Who are the new Huxley and Orwell writing fiction about ideologies like Neoliberalism?

[Cheerful Charlie]

The entire Western left was shocked at what Stalin was actually doing. Socialism being forced down people's throats by a dictator is not socialism. The roots of socialism is a functioning democracy.

So saying Orwell was shocked is saying very little.

And certainly not evidence of naivete.

He quickly caught on, 'Animal Farm' (1945), helped by his experience in Spain, while others in the West were still supporting Stalin's "socialism".

Although it should be noted that while Animal Farm is about Stalin's Russia the original preface warned of the same things happening in the West.

But not by a dictators force, through a "good education".

For those of us who were in the New Left, Orwell is a typical example of those who saw the world naively, as a choice between State and Monopoly capitalism. Not their fault, but not interesting.

As one who has actually read most everything Orwell wrote, I don't see that.

Bridge at Wigan's Pier, Down and Out in Paris and London, Homage to Catalan, don't point to any naivete at all.

 

[Canard DuJour]

Who are the new Huxley and Orwell writing fiction about ideologies like Neoliberalism?

Good question.

I was hoping this thread would direct me to a load of speculative fiction about where neoliberalism is taking us

...(crickets)...

The only explicit examples I can think of off-hand are Max Barry - especially Jennifer Government - and Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars trilogy.

Arguably, neoliberalism has percolated speculative fiction (and Hollywood) as it has the rest of society : by stealth. Anxiety about corporate power, inequality and austerity now form the backdrop, where once it was the all-powerful state. But they're just there, part of the landscape, unquestioned like the idea that resolution comes from the rugged individual looking out for himself and his own.

Meanwhile, by comparison with speculative fiction from the Apollo era, the present looks like a technologically retarded dystopia.

I'll tell you who'd have recognised neoliberalism early on and written something which crystallised it in the popular consciousness : Orwell.

 

[iolo]

For those of us who were in the New Left, Orwell is a typical example of those who saw the world naively, as a choice between State and Monopoly capitalism. Not their fault, but not interesting.

When did he see the world naively?

In Spain in the late 30's? Orwell was nearly killed by the forces controlled by Stalin. His faith in Stalin was destroyed in the late 1930's.

In the post-War late 40's?

Which book is naive?

To say because Orwell was not all things he was naive is to say every writer in history was naive. Orwell had an insight few have even today.

After he'd worked all War for Churchill, obviously. Naïve books: Animal Farm and 1984. Why do you ask?

 

[iolo]

Where are you getting the idea that Orwell was in ANY way naïve? Have you actually studied his biography??

I think it is more complex than that: Huxley was a person interested in 'religion' who was almost brainwashed into 'scientific' thinking and was at enough of a cultural turning-point to see what was coming, whereas Orwell was a very naïve sort-of-socialist who was so shocked by Stalinism that he adopted the same methods (as a society, that produced in 1984 is totally unbelievable as to origin and organisation). Nowadays the masses are so brainwashed that there is NO powerful alternative - people object to the detail of the destruction of humanity but simply cannot step back and understand it, so we wont get any literary product that's serious out of our destruction, alas.

Ever since I was about 15, yes, and I think I have probably read everything he ever wrote at least once. What position did he suggest to counter Stalinism? McCarthyism, probably.

 

[untermensche]

When did he see the world naively?

In Spain in the late 30's? Orwell was nearly killed by the forces controlled by Stalin. His faith in Stalin was destroyed in the late 1930's.

In the post-War late 40's?

Which book is naive?

To say because Orwell was not all things he was naive is to say every writer in history was naive. Orwell had an insight few have even today.

After he'd worked all War for Churchill, obviously. Naïve books: Animal Farm and 1984. Why do you ask?

I ask because it is an odd position.

Both those books were ahead of their time.

They were incredibly insightful, not naive at all.

 

[KeepTalking]

Who are the new Huxley and Orwell writing fiction about ideologies like Neoliberalism?

Good question.

I was hoping this thread would direct me to a load of speculative fiction about where neoliberalism is taking us

...(crickets)...

The only explicit examples I can think of off-hand are Max Barry - especially Jennifer Government - and Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars trilogy.

Arguably, neoliberalism has percolated speculative fiction (and Hollywood) as it has the rest of society : by stealth. Anxiety about corporate power, inequality and austerity now form the backdrop, where once it was the all-powerful state. But they're just there, part of the landscape, unquestioned like the idea that resolution comes from the rugged individual looking out for himself and his own.

Meanwhile, by comparison with speculative fiction from the Apollo era, the present looks like a technologically retarded dystopia.

I'll tell you who'd have recognised neoliberalism early on and written something which crystallised it in the popular consciousness : Orwell.

Perhaps you missed my post. I mentioned Robinson, and of course it was the Mars trilogy that I was thinking of. Night Train also mentioned a few recent scifi novels, one of which I have read, and I agree it is a good example from the genre.

 

[Canard DuJour]

Perhaps you missed my post. I mentioned Robinson, and of course it was the Mars trilogy that I was thinking of. Night Train also mentioned a few recent scifi novels, one of which I have read, and I agree it is a good example from the genre.

I managed to miss page 2 altogether - doh! Yep, thx for the recommendations, I've been meaning to check out Bacigalupi for a while.

 

[iolo]

After he'd worked all War for Churchill, obviously. Naïve books: Animal Farm and 1984. Why do you ask?

I ask because it is an odd position.

Both those books were ahead of their time.

They were incredibly insightful, not naive at all.

Way behind their time - by implication mere defences of monopoly capitalism

 

[Canard DuJour]

I ask because it is an odd position.

Both those books were ahead of their time.

They were incredibly insightful, not naive at all.

Way behind their time - by implication mere defences of monopoly capitalism

By what implication? You need to say more than that.

 

[iolo]

Way behind their time - by implication mere defences of monopoly capitalism

By what implication? You need to say more than that.

What alternative to Stalinism is put forward? Leaves archaic, squalid exploitation, and the exploiters bloody loved these books, as you know.