Orwell's 1984 was based on...

[RonneJJones]

The Iron Heel (http://www.jacklondons.net/writings/IronHeel/toc.html) - Jack London's 1907 Vision of Fascism, providing incredible insight into the 20th Century that was to come. It seems little has changed in the last 102 years.



http://cedarriversalmon.blogspot.com/2009/09/jack-london-iron-heel.html

The rhetoric of the new President and those he has surrounded himself with such as the recently publicized Van Jones really hasn’t changed much in the last 100 years. It could have been ripped from the pages of The Iron Heel written by Jack London in 1907.

Some incredible quotes from the book. I can't believe these are from over 100 years ago.
http://www.davidcogswell.com/Reviews/IronHeel.html



"This, then, is our answer. We have no words to waste on you.
When you reach out your vaunted strong hands for our palaces and
purpled ease, we will show you what strength is. In roar of shell
and shrapnel and in whine of machine-guns will our answer be
couched.* We will grind you revolutionists down under our heel,
and we shall walk upon your faces. The world is ours, we are its
lords, and ours it shall remain. As for the host of labor, it has
been in the dirt since history began, and I read history aright.
And in the dirt it shall remain so long as I and mine and those
that come after us have the power. There is the word. It is the
king of words--Power. Not God, not Mammon, but Power. Pour it
over your tongue till it tingles with it. Power."


http://www.fullbooks.com/The-Iron-Heel2.html




London foresaw the creation of attractive suburbs for the relatively privileged strata of the working class while the central cities are turned into what he calls "ghettoes"for the masses of unemployed and menial laborers, shoved into the darkest depths of human misery; the deliberate economic subversion of public education in order to spread illiteracy and ignorance; adequate food, health care, and housing priced above the reach of more and more people; the ubiquitous secret police infiltrating all organizations opposing the government; the establishment of a permanent mercenary army; the government conspiring in real and phony bomb plots, in the suppression of books and the destruction of printing presses, in witch hunts aimed at dissident labor leaders, professors, and authors, in destroying the reputations of some of its opponents, imprisoning many others and murdering the few it finds too formidable; spontaneous mass rebellions of the downtrodden people of the central cities; urban guerrillas battling the government's army of mercenaries and police in the canyons of the cities.




"When the combination of trusts will control all legislation, then the combination of the trusts will itself be the Government..."




"The Oligarchy wanted the war with Germany. And it wanted the war for a dozen reasons. In the juggling of events such a war would cause, in the reshuffling of international cards and the making of new treaties and alliances, the Oligarchy had much to gain. And furthermore, the war would consume many national surpluses, reduce the armies of unemployed that menaced all countries, and give the Oligarchy a breathing space in which to perfect its plans and carry them out. Such a war would virtually put the Oligarchy in possession of the world market. Also, such a war would create a large standing army tat need never be disbanded, while in the minds of the people would be substituted the issue 'America versus Germany,' in place of 'Socialism versus Oligarchy'…




"I know of nothing that will influence you," he said. "You have no souls to be influenced. You are spineless, flaccid things. You pompously call yourselves Republicans and Democrats. There is no Republican Party. There is no Democratic Party. There are no Republicans or Democrats in this house. You are lick-spittlers and panderers, the creatures of the Plutocracy. You talk verbosely in antiquated terminology of your love of liberty, and all the while you wear the scarlet livery of the Iron Heel"…




"They, as a class, believed that they alone maintained civilization. It was their belief that if ever they weakened, the great beast would engulf them and everything of beauty and wonder and joy and good in its cavernous and slime-dripping maw. Without them, anarchy would reign and humanity would drop backward into the primitive night out of which it had so painfully emerged..




On December 3, 1888, President Grover Cleveland delivered his annual address to Congress. Apparently Cleveland had taken notice of the Santa Clara County Supreme Court headnote, its politics, and its consequences, for he said in his speech to the nation, delivered before a joint session of Congress: "As we view the achievements of aggregated capital, we discover the existence of trusts, combinations, and monopolies, while the citizen is struggling far in the rear or is trampled to death beneath an iron heel. Corporations, which should be the carefully restrained creatures of the law and the servants of the people, are fast becoming the people's masters."

[stilltrying]

Wow. Pure nihilism at its best.

