TrueLife - Orwell vs Huxley Part 1: 1984, Brave New World & the Future of Freedom

Episode Date: August 24, 2020

One on One Video Call W/George https://tidycal.com/georgepmonty/60-minute-meetingSupport the show:https://www.paypal.me/Truelifepodcast?locale.x=en_US🚨🚨Curious about the future of psychedelics? Imagine if Alan Watts started a secret society with Ram Dass and Hunter S. Thompson… now open the door. Use Promocode TRUELIFE for Get 25% off monthly or 30% off the annual plan For the first yearhttps://www.district216.com/https://app.podscribe.ai/episode/50764252Speaker 0 (0s): Well, I guess you better listen up Pilgrim. We're about to get in to some brave new world versus George Orwell. What a horrible John Wayne impression, isn't it. Hey, I tried, we gotta to do gave it the old college try there. I gave it the old John Wayne American hero, the inspiration to Clint Eastwood, dirty Harry. You know, the reason I was going with his Western style breakdown, because I really want to get into how our world is the way that it is today. And I've been reading rereading some of the classics, 1984 by George Orwell, brave new world by all this Huxley. And I was curious as to what most people would think about today's environment. Would you, my friend think that we are living in a world more like 1984, a sort of surveillance state, or do you think we are living in a brave new world, a technocratic state. If I were to ask you that, what would you say if I was to take a poll? What would America say? What do you think Europe would say? No, that's a good question. So I thought we would go over a few passages of both books. I thought we dig into a little bit of both and I've let you be the judge kind of like, remember when you were a kid and you would have watched the NFL with your dad, and there was always the Buick to call, well, I'm bringing it back and now you get to make the call. I think you're going to enjoy it. George Orwell's 1984 was written in 1948. All they did was kind of switch the numbers around they're all this Huxley, 1931. This is sort of a tale of the tape here. A lot of people don't know, however, brave new world written by all this Huxley actually had a second book written, kind of a followup. And it was called brave new world revisited where all this Huxley goes into how the culture is evolving, what got right and what he got wrong. If you purchase that book, you will also find some correspondence between him and George Orwell. Now I know what you're thinking. Yeah, George, everybody knows those two men were alive at the same time. Most of us have read the correspondence. Don't you have anything new for us, George? We're just going to repeat all this old Gar bodge no, my friends, I have an exclusive for you because I care about you and I love you. And I did my research. I George Monte, true life podcast, and going to bring to you the first ever dialogue leaked. I don't want to give up my source, but have, you know, it's a very high level source. And as far as I know, you will be the very first person to hear this dialogue. Now let me set it up for you. It was late in their careers. Orwell's book was enjoined, tremendous success on mr. Aldous Huxley, who by that time had discovered LSD 25 and was friends with dr. Timothy Leary. He took it upon himself or perhaps the LSD took upon him. I guess there was a rather large dose and Huxley became a little bit upset, maybe a little jealous at the success of Orwell, who he believed was not of the quality of himself as a writer and or as a journalist or a thinker. So under this huge dose of LSD, he went over to George Orwell's house late at night, walking across his grass, up to his house late at night, and then ensued the argument of what you're about to hear without any further ado. Let me play that for you. Now. Speaker 1 (5m 7s): I know what you're thinking. You're thinking. Did he fire six shots or only five? Oh, I remember asking you a God damn thing now to tell you the truth. I forgot myself and all this excitement truth is you the week. And I am the tyranny of evil, but be in this 44, Megan, the most powerful handgun in the world and we'll blow your head clean off. It's called baby it's cold. We still Jeff off. You could ask yourself question. Do I feel lucky? Do you give me the Babel ringer? The path of the righteous man is beset on all sides by the inequities of the selfish and the tyranny of evil men will ship it's the week. I will strike down upon the, with great vengeance and furious anger. And you will know I am the Lord. When I lay my vengeance upon you, did you hear me? I said, get off my lawn now. Speaker 0 (6m 5s): Now granted, I don't know what happened at the end there, but you can tell that was a very volatile situation. Very tense. Apparently Orwell had just planted some flowers or put some new seed on the lawn. Speaker 1 (6m 23s): So, Speaker 0 (6m 24s): Well, I brought it to you first there you guys go, you're welcome. Now let's get into what could have led to this. I think it's the battle of the books and that's what we're going to get into. I'm going to go through these books and you guys can be the judge of which book is more prescient of today. So let's start off with a little bit about all this Huxley. First, I'm going to read you a little bit of his bio and then we'll do a bit of George's bio. And then we're gonna get into some of the books, all this Huxley, absolutely detested mass culture and popular entertainment, and many of his toughest critical essays, as well as several intense passages in his fiction, consist of sneers and jeers at the cheapness of the cinematic ethic and the vulgarity of commercial music. He chance to die on the same day as the assassination of president Kennedy in November, 1963, being cheated of a proper obituary notice as a result and sharing the date of decease with C S Lewis chronicler of Narnia. So he missed the televisual event, which once, and for all confirmed the global village. But if he were able to return to us and cast his scornful and lofty gaze on our hedonistic society, he would probably be relatively unsurprised at the way. Things are going. Sex has been divorced from procreation to a degree, hard to imagine, even in 1963 and the current great debates in the moral science is concerned. The implications of reproductive cloning and the employment of fetal STEM cells and medicine. The study of history is everywhere, but especially in the United States in steep decline, public life in the richer societies is routinely compared to the rhythms of spectacle and entertainment. A flickering hunger for authenticity, pushes many people to explore the peripheral and shrinking worlds of the indigenous. This was all prefigured in brave new world. So in a way was the one child policy that was previously followed in communist China, where to the extent that the program is successful, we will not only see a formerly clannish society where everyone is an only child, but a formerly Marxist one that has no real cognit word for brotherhood. Intercontinental rocket travel has not become the commonplace Huxley anticipated, but it's to have become a cliche jumbo jets do the same work of abolishing distance for the masses, even though in a strange moment of refusal, the developed world has stepped back from the supersonic Concorde and reverted to the days of voyaging comfortably below the speed of sound. That's a quick, a little paragraph into all this Huxley and a little bi...

