[Screwston]

People always bring it up on the forum. Should every member read it?? I've never heard of it until last year.

[Technics]

Must read.

Red pill dudes will see all kinds of parallels to what goes on in the world today from everything related to international politics to feminist movement, to many other things.

Very similar concepts to the Matrix, which I assume everybody has seen.

[Emancipator]

1984 and A Brave New World are both very good and interesting books.

As Technics said, you can find many parallels to what is happening in the world today to the dangers warned in the two above mentioned books.

[GBG]

Yeah check it out you'll enjoy it bro.

[Ovid]

It's a dark book, but it's not a long one. It should be mandatory reading for everyone.

[Cincinnatus]

(02-08-2013 11:47 PM)houston Wrote:  

People always bring it up on the forum. Should every member read it?? I've never heard of it until last year.

Did you go to high school here in the U.S.? I thought 1984 was required reading almost everywhere here (though most people missed the message).

I enjoy it but agree with Roosh, read Animal Farm first, as a stepping stone.

Also, pick up Down and Out in Paris and London, it's a good read.

[Screwston]

Where else would I have gone to high school lol?? I never read it in school but was in and out of alternative schools during my junior and senior years. Did the book inspire a movie? I think we had to read Animal Farm but I probably got the cliff notes instead.

[titan22]

Like someone said above, 1984 and A Brave New World should be required reading. Most people I know read them and see them as works of fiction, but they are from from it. I you enjoy A Brave New World, Huxley wrote a follow up 25 years later, A Brave New World:Revisited in which he talks about how much faster the thoughts he had are occurring and warns of the problems with continuing down the road, which we have.

[Cincinnatus]

(02-09-2013 12:04 AM)titan22 Wrote:  

I you enjoy A Brave New World, Huxley wrote a follow up 25 years later, A Brave New World:Revisited in which he talks about how much faster the thoughts he had are occurring and warns of the problems with continuing down the road, which we have.

Didn't know Huxley wrote a follow up a quarter of a century later, I gotta check that out. It's been mentioned around here that the dystopia we live currently reside in more closely resembles Brave New World than 1984.

[Deluge]

(02-09-2013 12:08 AM)MSW2007 Wrote:  

(02-09-2013 12:04 AM)titan22 Wrote:  

I you enjoy A Brave New World, Huxley wrote a follow up 25 years later, A Brave New World:Revisited in which he talks about how much faster the thoughts he had are occurring and warns of the problems with continuing down the road, which we have.

Didn't know Huxley wrote a follow up a quarter of a century later, I gotta check that out. It's been mentioned around here that the dystopia we live currently reside in more closely resembles Brave New World than 1984.

[evilhei]

Its a good book. Also Orwells "Animal Farm" and Yevgeny Zamyatin "We" are similar to this. I read all them when I was 13 or so, should pick up again and see what I think of them now..

[K Galt]

Not only is it a must read, it's a must re-read.

Read it.

Think about it.

Observe the world around us.

Than re-read it.

Same goes for Huxley's Brave New World.

We are living through The Age of Dystopian Transition.

[Thomas the Rhymer]

I'd add Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury to the list.

It's a book about a place where reading books became so culturally unacceptable that it became banned. It wasn't that reading was inherently right or wrong, but popular culture just disliked a certain behaviour so much that it was shouted down and eventually made illegal. If you are looking for parallels, it's probably more insightful than 1984.

[TheBulldozer]

P Dog,

That cartoon was profound. It sent shivers up my back.

Top post.

[Soma]

North Korea implements Orwell's 1984 society.
The US has evolved into Huxley's Brave New World society.
China combines a mixture of both.

[Angry Beaver]

1984, Brave New World and Fahrenheit 451 are must read books!

[Acute Angle]

My take on this Huxley vs Orwell debate is that in some ways they are both right, and both wrong.

Huxley is right because we are being seduced by things we love into letting our guard down, whilst the total-surveillance apparatus that Orwell correctly warned about is being put in place.

I haven't read the books for some time, but I seem to remember that elites were held responsible for the oppression in both. If so, I disagree. I just read Lila by Robert M Pirsig (who wrote Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance). It's not a great work of literature, but is a tremendous work of philosophy. He makes the point that all societies are a higher form of Quality (value) than Homo Sapiens, and they will take steps to preserve themselves in ways that may well act against humans' aggregated interests and intentions. Elites are not bigger than society, they do not control it, they are its victims just as much as we are (although they will enjoy their particular brand of Soma more, perhaps).

If you have any interest in philosophy or metaphysics, read Lila.

[KorbenDallas]

SPOILER ALERT





The book is a great love story, but ultimately very sad because the protagonist loses in the end. We also learn he never really had a chance to win. A great book warning of the dangers of tyrants.

[Ovid]

I think 1984 is very applicable to today, and to the West. It's not as explicit in the US as in, say, North Korea, but it's much more visible now than when the book was written.

[thatGuy]

Yes. It's easily right up there with Bible, Iliad, or the Heart of Darkness in the top 10 most important texts of the Western culture.

[jmoney29]

I see 1984 as more comparable to today. I think of Bin Laden or terrorism in a role similar to Goldstein in 1984.

[Chris Brown]

Just finished 1984. It was good because of how applicable it is today. As far as entertainment, Animal Farm was better. Finishing it was a mission and I had to will myself to get through it. Does Winston die in the end?

[Nascimento]

Watched the movie for the first time this weekend.

It's worth a watch, but only after you've read the book. Otherwise much of it won't make sense.

[Lunostrelki]

I recently recommended this to a Chinese girl I work with; she read it and said its depiction of communism was very accurate.

To me the book is a criticism of communism through and through. Not a criticism of religion, or totalitarian government per se. It's not a parallel for the West (the model for Orwell's book was Stalin's USSR plus electronic surveillance) or a warning against fascism. 1984 is a devastating blow against the deleterious mentality that comes with all Marxist and cultural Marxist movements.

Later I read Koestler's "Darkness at Noon." It's the inspiration for the final third of 1984 and also very, very good. In many ways it's the advanced-but-unwieldy-prototype version of Orwell's work, a bit windy but it gets into more detail.

[Chris Brown]

I am going to watch this movie.