[SL89]

Not nihilism at all. Simply a basic run down of what people do when given absolute power. It seems prophetic but, we have been though this since the dawn of mankind.

[Carole]

I just skimmed the entire book online. London certainly understood the future of fascism.

Excellent quotes among your selection.

[RonneJJones]

I was doing a little research on Jack London and it seems after being a long time member of the Socialist Party he and his wife officially resigned in March 1916, although it seems he had told others, at least a few years earlier, that he saw that socialism was not the answer, but that individual freedom was.

I find it interesting that London's lifetime dream home was burnt to the ground just 2-weeks before he was to move in, and a few years later (in late 1916) he died of a Morphine overdose. Both the house fire and subsequent death were suspicious, and some speculated that both may have been deliberate.

In any event, I highly recommend this book, as I think it is more revealing and better done than Orwell's 1984. London doesn't mince words, and the book is perhaps even more applicable today than when it was published in 1907.

[RonneJJones]

This is an awesome excerpt from Chapter 1 of the book, where the characters are at dinner discussing the difference between physical and metaphysical realities, with the only working class member at the table taking the physical reality position. This is a fantastic read.


http://www.jacklondons.net/writings/IronHeel/chapter1.html

But father was not to be denied. After a while he said:

`We have with us a member of the working class. I am sure that he can present things from a new point of view that will be interesting and refreshing. I refer to Mr. Everhard.'

The others betrayed a well-mannered interest, and urged Ernest for a statement of his views. Their attitude toward him was so broadly tolerant and kindly that it was really patronizing. And I saw that Ernest noted it and was amused. He looked slowly about him, and I saw the glint of laughter in his eyes.

`I am not versed in the courtesies of ecclesiastical controversy,' he began, and then hesitated with modesty and indecision.

`Go on,' they urged, and Dr. Hammerfield said: `We do not mind the truth that is in any man. If it is sincere,' he amended.

`Then you separate sincerity from truth?' Ernest laughed quickly.

Dr. Hammerfield gasped, and managed to answer, `The best of us may be mistaken, young man, the best of us.'

Ernest's manner changed on the instant. He became another man.

`All right, then,' he answered; `and let me begin by saying that you are all mistaken. You know nothing, and worse than nothing, about the working class. Your sociology is as vicious and worthless as is your method of thinking.'

It was not so much what he said as how he said it. I roused at the first sound of his voice. It was as bold as his eyes. It was a clarion-call that thrilled me. And the whole table was aroused, shaken alive from monotony and drowsiness.

`What is so dreadfully vicious and worthless in our method of thinking, young man?' Dr. Hammerfield demanded, and already there was something unpleasant in his voice and manner of utterance.

`You are metaphysicians. You can prove anything by metaphysics; and having done so, every metaphysician can prove every other metaphysician wrong--to his own satisfaction. You are anarchists in the realm of thought. And you are mad cosmos-makers. Each of you dwells in a cosmos of his own making, created out of his own fancies and desires. You do not know the real world in which you live, and your thinking has no place in the real world except in so far as it is phenomena of mental aberration.

`Do you know what I was reminded of as I sat at table and listened to you talk and talk? You reminded me for all the world of the scholastics of the Middle Ages who gravely and learnedly debated the absorbing question of how many angels could dance on the point of a needle. Why, my dear sirs, you are as remote from the intellectual life of the twentieth century as an Indian medicine-man making incantation in the primeval forest ten thousand years ago.'

As Ernest talked he seemed in a fine passion; his face glowed, his eyes snapped and flashed, and his chin and jaw were eloquent with aggressiveness. But it was only a way he had. It always aroused people. His smashing, sledge-hammer manner of attack invariably made them forget themselves. And they were forgetting themselves now. Bishop Morehouse was leaning forward and listening intently. Exasperation and anger were flushing the face of Dr. Hammerfield. And others were exasperated, too, and some were smiling in an amused and superior way. As for myself, I found it most enjoyable. I glanced at father, and I was afraid he was going to giggle at the effect of this human bombshell he had been guilty of launching amongst us.

`Your terms are rather vague,' Dr. Hammerfield interrupted. `Just precisely what do you mean when you call us metaphysicians?'