Darkness struck, a gut-punched theft, Sun ripped away, her health bereft. I roar at the void. This ain't just fate, a cosmic scam I spit my hate. The games rigged tight, shadows deal, blood on their hands, I'll never kneel. Yet in the rage, a crack ignites, occulted sparks cut through the nights. The scar's my key, hermetic and stark. To see, to rise, I hunt in the dark. fumbling, furious through ruins maze, lights my war cry, born from the blaze.

The poem is Angels with Rifles. The track, I Am Sorrow, I Am Lust by Codex Serafini. Check out the entire song at the end of the cast. Well, I guess you better listen up, Pilgrim. We're about to get in to some brave new world versus George Orwell. What a horrible John Wayne impression, isn't it? Hey, I tried. What are you going to do?

Gave it the old college try there. I gave it the old John Wayne, American hero, the inspiration to Clint Eastwood, Dirty Harry. You know, the reason I was going with this Western style breakdown, down because I really want to get into how our world is the way that it is today. And I've been reading, rereading some of the classics 1984 by George Orwell, Brave New World by Aldous Huxley.

And I was curious as to what most people would think about today's environment. Would you, my friend, think that we are. living in a world more like 1984, a sort of surveillance state, or do you think we are living in a brave new world, a technocratic state? If I were to ask you that, what would you say? If I was to take a poll, what would America say? What do you think Europe would say? I don't know. It's a good question. So I thought we would go over a few passages of both books. I thought we dig into a little bit of both and I'd let you be the judge kind of like remember when you were a kid and you would watch the NFL with your dad and there was always the you make the

call well I'm bringing it back and now you get to make the call I think you're going to enjoy it George Orwell 1984 was written in 1948 all they did was kind of switch the numbers around there Aldous Huxley 1931 This is sort of a tale of the tape here. A lot of people don't know. However, Brave New World, written by Aldous Huxley, actually had a second book written, kind of a follow-up.

And it was called Brave New World Revisited, where Aldous Huxley goes into how the culture is evolving what he got right and what he got wrong. If you purchase that book, you will also find some correspondence between him and George Orwell. Now, I know what you're thinking. Yeah, George, everybody knows those two men were alive at the same time. Most of us have read the correspondence.

