kids are assigned 1984 to read

All dystopian novels are shit

>dude
>strawman
>lmao!!!

dubs of truth

thedailybeast.com/articles/2017/02/12/no-trump-is-not-like-orwell-s-1984.html

I was assigned BNW in class and 1984 was recommended.

>none of them will read Camp of the Saints

Well, it's not even sure it was meant to be a satire or if Huxley only tried to label it that way afterwards. Just read the central chapter of Houellebecq's "Les particules elementaires" in which Michel and Bruno are discussing BNW.

>tfw you read We and BNW but not 1984, because 1984 is too mainstream and you already know all memes from there.

1984 is a bit fucked up for kids to read. The torture section is pretty dark

you sure burned those kids op

Our school was the opposite. We were made to read Brave New World but not 1984.

The sheep have been indoctrinated already
theguardian.com/books/2017/jan/24/george-orwell-1984-sales-surge-kellyanne-conway-alternative-facts

>tfw people think BNW and 1984 represent some kind of dichotomy and that they're not different perspectives on the same thing

BNW is the culmination of the 1984 government's project in human pacification. BNW is just 1984 a few hundred years later.

We is garbage

This is wrong, 1984 presents itself as non changing and BNW implies it came about from automisation and later consequences of technology

uh we live in idiocracy dude xD

i read book so everyone must read book

Honestly that was my first impression, having read it for the first time (after starting with the greeks)

I couldn't shake the feeling that it was an anagolous to the cave allegory in the Republic. The Savage is obviously the first one out, or rather he was born in the light and dragged to the cave.

I was going to rant here, but I'll sum it up. High school students are still in the cave. If they're not, they want to be stuck back in it. That's the effect our education system has wrought upon young minds; instilled from day 1 with a societal narrative. Hell, I had a discussion with my feminist professor how I've only seen Feminism throughout my entire life, and never once was I allowed to question it.

>implying anthem isn't the superior anti big government novel

1984 is legitimately a great book, but its status has been corrupted by ideologues who seek to look at it solely from their specific political slant. There's a lot more going on in the book than the trite "Fascist surveillance state! Alternative facts hehe :^)"

That's sort of what happens when any book becomes popular again though because the mainstream and schools have hammered in this notion of "the big idea" in books. I can't think of a single "classic" that can be reduced to some singular, overarching theme that encompasses its entirety. But it's much easier to teach this reduction than to truly go through a book and analyze and think about each of its different facets.

Funny, I was assigned BNW but never 1984

1984 is more interesting for the kids. They don't understand what "progress" is yet.

What pisses me off about all this bullshit, is that "alternative facts" is not an inherently poor term to use. I could write an article about Obama using only positive things he did, and I could write an article using only negative things he did. The impression would be entirely different depending on which facts you used. Each article would use different - alternative - facts.

I had to read The Chrysalids and The Learning Tree at my Highschool, that's it.

For some reason everyone loves to forget that 1984 also had the "pleasure is used for control" theme in its chapter on the proles

That's not how you spell Swastika Night

The difference is its an insidious and clandestine use by a higher power when the reality is, of course, its something we'd willingly subject ourselves to.

Decent write-up but I don't get how people can take this seriously

>With the election of Donald Trump, we can argue with some evidence that never before has the United States veered so perilously into authoritarianism.

alien and sedition acts? trail of tears? lincoln's suspension of habeas corpus? japanese interment? the mccarthy era? At this point Trump doesn't even come close to the top authoritarian actions by US presidents.

Its very good in its own right and was one of the first novels of the anti-collectivist dystopian tradition. 1984 is good, very good, but I think anthem depicts how things turn out when collectivism takes hold, technology does not progress to hellish consequences, but it regresses with horrible consequences.

Idk you should tweet at him what he meant by that

Well Lincoln didn't break any laws, the option to suspend habeas corpus during rebellion is in the constitution.

Still does not make it *not* authoritarianism.

>1984

small brain

>brave new world

average brain

>The Wanting Seed

glowing brain

Soma = Cannabis
right guys?

BNW pseuds are infinitely worse than 1984doras.
>ugh, look at all these people liking pleb literature like 1984
>not like me. I read BNW.
And then they talk about how BNW is more accurate even though it obviously isn't.
user, no they aren't. Stop getting triggered by something that was rare enough to get into the news.

i watched the movie in 10th grade
it was shit

My HS assigned animal farm, 1984, BNV and F451. F451 was my favorite, because the whole thing was explicitly self inflicted and then capitalized on by those in power. Its most apt imo.

kek

Weird I had to read Brave New World, not 1984, in school. Both books are very popular and widely read.

>chrysalids
Exploding brain

The actual tragedy, rather than this bullshit you're saying, OP, is that they won't read WE.

a fascist dystopia will never again come from the right. the media is too powerful. now from the left....

I think most kids would get bored from the first chapter. The description of different kinds of fetuses and embryos is utterly dull.

Are you literally me??

>it obviously isn't
except it clearly is

Do you know that the CIA developed a way to make Samsung TVs spy on you?

You know what pisses me off the most? Whenever teachers teach Animal Farm, they always, before they even start reading, explain the connection to Soviet Russia and how the animals represent certain figures like Lenin, Stalin, etc.

I wish they didn't do that, and would just let kids read the story and come to their own conclusions about it. I feel like telling them it's purely a metaphor for Soviet Russia removes the themes of the novella from modern application.

I know this thread is basically a whine-fest because kids are reading easy-classics-core and can spot the obvious subtext, but surely it's better for them to have read 1984, Brave New World, etc rather than never having read it in the first place (and then later claiming they have read it)?

1984 is outdated anyways, the next dictatorship will be matriarchal, not paternalist authoritarian. BNW is closer to that, but still not quite there

I think the next authoritarian governments in the West will be governments that deny people any sense of cultural identity. It will be impossible to say for instance "we should put French citizens first" because it will become impossible to define French citizen. Someone who lives in Brazil or Sudan will be just as French as someone who's family has been living in France for 500 years.

i had to read of mice and men in my school. that was it. nothing else.

1984 is the better book
i really like them both

>had to read BNW
>had to read We
>never had to read 1984
huh.

Just because it's less known doesn't mean it's better.

>Unspooked authoritarianism
Sign me up

> kids are assigned 1984 to read
> "oh my god this is like sooooooooooo our world right now"
>They proceed to keep living their lifes falling into this shitty system as if nothing had happened.

I think this is the real issue.

BNW is garbage and overuse of symbolism approaching Infinite Jest. It has it's points and a degree of prescience (which was what intellectual philosophers figured the logical ends of materialism and consumerism were) but 1984 was close to what people in Soviet satellite states were actually living through at the time while western intellectuals were still fellating Lenin and Stalin.

1984 was revolutionary, whereas BNW was just agreeing with what intellectuals already knew to be true.

Ayn Rand's Anthem is better and more insightful than both, but of course the marxist college professors will never admit it

Actually happened at my school. No bullshit. That's how I found out about it.

fugg cabitalism!! :D

- Sent from my iPhone

The narrator of 1984 literally has magical dreams that tell the future.

There is no excuse. BNW is the better-written book.

If anything the world is moving towards the right and authoritarianism.

In my high school we read Brave New World and not 1984.

I only had Animal Farm, and Fahrenheit 451. We had to read The Giver in middle school too I suppose.