`I call you metaphysicians because you reason metaphysically,' Ernest went on. `Your method of reasoning is the opposite to that of science. There is no validity to your conclusions. You can prove everything and nothing, and no two of you can agree upon anything. Each of you goes into his own consciousness to explain himself and the universe. As well may you lift yourselves by your own bootstraps as to explain consciousness by consciousness.'

`I do not understand,' Bishop Morehouse said. `It seems to me that all things of the mind are metaphysical. That most exact and convincing of all sciences, mathematics, is sheerly metaphysical. Each and every thought-process of the scientific reasoner is metaphysical. Surely you will agree with me?'

`As you say, you do not understand,' Ernest replied. `The metaphysician reasons deductively out of his own subjectivity. The scientist reasons inductively from the facts of experience. The metaphysician reasons from theory to facts, the scientist reasons from facts to theory. The metaphysician explains the universe by himself, the scientist explains himself by the universe.'

`Thank God we are not scientists,' Dr. Hammerfield murmured complacently.

`What are you then?' Ernest demanded.

`Philosophers.'

`There you go,' Ernest laughed. `You have left the real and solid earth and are up in the air with a word for a flying machine. Pray come down to earth and tell me precisely what you do mean by philosophy.'

`Philosophy is--' (Dr. Hammerfield paused and cleared his throat) `something that cannot be defined comprehensively except to such minds and temperaments as are philosophical. The narrow scientist with his nose in a test-tube cannot understand philosophy.'

Ernest ignored the thrust. It was always his way to turn the point back upon an opponent, and he did it now, with a beaming brotherliness of face and utterance.

`Then you will undoubtedly understand the definition I shall now make of philosophy. But before I make it, I shall challenge you to point out error in it or to remain a silent metaphysician. Philosophy is merely the widest science of all. Its reasoning method is the same as that of any particular science and of all particular sciences. And by that same method of reasoning, the inductive method, philosophy fuses all particular sciences into one great science. As Spencer says, the data of any particular science are partially unified knowledge. Philosophy unifies the knowledge that is contributed by all the sciences. Philosophy is the science of science, the master science, if you please. How do you like my definition?'

`Very creditable, very creditable,' Dr. Hammerfield muttered lamely.

But Ernest was merciless.

`Remember,' he warned, `my definition is fatal to metaphysics. If you do not now point out a flaw in my definition, you are disqualified later on from advancing metaphysical arguments. You must go through life seeking that flaw and remaining metaphysically silent until you have found it.'

Ernest waited. The silence was painful. Dr. Hammerfield was pained. He was also puzzled. Ernest's sledge-hammer attack disconcerted him. He was not used to the simple and direct method of controversy. He looked appealingly around the table, but no one answered for him. I caught father grinning into his napkin.

`There is another way of disqualifying the metaphysicians,' Ernest said, when he had rendered Dr. Hammerfield's discomfiture complete. `Judge them by their works. What have they done for mankind beyond the spinning of airy fancies and the mistaking of their own shadows for gods? They have added to the gayety of mankind, I grant; but what tangible good have they wrought for mankind? They philosophized, if you will pardon my misuse of the word, about the heart as the seat of the emotions, while the scientists were formulating the circulation of the blood. They declaimed about famine and pestilence as being scourges of God, while the scientists were building granaries and draining cities. They builded gods in their own shapes and out of their own desires, while the scientists were building roads and bridges. They were describing the earth as the centre of the universe, while the scientists were discovering America and probing space for the stars and the laws of the stars. In short, the metaphysicians have done nothing, absolutely nothing, for mankind. Step by step, before the advance of science, they have been driven back. As fast as the ascertained facts of science have overthrown their subjective explanations of things, they have made new subjective explanations of things, including explanations of the latest ascertained facts. And this, I doubt not, they will go on doing to the end of time. Gentlemen, a metaphysician is a medicine man. The difference between you and the Eskimo who makes a fur-clad blubber-eating god is merely a difference of several thousand years of ascertained facts. That is all.'

`Yet the thought of Aristotle ruled Europe for twelve centuries,' Dr. Ballingford announced pompously. `And Aristotle was a metaphysician.'

Dr. Ballingford glanced around the table and was rewarded by nods and smiles of approval.