Don't you have anything new for us, George? What are you just going to repeat all this old garbage? No, my friends. I have an exclusive for you because I care about you and I love you and I did my research. I, George Monti, True Life podcast,

I'm going to bring to you the first ever dialogue leaked. I don't want to give up my source, but I'll have you know it's a very high-level source. And as far as I know, you will be the very first person

to hear this dialogue. Now let me set it up for you. It was late, in their careers. Orwell's book was enjoying tremendous success on Mr. Aldous Huxley, who by that time had discovered LSD 25 and was friends with Dr. Timothy Leary. He took it upon himself, or perhaps the LSD took upon him. I guess there was a rather large dose, and Huxley became a little bit upset, maybe a little jealous at the success of Orwell, who he believed was not of the quality of himself as a writer and or as a journalist or a thinker.

So under this huge dose of LSD, he went over to George Orwell's house late at night, walking across his grass up to his house late at night, and then ensued the argument of what you're about to hear. Without any further ado, let me play that for you now. Get off my lawn. I know what you're thinking, punk. You're thinking that he fire six shots are only five. I don't remember asking you a goddamn thing.

Now to tell you the truth, I forgot myself and all this excitement. Truth is, you're the weak and I'm the tyranny of evil men. But being this is a 44-magnum, the most powerful handgun in the world, and we'll blow your head clean off. It's cool. We still just talk. You could ask yourself a question. Do I feel lucky? Well, do you punk? You read the Bible, Ringo?

The path of the righteous man is beset on all sides by the inequities of the selfish and the tyranny of evil men. Get off my law. I will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger. And you will know I am the Lord when I lay my vengeance upon you. Did you hear me? I said, get off my lawn now. Now, granted, I don't know what happened at the end there, but you can tell it was a very volatile situation. It was very tense.

Apparently Orwell had just planted some flowers or put some new seat on the lawn. So, well, I brought it to you first. So there you guys go. You're welcome. Now, let's get into what could have. led to this. I think it's the battle of the books and that's what we're going to get into. I'm going to go through these books and you guys can be the judge of which book is more prescient of today. So let's start off with a little bit about Aldous Huxley first. I'm going to read you

a little bit of his bio and then we're going to do a little bit of George's bio and then we're going to get into some of the books. Aldous Huxley absolutely detested mass culture and popular entertainment and many of his toughest critical essays as well as several intense pastes. in his fiction consist of sneers and jeers at the cheapness of the cinematic ethic and the vulgarity of commercial music. He chanced to die on the same day as the assassination of President Kennedy in November, 1963, being cheated of a proper obituary notice as a result, and sharing the date of deceased with C.S. Lewis, chronicler of Narnia. So he missed the television event, which once and

and for all confirmed the global village. But if he were able to return to us and cast his scornful and lofty gaze on our hedonistic society, he would probably be relatively unsurprised at the way things are going. Sex has been divorced from procreation to a degree hard to imagine even in 1963. And the current great debates in the moral sciences concern the implications of reproductive cloning and the employment of fetal stem cells and medicine. The study of history is everywhere, but especially in the United States, in steep decline.

Public life in the richer societies is routinely compared to the rhythms of spectacle and entertainment. A flickering hunger for authenticity pushes many people to explore the peripheral and shrieking worlds of the indigenous. This was all prefigured and brave new world. So in a way was the one-year-old, was the one-child policy that was previously followed in communist China,

where to the extent that the program is successful, we will not only see a formally clannish society, where everyone is an only child, but a formally Marxist one, that has no real cognate word for brotherhood. Intercontinental rocket travel has not become the commonplace, Huxley anticipated, but its equivalents have become a cliché. Jumbo Jets do the same work of abolishing distance for the masses, even though in a strange moment of refusal,

