I find it strange that a widely read author with a known interest in history had apparently never heard of the panopticon. Orwell outright states that the telescreens work on the same principle: "There was of course no way of knowing whether you were being watched at any given moment. ... You had to live—did live, from habit that became instinct—in the assumption that every sound you made was overheard, and, except in darkness, every movement scrutinized."
At least the Orwellian invisible guards were paid employees. On contemporary Internet, there is no shortage of unpaid volunteers digging in other people's activity just for the thrill of getting someone punished.
The difference is that the state apparatus may run out of money; the USSR did. You never run of enthusiastic volunteers, as long as you reward their actions with what they want, in this case, a public spectacle of a virtual guillotine.
Orwell understood that in order to create an atmosphere of total oppression there could be no loyalty between anyone. This is why the party criminalizes sex for pleasure. It’s the recognition that the loyalty within families is the greatest threat to the totalitarian state.
The government in Brave New World recognizes that as well but seeks to eliminate the threat by other means (taboo and superficial pleasure).
We liked 1984. Forbidden fruit tastes the best, but it also spoke to us. Those empty slogans and lingering fear of the Secret Police did translate fairly well into real life behind the Curtain.
Plus, Asimov complaining about Orwells female characters is kind of rich.
I'd go with Orwell over Asimov as far as predictions of the future...
Great ideas, great concept, definitely food for thought - but painful to read.
Narrative is a different art.
Cloud Atlas is David Mitchell.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloud_Atlas_(novel)
I suspect you mean Atlas Shrugged.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlas_Shrugged
(And now I've got Tom Hanks as Hank Reardon in my head. Didn't see that coming.)
This aspect of the Futurians is often memory-holed, I thank you for bringing it to everyone's attention.
His critique of the science fiction, that screens which watch you back is a poor prediction (because how on Earth could Google watch people at scale?!) is particularly hilarious, if a bit sad.
It critiques 1984 for it's narrow focus on the Stalinist form of totalitarianism, but I see no actual apologia for Stalinism. (The closest is the acknowledgement of the role the USSR under Stalin played as an ally against the Nazis.)
It does argue that 1984 misses the internal instability of totalitarianisms like Stalinism, which besame evident after 1984 was written.
> His critique of the science fiction, that screens which watch you back is a poor prediction (because how on Earth could Google watch people at scale?!) is particularly hilarious, if a bit sad.
The critique isn't of screens that watch you back, but of the failure of imagination of Orwell envisioning only screens by which a human watches you in real time rather than one that does so by some automated, scalable means.
Instability compared to what? Stalin's USSR survived major natural disasters and wars, expanded its territory and the leader died in office. Multiple democracies in contemporary Europe were destroyed from the same influences. Only UK, Sweden and Switzerland could be said to be at least as stable as Stalinist USSR.
I despise and hate Stalin, but his regime was fairly stable compared to contemporaries.
Instability compared to what Asimov sees as Orwell's perspective that Stalinism is impervious to internal erosion (including death of the leader.)
Soviet Communism survived, it did not survive unchanged.
> it became more stable as Stalin was driver of instability at the top.
Asimov would, based on the fairly explicit statements in the review on the topic, say that it got more stable precisely because it became less totalitarian.
I’m not interested in arguing whether Asimov is right on this point, but it is indefensible to claim that his painting of Stalinism as tyranny that was explicitly repudiated as such by later Soviet Communism is an apologia for Stalinism.
"Let them cope by themselves. I've done the main thing. Could anyone have dreamed of telling Stalin that he didn't suit us anymore and suggesting he retire? Not even a wet spot would have remained where we had been standing. Now everything is different. The fear is gone, and we can talk as equals. That's my contribution. I won't put up a fight."
That is not what instability of regime means. It does not refer to individual being forced to retire. The regime itself was more stable then before. Khruschev retirement did not weakened nor endangered regime.
Stalin did changed people on top too. Some changes and power struggles after his death are not more instability or "touched" communism.
Khruschev was the first one retired. Powerful people before him left power dead (by execution) or by being imprisoned forever. That is being more stable.
It did became safer to both hold power and not to hold it in Russia after Stalin death.
Also, actual Stalin system was remarkably stable.
Finally, the system was that most of the time they don't watch. Only sometimes. Which would describe tech of 2021 quite accurately. It is 40 years later and pretty much that is what we got.
Sure, but that's not really germane to the review, which isn't that 1984 doesn't highlight some things that are real concerns that might affect even non-Stalinist governments (as Stalinism itself includes some elements that can be found outside of it, as well), but that 1984 is basically an unimaginative, literal overlay of Stalinism on top of contemporary (at the time of writing) English society through the biases of the authors social class where the technical elements were relatively unimaginative and poorly thought through in their pragmatics.
Scroll to the bottom of the article.
> His critique of the science fiction, that screens which watch you back is a poor prediction (because how on Earth could Google watch people at scale?!) is particularly hilarious, if a bit sad.
> Orwell was unable to conceive of computers or robots, or he would have placed everyone under non-human surveillance.
I guess this answers it
It is also stretch - not making robots did not mean you are not able to imagine them. It means they are not necessary for story. Asimov was not too good with humans, which would be fine. But the idea that it must be robots is weakness of his critique.
http://www.newworker.org/ncptrory/1984.htm