`Your illustration is most unfortunate,' Ernest replied. `You refer to a very dark period in human history. In fact, we call that period the Dark Ages. A period wherein science was raped by the metaphysicians, wherein physics became a search for the Philosopher's Stone, wherein chemistry became alchemy, and astronomy became astrology. Sorry the domination of Aristotle's thought!'

Dr. Ballingford looked pained, then he brightened up and said:

`Granted this horrible picture you have drawn, yet you must confess that metaphysics was inherently potent in so far as it drew humanity out of this dark period and on into the illumination of the succeeding centuries.'

`Metaphysics had nothing to do with it,' Ernest retorted.

`What?' Dr. Hammerfield cried. `It was not the thinking and the speculation that led to the voyages of discovery?'

`Ah, my dear sir,' Ernest smiled, `I thought you were disqualified. You have not yet picked out the flaw in my definition of philosophy. You are now on an unsubstantial basis. But it is the way of the metaphysicians, and I forgive you. No, I repeat, metaphysics had nothing to do with it. Bread and butter, silks and jewels, dollars and cents, and, incidentally, the closing up of the overland trade-routes to India, were the things that caused the voyages of discovery. With the fall of Constantinople, in 1453, the Turks blocked the way of the caravans to India. The traders of Europe had to find another route. Here was the original cause for the voyages of discovery. Columbus sailed to find a new route to the Indies. It is so stated in all the history books. Incidentally, new facts were learned about the nature, size, and form of the earth, and the Ptolemaic system went glimmering.'

Dr. Hammerfield snorted.

`You do not agree with me?' Ernest queried. `Then wherein am I wrong?'

`I can only reaffirm my position,' Dr. Hammerfield retorted tartly. `It is too long a story to enter into now.'

`No story is too long for the scientist,' Ernest said sweetly. `That is why the scientist gets to places. That is why he got to America.'

I shall not describe the whole evening, though it is a joy to me to recall every moment, every detail, of those first hours of my coming to know Ernest Everhard.

Battle royal raged, and the ministers grew red-faced and excited, especially at the moments when Ernest called them romantic philosophers, shadow-projectors, and similar things. And always he checked them back to facts. `The fact, man, the irrefragable fact!' he would proclaim triumphantly, when he had brought one of them a cropper. He bristled with facts. He tripped them up with facts, ambuscaded them with facts, bombarded them with broadsides of facts.

`You seem to worship at the shrine of fact,' Dr. Hammerfield taunted him.

`There is no God but Fact, and Mr. Everhard is its prophet,' Dr. Ballingford paraphrased.

Ernest smilingly acquiesced.

`I'm like the man from Texas,' he said. And, on being solicited, he explained. `You see, the man from Missouri always says, `You've got to show me.' But the man from Texas says, `You've got to put it in my hand.' From which it is apparent that he is no metaphysician.'

Another time, when Ernest had just said that the metaphysical philosophers could never stand the test of truth, Dr. Hammerfield suddenly demanded:

`What is the test of truth, young man? Will you kindly explain what has so long puzzled wiser heads than yours?'

`Certainly,' Ernest answered. His cocksureness irritated them. `The wise heads have puzzled so sorely over truth because they went up into the air after it. Had they remained on the solid earth, they would have found it easily enough--ay, they would have found that they themselves were precisely testing truth with every practical act and thought of their lives.'

`The test, the test,' Dr. Hammerfield repeated impatiently. `Never mind the preamble. Give us that which we have sought so long--the test of truth. Give it us, and we will be as gods.'

There was an impolite and sneering scepticism in his words and manner that secretly pleased most of them at the table, though it seemed to bother Bishop Morehouse.

`Dr. Jordan9 has stated it very clearly,' Ernest said. `His test of truth is: "Will it work? Will you trust your life to it?"'

`Pish!' Dr. Hammerfield sneered. `You have not taken Bishop Berkeley10 into account. He has never been answered.'

`The noblest metaphysician of them all,' Ernest laughed. `But your example is unfortunate. As Berkeley himself attested, his metaphysics didn't work.'

Dr. Hammerfield was angry, righteously angry. It was as though he had caught Ernest in a theft or a lie.

`Young man,' he trumpeted, `that statement is on a par with all you have uttered to-night. It is a base and unwarranted assumption.'

`I am quite crushed,' Ernest murmured meekly. `Only I don't know what hit me. You'll have to put it in my hand, Doctor.'