the developed world has stepped back from the supersonic concord and reverted to the days of voyaging comfortably below the speed of sound. That's a quick little paragraph into all this Huxley and a little bit about his book. Let's read a little bit about Orwell now. Orwell was the pin name of Eric Arthur Blair, born in 1903 in colonial India. He attended boarding school in England, and it was there that he first became aware of the hurtful class prejudice that plagued British society, developing an early sensitivity to the uses and abuses of power. Upon graduating from Eaton in 1921, Orwell signed on with the Burmese Indian Imperial Police, about which he commented, in order to hate imperialism, you have got to be part of it. his time in Burma affected him profoundly, and he quit without explanation five years later,

announcing that he was to become a writer. Finding himself nearly penniless and taking a job as a dishwasher, the young writer explored the topic of poverty firsthand in his first published book Down and Out in Paris and London, followed soon after by Burmese days, which recalled his time in the Imperial Police, though his interest in the plight of individuals attempting to transcend their social role, came across in such early comic novels as Keep the Aspidistra flying.

It wasn't until his impassioned account of the plight of English workers in the Road to Wigan Pier that his new political consciousness fully blossomed. Around this time, he and his new wife joined an anti-fascist militia at the outbreak of the Civil War in Spain, as is recounted in his homage to California. Catalonia. Sorry about it.

that. I almost said California. Hmm, do I know something? You guys don't know? Was that foreshadowing? Though he is perhaps best known for his brilliant satire animal farm and his classic dystopian novel 1984, which followed

essay collections such as Inside the Whale, reflected his continuing concern with the very real political and social circumstances of his day, following the death of his wife in 45, Orwell contracted tuberculosis and soon after his second marriage died in 1950 at the age of 46.

So there you have it, my friends. That's the beginning there. We've got a little background on them. I've got a little insight into some of their thoughts. Now, let us start off with Brave New World. This particular scene is from the beginning of the book and it gets into the conditioning of humans at an early age. And for those of you that haven't read the book in quite some time, Brave New World consists of different classes, alphas, betas, deltas, gamas, epsolons, each one being conditioned at birth,

here's a scene of how it starts. This particular scene is at the infant nursery. And the director, who is like the dictator, of the scientific world, that is brave new world, he is touring the nursery with his new class of alphas. And they are viewing everything. Now, bring in the children.

They hurried out of the room and returned in a minute or two, each pushing a kind of tall, dumb waiter laden on all its four wirenetted shelves with eight-month-old babies, all exactly alike. and all, since their cast was Delta, dressed in khaki. Put them down on the floor, the infants were unloaded. Now, turn them so they can see the flowers and books. Turned, the babies at once fell silent,

then began to crawl towards those clusters of sleek colors, those shapes so gay and brilliant on the white pages. As they approached, the sun came out of a moment, momentary eclipse behind a cloud. The roses flamed up as though with a sudden passion from within. A new and profound significance seemed to suffuse the shining pages of the books. From the ranks of the crawling babies came little squeals of excitement, gurgles and twitterings of pleasure.

The director rubbed his hands, excellent, he said. It might almost have been done on purpose. The swiftest crawlers were already at their goal. Small hands reached out uncertainly, touched, grasped, unpatalling the transfigured roses, crumpling the illuminated pages of the books. The director waited until all were happily busy.

Then, watch carefully, he said, in lifting his hand, he gave the signal. The head nurse, who was standing by a switchboard at the other end of the room, pressed down a little lever. There was a violent explosion. Shriller and even shriller. A siren shrieked, alarm bells maddeningly sounded. The children started, screamed.

Their faces were distorted with terror. And now, the director shouted, for the noise was deafening. Now we proceed to rub in the lesson with a mild electric shock. He waved his hand again, and the head nurse pressed a sound. second lever. The screaming of the babies suddenly changed its tone. There was something desperate,

almost insane about the sharp spasmodic yelps to which they now gave utterance. Their little bodies twitched and stiffened. Their limbs moved jerkily as if to tug of unseen wires. We can electrify the whole strip of floor, bawled the director in explanation, but that is not enough, he signaled to the nurse. The explosions ceased. The bell stopped ringing. The shriek of the siren died down from tone to tone into silence. The stiffly twitching bodies relaxed, and what had become the sob and yelp of infant maniacs broadened out once more into a normal howl of ordinary terror.

