real world.

[Mr Tk]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_dystopian_literature

For your enjoyment. The one's which spring to my mind first are V For Vendetta, Animal Farm, and A Scanner Darkly (in fact just about most Philip K Dick).

[Strife26]

I think they're both ridiculous stories founded on wildly overblown and starkly rigid appraisals of human nature.  1984 essentially assumes that all people are spineless idiots who can be conned into anything if you push them hard enough;

Native American massacres, Holocaust, Cambodian genocide, Rwanda... List goes on and on. Those that control information control people- and can make them do horrible things.

And the world took those laying down.
I remember my final essay for last semester of English. Big Brother has taken over the world, what one work that we've read would you choose to save? My answer was effectively "You think I'd live that long?"

[JaaSwb]

We are pretty much all spineless idiots who can be conned into anything. At least one of the two, at any rate.

[cowofdoom78963]

We are pretty much all spineless idiots who can be conned into anything. At least one of the two, at any rate.

Not all of us.

What do you mean by "can be conned into anything" though?

[JaaSwb]

I suppose I should have quoted Aqizzar there, but the thread was so full of that line being quoted I didn't think it necessary. I was just joining the pileup by stating agreement with Kael and Strife.

Sure, not all of us are spineless, or idiots (though there are precious few who are neither), but it takes a lot for those exceptions to make any sort of difference in preventing this sort of thing. People like to say they wouldn't be fooled, or wouldn't play along after they were, but that rarely translates into anything meaningful.

[Servant Corps]

1984 essentially assumes that all people are spineless idiots who can be conned into anything if you push them hard enough

Interesting choice of word.

Oceania is built on doublethink, and EVERYONE, from the poorest prole to Big Brother himself, have to doublethink, or the entire system collaspes. Even the Inner Party have to hold contradictory ideas, believing that Oceania is both a great utopia and that it's a cynical way for the rich to keep power; that Oceania can easily annihilate its external enemies, and that Oceania has no real external enemies, only internal. It's not just the Middle Party that are being oppressed, even the Inner Party has to keep on living in a prison (both metaphorically and literally...the shortages ensured that even the richest people in Oceania have spartan living conditions) and worse, the Inner Party consent to terrible living standards and keeps on doublethinking, in the hope of feeling the joy of power and glory and being the boot that crushes the human race.

And, really, Goldstein (or is it O' Brien?) made it clear that's it really the Outer Party that suffers the short end of the stick in Oceania. The Proles are free, just like animals are free. They do not pose a threat to the government. But the Outer Party, the Middle Class, are the people who have enough power and motive to launch a movement to overthrow the Inner Party, and this is why the Inner Party oppresses the Outer Party.

[Aqizzar]

One thing that I don't like about 1984 or Brave New World (and maybe I missed this), but neither of them really explains how the world got that way.  There's just a big blank spot where the world and the statistically rational and reactive human race vanishes, replaced by the meat robots the premise of each relies on.  I think the transition is at least as important as how they got that way, and would really make each of them much more believable.  But no, the world just went to bed one night full of intellectual conflict and obstination, and woke up doublethinking and being born in test tubes.

[Servant Corps]

Goldstein/O' Brein stated in his book that the human race was never rational to begin with, history was basically a struggle was always between the Inner Party (the Rich, who wanted to keep power), and the Outer Party (the Middle Class, who wanted to gain power and become the new Rich; they often times tried to use the Poor to help the rebellion against the Rich). What Oceania did was end that struggle, by ensuring that the Outer Party could never again rebel against the Inner Party through the use of repression and doublethink (Goldstein called Oceania's form of government Oligarchical Collectivism and declared that this form of government was also adopted in Eurasia and Eastasia).

In the interrogation scene, O' Brein stated that Oceania was in fact the culmination of previous dictatorships such as the the Stalinists and the Nazis. The only difference is that the pre-WW3 dictatorships thought that they were actually having some other greater purpose to exist (social equality or supporting the master race). Oceania is at least smart enough to admit that the only purpose Oceania serve is to keep the Inner Party in power forever.

I don't remember how Brave New World justified the transition; I do remember a nuclear war, and the Disaster of Cyprus (or was it Crete?). Gah.