Huxley vs. Orwell: Which Dystopia Are We Actually Living In? — Transcript

Full transcript

1. 0:05When we imagine a dystopian future, two
2. 0:09titanic visions often come to mind. They
3. 0:12are the twin pillars of our modern
4. 0:15anxieties.
5. 0:16On one hand, there is the world of
6. 0:19George Orwell's 1984,
7. 0:22a future of overt oppression, a world of
8. 0:25constant surveillance, propaganda, and
9. 0:29state sponsored terror, a boot stamping
10. 0:32on a human face forever. It is a tyranny
11. 0:37of pain. On the other hand, there is the
12. 0:40world of Aldis Huxley's brave new world.
13. 0:44A future of genetic engineering,
14. 0:46psychological conditioning, and endless
15. 0:50entertainment.
16. 0:51A society enslaved not by force, but by
17. 0:55its own addiction to pleasure. It is a
18. 0:59tyranny of pleasure. For decades, we
19. 1:03have asked the same haunting question.
20. 1:06Which of these prophets was right? Are
21. 1:09we doomed to be crushed by what we hate
22. 1:12or ruined by what we love? In this
23. 1:15investigation, we will place these two
24. 1:18nightmares side by side and ask the most
25. 1:22important question of all. Which
26. 1:25dystopia are we actually living in?
27. 1:30The first battleground in any dystopia
28. 1:33is the control of information. But our
29. 1:36two authors predicted radically
30. 1:38different methods. In Orwell's world,
31. 1:40control is achieved by inflicting pain
32. 1:43and hiding the truth. The party bans
33. 1:45books, rewrites history in the Ministry
34. 1:48of Truth, and uses its newsspeak
35. 1:50language to make disscent literally
36. 1:52unthinkable. They fear the public having
37. 1:55access to information, so they starve
38. 1:57them of it. The truth is a secret. In
39. 2:00Huxley's world, control is achieved by
40. 2:03inflicting pleasure and drowning the
41. 2:05truth. There is no need to ban books
42. 2:08because no one wants to read them. The
43. 2:10public is not starved of information.
44. 2:12They are flooded with a tsunami of
45. 2:14irrelevant entertainment, celebrity
46. 2:16gossip, and mindless fun. The truth
47. 2:18isn't hidden. It's simply lost in a sea
48. 2:21of triviality.
49. 2:23Orwell feared a world where the state
50. 2:25would control us by censoring what we
51. 2:27read. Huxley feared a world where there
52. 2:29would be no reason to censor because we
53. 2:31would be too busy amusing ourselves to
54. 2:33care about the truth. One feared the
55. 2:36prison, the other the theme park.
56. 2:40Once you control what people know, you
57. 2:43must control what they do. In our second
58. 2:47round, we look at the mechanisms of
59. 2:50social control.
60. 2:53Orwell's vision is one of external
61. 2:56control through fear. The telescreen is
62. 3:00in every home watching and listening.
63. 3:03The thought police hunt down anyone who
64. 3:06even thinks of rebellion.
65. 3:09Your neighbors and even your own
66. 3:12children are potential informants. The
67. 3:15population is kept in line by the
68. 3:18constant terrifying presence of big
69. 3:21brother. It is a society controlled by
70. 3:25what it fears most, pain and punishment.
71. 3:30Huxley's vision is one of internal
72. 3:33control through conditioning. There is
73. 3:36no need for a thought police because
74. 3:38thought has been engineered from birth.
75. 3:42Babies are psychologically conditioned
76. 3:44to love their predetermined social cast.
77. 3:48In adulthood, any lingering unhappiness
78. 3:51is simply medicated away with the
79. 3:54perfect drug, soma, which offers a
80. 3:57blissful holiday from reality. The
81. 4:01population is not controlled by what
82. 4:03they fear, but by what they desire. It
83. 4:07is a society controlled by an endless
84. 4:10appetite for destruction and chemical
85. 4:13happiness.
86. 4:16Two terrifying blueprints for
87. 4:18controlling a population.
88. 4:21If you find these dissections of
89. 4:24dystopian thought experiments
90. 4:26fascinating, consider subscribing to the
91. 4:29future past. Your support helps us
92. 4:33continue these investigations.