Offer them the flowers and the books again. The nurses obeyed. But at the approach of the roses, at the mere sight of those gaily colored images, of cockadoodle-do and ba-ba black sheep, The infants shrank away in horror. The volume of their howling suddenly increased. Observe, said the director triumphantly.

Observe. Books and loud noises, flowers, and electric shocks, already in the infant mind these couples were compromisingly linked. And after 200 repetitions of the same or a similar lesson would be wedded insolubly. What man has joined, nature is powerless to put asunder. They'll grow up with what the psychologist used to call an instinctive hatred of books and flowers. Reflexes, unalterably conditioned.

They'll be safe from books and botany all their lives. The director turned to his nurses. Take them away again. Still yelling, the khaki babies were loaded on to their dumb waiters and wheeled out, leaving behind them the smell of sour milk and a most welcome silence. one of the students held up his hand and though he could see quite well why you couldn't have lower caste people

wasting the community's time over books and that there was always the risk of their reading something which might undesirably deconditioned one of their reflexes yet well he couldn't understand about the flowers why go to the trouble of making it psychologically impossible

for deltas to like flowers patiently the dhc explained if the children were made to scream at the sight of a rose that was on grounds of high economic policy not so very long ago a century or thereabouts gamas deltas even epsylons had been conditioned to like flowers flowers in particular and wild nature in general the idea was to make them want to be going out into the country at every event opportunity and so compel them to consume transport and didn't they consume transport asked the student quite a lot the dhc replied but nothing else primroses and landscapes he pointed out have one grave defect they are gratuitous a love of nature keeps no factories busy it was decided to abolish the love of nature at any rate among the lower classes to abolish the love of nature to abolish the love of nature but not the tendency to consume transport. For, of course, it was essential that they should keep on going to the country, even though they hated it.

The problem was to find an economically sunder reason for consuming transport than a mere affection for primroses and landscapes. It was duly found. We conditioned the masses to hate the country, concluded the director, but simultaneously we condition them to love all country sports. At the same time, we see to it that all country sports shall entail the use of elaborate apparatus so that they consume manufactured articles as well as transport. Hence, those electric shocks. I see, said the student, was silent, lost in admiration. For me, this particular passage brings up two points.

The first off is the point. of eugenics. That is the separation of alphas, betas, deltas, epsolons, different classes of people. I think it's important to note that Huxley himself was a eugenicist. He believed that without calling the population, and by calling the population, I mean getting rid of people with deformities, getting rid of people with lower IQs,

getting rid of people who are unable to pull their own weight, that we are inherently ruining not only our species, but the planet. He made the argument that it is because of modern medicine. It is because of technology that so many people are alive today, people born prior to Huxley's time that did not have the modern medicine. technological advances. The majority of them died in childbirth, be it through deformity,

be it through disease, be it through unsanitary conditions. Huxley's theory went on to talk about inferior people outbreeding quality people. That theory, in my mind, is still alive and well today. When he talks about the different levels of people, the alphas, the betas, the gamas.

The book continues throughout to talk about the differences and how the people, the alphas on top, see the people below them as less than human. In our country, in the United States, it seems as though we are taught there's no such thing as a caste system here in our country. However, when you think about a really wealthy neighborhood, the majority of those neighborhoods have nannies.

They have gardeners. Are all those nannies and gardeners the same race of people that come from the country in which those people live? Or are they coming from a third world country? Are the nannies, the gardeners? Are they usually the same level of income as the person of whom they're caring for? Or are they of lower income? Could you make the argument that the people coming from the third world were in fact epsolons and deltas?

I'm not saying they are. I am just speaking about some similarities in our current environment that I think are similar to the world in which Huxley describes. I think you could say that. Have you gone to a sporting event? Have you gone to a theater and enjoyed the show and then afterwards stuck around to see the people cleaning up? I think you could make the argument that we have a caste system in our country.

I think you could make the argument that as much as people are taught about the American dream and striving hard to make it to the top, I think it's more difficult than ever to do so. The second part that passage makes me reflect on is that of social conditioning. In the passage I read, it starts with loud sirens and electric shocks. On the topic of sirens, I believe that today's public education system, which was built and founded on the Prussian system, is based all around bells and whistles. If you went to a public school, tell me if this sounds familiar. You walk into class. You stand up, put your hand over your heart and say the Pledge of Allegiance, conditioning.

