Orwell vs. Huxley

[Arising_uk]

The only knowing is now.
.

Then you should know what the morrow will bring?

[Arising_uk]

...
The question wouldn’t seem so silly if we appreciated why we are not educated men. If how Plato describes education is correct it raises the question of the purpose of education which is to produce educated men. …

Er!? No, for Plato the purpose of an education was to produce the members of his imagined society, the Republic, as such he proposed a decades long free universal education system available to both males and females as the answer.

But if we don’t know what an educated person is, …

An educated person is someone with a grasp of the basics of a variety of subjects with the ability to reason, research, analyse and think logically, that some of the subjects can be about generalist subjects like the Arts and Humanities makes for a more educated populace and hopefully one that can exercise its democratic vote with at least a modicum of forethought. It's why many countries don't offer free education to their populace.

[gaffo]

prior to Trumpism i would concur with:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_cont ... 1CcclqEiZw

not so sure now however ;-/.

either way its bad.

;-(

[gaffo]

"even if we can't prevent the forces of tyranny from prevailing, we can at least "understand the force by which we are crushed." Simone Weil

George Orwell and Aldous Huxley offer two paths leading to the ultimate decline of a free society. Is there any way either can be avoided? Does it mean that society, left to its own devices, is incapable of freedom? It does seem so. Do you disagree?

Here is a good page which sum up the ideas of Orwell and Huxley.

http://muddlingtowardmaturity.typepad.c ... -1984.html

Contrary to common belief even among the educated, Huxley and Orwell did not prophesy the same thing.
Orwell warns that we will be overcome by an externally imposed oppression.
But in Huxley’s vision, no Big Brother is required to deprive people of their autonomy, maturity and history. As he saw it, people will come to love their oppression, to adore the technologies that undo their capacities to think.

So is the danger more from imposed indoctrination or rather from within: the nature of Man?

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 egoism.
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, Huxley added, people are controlled by inflicting pain. In Brave New World, they are controlled by inflicting pleasure.
In short, Orwell feared that what we hate will ruin us.
Huxley feared that what we love will ruin us.

Is Huxley right? Will the human tendency to fall victim to distractions furthered by the Internet lead to a shallow society incapable of remembering what is necessary to sustain freedom or will indoctrination as we are experiencing it now in media and in education first force the sacrifice of freedom for the sake of an agenda.?

note EM forrester's The Machin Stops - honorable mention and apt - written 30 yrs before either of the other works

[Dontaskme]

The only knowing is now.
.

Then you should know what the morrow will bring?

Tommorow never comes. So any knowing about what never happens would be a waste of time.

.

[Arising_uk]

Tommorow never comes. So any knowing about what never happens would be a waste of time.

.

Make your mind up, as it was you who said that you didn't know what the morrow would bring?

Still,,if it never comes then you must know what it won't be bringing.

[Dontaskme]

Tommorow never comes. So any knowing about what never happens would be a waste of time.

.

Make your mind up, as it was you who said that you didn't know what the morrow would bring?

Still,,if it never comes then you must know what it won't be bringing.

There is no one aka thing to make up their mind, there is only mind no thing makes up.

There is no thing to know any thing, there is only knowing which is not a thing. The knower is not a thing yet knows all things.

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[Gary Childress]

The only knowing is now.
.

Then you should know what the morrow will bring?

Tommorow never comes..

It would be interesting to see this thread of debate fleshed out into an Abbot and Costello style comedy routine, however, given that no such state of affairs currently exists and given that "tomorrow never comes", it seems logically impossible.

[Nick_A]

...
The question wouldn’t seem so silly if we appreciated why we are not educated men. If how Plato describes education is correct it raises the question of the purpose of education which is to produce educated men. …

Er!? No, for Plato the purpose of an education was to produce the members of his imagined society, the Republic, as such he proposed a decades long free universal education system available to both males and females as the answer.

But if we don’t know what an educated person is, …

An educated person is someone with a grasp of the basics of a variety of subjects with the ability to reason, research, analyse and think logically, that some of the subjects can be about generalist subjects like the Arts and Humanities makes for a more educated populace and hopefully one that can exercise its democratic vote with at least a modicum of forethought. It's why many countries don't offer free education to their populace.

Education meant something in Plato's time. Now it just means indoctrination. The sophists were charging for education. A free education was essential for the working class since they couldn't pay the sophists. It is impossible now since education has become indoctrination. What is the value of free indoctrination?

You describe what I recognize as an indoctrinated person. Apparently for you there is no difference

[-1-]

Education meant something in Plato's time. Now it just means indoctrination.

I think you are doing a Carvalho. Carvalho, not his real name or nick, is a user on a different website, who based his prime argument on the misconception that proof and evidence are equivalent. Hundreds of us tried to convince him otherwise. He was immovable in his misconception. Eventually everyone abandoned hope of making him change his trend, and though we did not give in to him, he became a public figure of ridicule. Although we were more angry at him than laughing at him.