93. 4:36Now let's look at how each world deals
94. 4:39with our most fundamental human drives,
95. 4:43love and freedom.
96. 4:47A society is not truly controlled until
97. 4:50its most fundamental human bonds are
98. 4:54broken.
99. 4:56In our final round, we look at the fate
100. 4:59of love, family, and freedom.
101. 5:03In Orwell's world, these things are
102. 5:06forbidden. The party sees love and
103. 5:09family as a competing loyalty to the
104. 5:12state. Relationships are discouraged.
105. 5:16Pleasure is seen as a political act of
106. 5:19rebellion.
107. 5:21Winston and Julia's affair is not just a
108. 5:24romance. It is a thought crime.
109. 5:27Freedom is the ability to say that 2 + 2
110. 5:31make four, even if the party insists it
111. 5:35makes five. It is a desperate, dangerous
112. 5:39struggle to maintain one's inner sanity
113. 5:42against the crushing weight of the
114. 5:44state.
115. 5:47In Huxley's world, these same things are
116. 5:50made meaningless. There was no need to
117. 5:53forbid love and pleasure because
118. 5:55everyone belongs to everyone else. Sex
119. 5:59is a casual emotionless hobby. Not a
120. 6:03deep connection.
121. 6:04The concept of family is considered
122. 6:07obscene. Children are decanted in
123. 6:10laboratories and raised by the state.
124. 6:14Freedom is not a struggle. It's the
125. 6:16freedom to indulge every impulse. to be
126. 6:20a slave to your own appetites, endlessly
127. 6:23consuming and never questioning.
128. 6:28Orwell's characters are destroyed for
129. 6:30seeking what is forbidden.
130. 6:33Huxley's characters are destroyed
131. 6:36because they have forgotten that
132. 6:38anything is worth seeking at all.
133. 6:43So after three rounds, which vision of
134. 6:48the future won? Orwell's tyranny of pain
135. 6:53or Huxley's tyranny of pleasure?
136. 6:56The terrifying verdict is this. We got
137. 7:01both. We are living in a hybrid
138. 7:04dystopia,
139. 7:05a strange fusion of their worst fears.
140. 7:10We have the Orwellian surveillance.
141. 7:14Our every click, purchase, and location
142. 7:17is tracked, not just by the government,
143. 7:21but by corporations.
144. 7:24The telescreen is no longer on the wall.
145. 7:28It's in our pocket, and we carry it
146. 7:31willingly.
147. 7:33The propaganda is no longer just from
148. 7:36the state. It's tailored by algorithms
149. 7:40and spreads like wildfire through social
150. 7:43media.
151. 7:45And we have the Huxian distractions.
152. 7:49We are pacified by an infinite stream of
153. 7:53entertainment,
154. 7:54celebrity culture, and endless soma in
155. 7:58the form of likes, shares, and endless
156. 8:02scrolling. We are not forced to be
157. 8:06ignorant. We choose to be distracted,
158. 8:10drowning in a sea of information so vast
159. 8:14that the truth becomes just another
160. 8:17opinion.
161. 8:18Orwell feared that the truth would be
162. 8:21concealed from us. Huxley feared the
163. 8:24truth would be drowned in a sea of
164. 8:27irrelevance. As it turns out, both were
165. 8:31right.
166. 8:34The warnings of Orwell and Huxley are
167. 8:36not prophecies set in stone. They are
168. 8:39mirrors held up to show us the possible
169. 8:42consequences of our own choices. They
170. 8:44teach us that tyranny can arrive not
171. 8:47only in the form of a jack boot, but
172. 8:49also with a smiling face offering us
173. 8:52comfort and distraction. They teach us
174. 8:54that the most dangerous prison is the
175. 8:57one we don't realize we're in. Here at
176. 9:00the future past, we believe that
177. 9:02understanding these dystopian blueprints
178. 9:04is the first step towards avoiding them.
179. 9:07They are cautionary tales that arm us
180. 9:09with the most powerful tool of all,
181. 9:12awareness.
182. 9:14If this investigation into the
183. 9:16nightmares of the past resonated with
184. 9:17you, subscribe to our channel and join
185. 9:20us as we continue to unearth the
186. 9:22incredible futures that never were, so
187. 9:25we can be more mindful of the future we
188. 9:27are creating every day.
189. 9:29[Music]