You sit down at your desk. while turning your head up looking at an authority figure. Just the act of sitting down and looking up denotes that the person you are looking up to is someone to be respected. 30 minutes go by and you hear a bell in which you get up and go to the next class and you repeat the process again. You continue that conditioning process for 17 to 18 years.

The public education process is not so much critical thinking. It's based on creating obedient workers. Much like the nursery, the 18 years in public school is in fact a social conditioning laboratory. Another aspect of that particular conditioning that was used in the nursery

was the electric shocks. Now I know what you're thinking, George, we don't, we don't shock people. We don't use that particular sort of violence. No, we don't. But in today's world, you could make the case that, well, let me, let me say it this way. There's plenty of people who suffer from phantom leg syndrome. You know what that is? Like, I might not be saying that accurately, but have you ever felt like your leg, like buzz?

because your phone is in your pocket so much, it buzzes, and then sometimes when your phone is not in your pocket, like you still feel it. Like, that's kind of a shock, right? Or how about when you hear, for some of the older generation, you've got mail. You know, now it's just a beep, didip, did beep, or whatever tone you choose to put on your phone.

It's an alert. It is a shock in that it releases dopamine. It releases maybe some norapinephrine. but it releases a chemical in your brain to tell you to check your phone in the hopes of something good might be there or a surprise or news of some sort so you could make the argument that we don't need electric shocks when we have our phones with us or our watches with us or our tablets with us those in fact are the electric shocks of today. Now let us shift gears and talk about the opening of 1984. This particular scene is in the

beginning of the book where it talks about Winston, the main character, about his current living conditions. The hallway smelt of boiled cabbage and old rag mats at one end of it a colored poster too large for indoor display had been tacked to the wall. It depicted simply an enormous face more than a meter wide, the face of a man of about 45 with a heavy black mustache and ruggedly handsome features. Winston made for the stairs. It was no use trying the lift, even at the best of times it was seldom working, and at present the electric current was cut off by during daylight hours. It was part of the economy drive in preparation for hate week. The flat was seven flights up and Winston, who was 39, and had a varicose ulcer above his right ankle, went slowly,

resting several times on the way. On each landing opposite the lift shaft, the poster with the enormous face gazed from the wall. It was one of those pictures which are so contrived that the eyes follow you about when you move. Big Brother is watching you, the caption beneath it ran. Inside the flat, a fruity voice was reading out a list of of figures which had something to do with the production of pig iron. The voice came from an oblong metal plaque like a doled mirror, which formed part of the surface of the right-hand wall. Winston turned a switch and the voice sank somewhat. Though the words were still distinguishable, the instrument, the telescreen it was called, could be dimmed. But there was no way of shutting

it off completely. He moved over to the window, a small, small, frail figure, the meagerness of his body merely emphasized by the blue overalls, which were the uniform of the party. His hair was very fair, his face naturally sanguine. His skin roughened by a coarse soap and blunt razor blades and the cold of the winter that had just ended. Outside, even through the shut window pane, the world looked cold. Down in the street, little eddies of wind were whirling dust. torn paper into spirals. And though the sun was shining in the sky, harsh blue,

there seemed to be no color in anything except the posters that were plastered everywhere. The black mustachioed face gazed down from every commanding corner. There was one on the house front immediately opposite. Big Brother is watching you, the caption said. While the dark eyes looked deep into Winston's own, down at street level another poster torn at one corner flapped fitfully in the wind alternately covering and uncovering the single word ingsock in the far distance a helicopter skimmed down between the roofs

hovered for an instant like a blue bottle and darted away again with a curving flight it was the police patrol snooping into people's windows the patrols did not matter however only the thought police matter. Behind Winston's back, the voice from the telescreen was still babbling away about pig iron and the over-fulfillment of the ninth three-year plan. The telescreen received and transmitted simultaneously. Any sound that Winston made. Above the level of a very low whisper would be picked up by it.