You are doing the same thing, Nick_A. Indoctrination and education are separate, distinct concepts, so in the language, as in reality. You are just being a tiresome, old man who has stopped being able to conceptualize anything new for the last 20 or so years.

In fact, it is a common factor among aging schizophrenics to have concepts rigidize in their minds the wrong way, and pulling the patient's entire weltanschauung with it into a mental G'ehenna. I used to belong to a social group where an aging schizophrenic every time we met, gave a passionate, convincing speech about education and literacy, and his point patently did not make sense. But his presenting it was so convincing, that everyone took him seriously, and argued with him, against his point, until it turned out that he had no point.

Nick_A, I ain't a physician, much less a psychiatrist, but you display the precise same symptoms: you mix up concepts, and you convince yourself that you are not, and then go on and forever argue your ill-thought-out theories, which depend on a few basic premises, each of which is a grave misconception over the language and consequently over reality. Your inner reality-testing mental mechanisms have been failing you I suspect for a very long time, and there is no return to normalcy.

[Arising_uk]

There is no one aka thing to make up their mind, there is only mind no thing makes up.

There is no thing to know any thing, there is only knowing which is not a thing. The knower is not a thing yet knows all things.

.

Then why were you waffling on about the morrow? But since apparently you are this 'knower' and know all things then you know what happens upon the morrow.

[Arising_uk]

Education meant something in Plato's time. Now it just means indoctrination. …

No idea where you went to school or where you've actually taught but in general the education in modern western schools(maybe not America) is pretty much what Plato wished for and in fact its probably a fair bit more rigorous than he would have advocated for the age group.

The sophists were charging for education. A free education was essential for the working class since they couldn't pay the sophists. …

There was no free education, it was just cheap. That's why Plato proposed his system for his Republic.

It is impossible now since education has become indoctrination. What is the value of free indoctrination? …

It allows the student to avoid such as you and the religious indoctrination you propose.

You describe what I recognize as an indoctrinated person. Apparently for you there is no difference

There is a great difference between the person who would receive the indoctrination you propose and the person who works at the education upon offer, not least that the latter has a choice and the ability to choose their beliefs.

[commonsense]

This post had been missed in the melees.

Overpopulation is the key problem, as usual. When the "masses" are sufficiently numerous, they stop mattering to politicians, if they ever did (consider Stalin's comment about one death being a tragedy but a million a statistic).

So it's a matter of manipulation. This current situation - which most find problematic - perfectly suits those at the top. This is their faulty design. So, with the masses' education neglected, the many start to lose touch with society's bodies of knowledge after a couple of generations because poor and middle class parents will also lack the capacity to compensate for the rationalisation of their children's education.

Even the Romans knew that an undereducated populace was easier to control and manipulate than an educated one (saves on public education costs too). Now, with public education suitably rationalised into work preparation, moguls like Murdoch propagandise freely to undereducated pliable minds.

George Carlin saw it clearly enough: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ILQepXUhJ98 - he was on fire

"They don’t want people who are smart enough to sit around a kitchen table and think about how badly they’re getting fucked by a system that threw them overboard 30 fuckin’ years ago. They don’t want that. You know what they want? They want obedient workers. Obedient workers, people who are just smart enough to run the machines and do the paperwork.

And just dumb enough to passively accept all these increasingly shittier jobs with the lower pay, the longer hours, the reduced benefits, the end of overtime and vanishing pension that disappears the minute you go to collect it.

And now they’re coming for your Social Security money. They want your fuckin' retirement money. They want it back so they can give it to their criminal friends on Wall Street. And you know something? They’ll get it. They’ll get it all from you sooner or later 'cause they own this fuckin' place. It’s a big club and you ain't in it. You and I are not in the big club. ...The table is tilted, folks. The game is rigged and nobody seems to notice. ...And nobody seems to notice. Nobody seems to care.

That’s what the owners count on. The fact that Americans will probably remain wilfully ignorant of the big red, white and blue dick that’s being jammed up their assholes every day, because the owners of this country know the truth. It’s called the American Dream, 'cause you have to be asleep to believe it."

I read your post earlier (as well as all the posts in the thread), but I didn't reply anywhere because I could neither add anything nor argue in opposition to anything.

There have been quite a number of pre-melee posts regarding the OP. As for me, I think that Orwell and Huxley were both right. I happen to think that Huxley's path to the downfall of civilization has greater weight than Orwell's (by about 60-40), but each route accelerates the other, doesn't it.

I'll admit that I joined the melee (on separate thread) as I thought there was hardly anything more to be said here. For me, yours is the definitive post of the OP. Anything after that would be boring by comparison.

[Dontaskme]

Then why were you waffling on about the morrow?

What morrow?

But since apparently you are this 'knower' and know all things then you know what happens upon the morrow.

Nothing can be known until it's happening, tommorow never happens.

.

[Arising_uk]

What morrow?

I have no idea what the morrow brings, but what ever it will bring it will be known now. …

You tell me?

Nothing can be known until it's happening, tommorow never happens.

Then you should be able to tell me what's not happening tomorrow now.