Moreover, so long as he remained within the field of vision which the metal plaque commanded, he could be seen as well as heard. There was, of course, no way of knowing whether you were being watched at any given moment. How often or on what system? The thought police plugged in on any individual wire was guesswork. It was even conceivable that they watched everybody all the time. But at any rate, they could plug in your wire whenever they wanted to.

You had to live, did live, from habit that became instant. in the assumption that every sound you made was overheard and except in darkness every movement scrutinized Winston kept his back turned to the telescreen it was safer though as he well knew even a back can be revealing a kilometer away the ministry of truth his place of work towered vast and white above the grimy landscape this he thought with a sort of vague distaste this was london chief city of Airstrip 1. It's self the third most populous of the provinces in Oceania. He tried to squeeze out some childhood memory that should tell him whether London had always

been quite like this. Were there always these vistas of rotting 19th century houses? Their sides shored up with balks of timber. Their windows patched with cardboard and their roofs with corrugated iron. Their crazy garden wall sagging in all directions. And the bomb sites were the wall. the plaster dust swirled in the air, and the pillow herbs straggled over the heaps of rabble, and the places where the bombs had cleared a larger path,

and there had sprung up sordid colonies of wooden dwellings like chicken houses. But it was no use. He could not remember. Nothing remained of his childhood except a series of bright-lit table-loo occurring against no background and mostly unintelligible. The Ministry of Truth, Many True, in Newspeak, was startingly different from any other object in sight. It was an enormous pyramidal structure of glittering white concrete, soaring up, terrace after terrace,

300 meters into the air. From where Winston stood, it was just possible to read, picked out on its white face and elegant lettering, the three slogans of the party. War is peace. Freedom is slavery, ignorance is strength. The Ministry of Truth contained, it was said, 3,000 rooms above ground level and corresponding ramifications below.

Scattered about London, there were just three other buildings of similar appearance and size. So completely did they dwarf the surrounding architecture that from the roof of victory mansions, you could see all four of them simultaneously. They were the homes of the four ministries between which the entire apparatus of government was divided. The Ministry of Truth, which concerned itself with news, entertainment, education, and the fine arts. The Ministry of Peace, which concerned itself with war. The Ministry of Love, which maintained law and order, and the Ministry of Plenty,

which was responsible for economic affairs. their names in Newspeak, many true, mini packs, many love, and many plenty. So there, we see a different idea. We see Orwell's idea of the future. The first point I want to bring up about that particular passage is the point of surveillance. They talk about the telescreen. It could be dimmed, but there was no way of shutting it off completely. You know, there's a clip I saw.

Everybody knows about Alexa and your phone and the surveillance capitalism, whether it's Google or the search engines. I'm often reminded of, I remember seeing an ESPN clip one time where the sportscaster, I think it was during the NFL a few years back. I'm sorry, it was during the Super Bowl a few years back where he had said, with today's technology, not only are you watching the game, but we're watching you watch the game. If you go on YouTube, you can find that clip and it's just like, what? So I think it's safe to say that if you have a smart TV now, that that TV is recording you on some level. There's been talks of phones turning on and recording stuff. And every time the companies get challenged on it, they say, oh, well, yeah, that might happen from time to time. But it's just so that we can serve you targeted ads.

You know, I don't, I don't necessarily believe that. I mean, if you have information of people that could be worth something, are you not going to use that information? Another part of surveillance was they talked about the helicopter that swooped down in front of his house to check things out. Now, I don't know about military-grade helicopters swooping in between buildings. However, I think it's completely possible for drones. Not just flying drones, but some of the new 5G towers.

have antennas on them. Some of the streetlights they say have antennas on them. Another direction you could take it is, you know, Big Brother is always watching you. Big Brother doesn't have to always be watching you as long as you think Big Brother is always watching you. If they if the government or the city or the authorities in the area in which you live are relying on a surveillance state in order to modify your behavior, they don't. have to have cameras everywhere. They just have to have you believe there's cameras everywhere. And it has the exact same effect. Another point that I think is unique to Orwell's point of view about the future is newspeak. And we've talked a little bit about it. War is peace, freedom is slavery, ignorance is strength. This compression of speech, as we get into the book, we'll learn more

about what newspeak is. And a quick definition, I think, of newspeak is compression of language. They do away with words that they call monotonous. For example, when they talk about good, the ministry of truth says, we don't need more words for good. We don't need excellent or great. All you need is good. or plus good. If something is excellent, double plus good will serve just fine.

The same is true for the antithesis of the word. Instead of good, you don't need something completely off. You don't need something like bad. How about just ungood? So you compress the language. So you just have good plus good, double plus good, or ungood. And what that does is it controls thought. If you don't have a linguistic pathway to get where you want to go, you can't have critical thinking.

If you only have good or ungood, you can't have something that is exquisite or horrific. It's just good or ungood. It takes out the emotion. It takes out the critical thinking. It takes away the ability to explain the true tragedy of the events. And that's the ultimate goal of Newspeak is to, in the long term, take away critical thinking from people. In our society today,

we haven't so much seen the taking away of language through newspeak techniques, but you have seen an attempt through political correctness to censor, to publicly shame. On a related scale,

you've seen alternative pronouns, which in a weird way take away the validity of the, old pronouns. And it has the same effect as far as changing thought, changing behavior. In this opening set, I'd like to say that I think that 1984 is what the future of a Marxist or socialist world would look like. You see, because of the corruption that comes with any sort of large governing body,

it's important to note that ultimately the corruption at the top will take everything from the people on the bottom. A good example of that is kind of what's happening in China today. What you see in China today is President Z purging a lot of his cabinet members. For those of you paying attention, recently he made himself dictator for life. Recently, you've seen like a million. million of the Uyghur people become enslaved and work in the factories. You could argue that the Uighur people are the proles of 1984 and that the Han Chinese are the alphas.

There's a lot of similarities there, maybe because it is in fact has its roots in a Marxist society in a socialist country. Whereas Huxley is more of a endgame for a fascist regime. Think of The pharmaceutical companies Like how much money do they stand right now To make off a vaccine that's never been tested The pharmaceutical companies cannot be sued

If there's any poor effects The pharmaceutical companies can sponsor programs in our leading colleges To teach young minds to think What would be beneficial for them They can pay lobbyists to lobby Congress to pay astronomical prices for drugs. They lobby Congress so that the American people,

regardless of the ramifications of a bad vaccine, the pharmaceutical companies cannot be sued, regardless of what happens. That is fascism on steroids. Pun intended. It's interesting. I heard a quote one time. They said, the Nazis lost,

World War II, but fascism won that war. And I think that that, we are seeing sort of a brave new world in the United States and in 1984 in China. In Brave New World, the alphas would consume a substance called Soma that would take away their anxiety, would take away their ability to get depressed. I think you could argue today that Soma, today's soma is in fact selective serotonin re-uptake inhibitors like the SSRIs how many people are on some sort of drug like that some sort of stimulant or some sort of paxil or you know pick your poison there's a ton of

them out there now and what does that say about our society when so many of us have to take drugs in order to live the life we're living. In a society that is sick, the most well adapted are the sickest. And if so many of our people are on some sort of SSRI, what does that say about our society? We have to be drugged into getting up and going to work and leaving our family and putting our grandparents in homes

and dropping our kids off with strangers. So I would argue that for this, opening series, and mind you, this is not my final decision. We're going to continue down this road for, I think we're going to do like three parts on it. This is going to be about the end of the first part. I think there's enough information here for you to think about our country and think about other countries. What do you think is more prescient right now? Is it the surveillance state or is it the pharmacologically induced, genetically engineered people of the state?

Is one more prevalent in your neighborhood? Do you see it equally where you work? Is it at different levels? Is there a 1984 for the lower class in the U.S. and a brave new world for some of the upper class people? Is there a caste system in our country? What about other countries? These are all questions to think about.

We're going to get into it, guys. I want to let you know, I love you. This is the beginning of Huxley versus Orwell. Brave New World verse 1984. Which one do we live in? I don't know. It's so crazy. I am crazy.

Crazy for you guys. I love you. Thank you for taking time to listen to this. And we're going to be back with more on this series. I love you guys. far.