`I will, I will,' Dr. Hammerfield spluttered. `How do you know? You do not know that Bishop Berkeley attested that his metaphysics did not work. You have no proof. Young man, they have always worked.'

`I take it as proof that Berkeley's metaphysics did not work, because--' Ernest paused calmly for a moment. `Because Berkeley made an invariable practice of going through doors instead of walls. Because he trusted his life to solid bread and butter and roast beef. Because he shaved himself with a razor that worked when it removed the hair from his face.'

`But those are actual things!' Dr. Hammerfield cried. `Metaphysics is of the mind.'

`And they work--in the mind?' Ernest queried softly.

The other nodded.

`And even a multitude of angels can dance on the point of a needle--in the mind,' Ernest went on reflectively. `And a blubber-eating, fur-clad god can exist and work--in the mind; and there are no proofs to the contrary--in the mind. I suppose, Doctor, you live in the mind?'

`My mind to me a kingdom is,' was the answer.

`That's another way of saying that you live up in the air. But you come back to earth at meal-time, I am sure, or when an earthquake happens along. Or, tell me, Doctor, do you have no apprehension in an earthquake that that incorporeal body of yours will be hit by an immaterial brick?'

Instantly, and quite unconsciously, Dr. Hammerfield's hand shot up to his head, where a scar disappeared under the hair. It happened that Ernest had blundered on an apposite illustration. Dr. Hammerfield had been nearly killed in the Great Earthquake11 by a falling chimney. Everybody broke out into roars of laughter.

`Well?' Ernest asked, when the merriment had subsided. `Proofs to the contrary?'

And in the silence he asked again, `Well?' Then he added, `Still well, but not so well, that argument of yours.'

But Dr. Hammerfield was temporarily crushed, and the battle raged on in new directions. On point after point, Ernest challenged the ministers. When they affirmed that they knew the working class, he told them fundamental truths about the working class that they did not know, and challenged them for disproofs. He gave them facts, always facts, checked their excursions into the air, and brought them back to the solid earth and its facts.

How the scene comes back to me! I can hear him now, with that war-note in his voice, flaying them with his facts, each fact a lash that stung and stung again. And he was merciless. He took no quarter,12 and gave none. I can never forget the flaying he gave them at the end:

`You have repeatedly confessed to-night, by direct avowal or ignorant statement, that you do not know the working class. But you are not to be blamed for this. How can you know anything about the working class? You do not live in the same locality with the working class. You herd with the capitalist class in another locality. And why not? It is the capitalist class that pays you, that feeds you, that puts the very clothes on your backs that you are wearing to-night. And in return you preach to your employers the brands of metaphysics that are especially acceptable to them; and the especially acceptable brands are acceptable because they do not menace the established order of society.'

Here there was a stir of dissent around the table.

`Oh, I am not challenging your sincerity,' Ernest continued. `You are sincere. You preach what you believe. There lies your strength and your value--to the capitalist class. But should you change your belief to something that menaces the established order, your preaching would be unacceptable to your employers, and you would be discharged. Every little while some one or another of you is so discharged.13 Am I not right?'

This time there was no dissent. They sat dumbly acquiescent, with the exception of Dr. Hammerfield, who said:

`It is when their thinking is wrong that they are asked to resign.'

`Which is another way of saying when their thinking is unacceptable,' Ernest answered, and then went on. `So I say to you, go ahead and preach and earn your pay, but for goodness' sake leave the working class alone. You belong in the enemy's camp. You have nothing in common with the working class. Your hands are soft with the work others have performed for you. Your stomachs are round with the plenitude of eating.' (Here Dr. Ballingford winced, and every eye glanced at his prodigious girth. It was said he had not seen his own feet in years.) `And your minds are filled with doctrines that are buttresses of the established order. You are as much mercenaries (sincere mercenaries, I grant) as were the men of the Swiss Guard.14 Be true to your salt and your hire; guard, with your preaching, the interests of your employers; but do not come down to the working class and serve as false leaders. You cannot honestly be in the two camps at once. The working class has done without you. Believe me, the working class will continue to do without you. And, furthermore, the working class can do better without you than with you.'

[tangent4ronpaul]

No, Orwell stole the plot for 1984 from "We".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/We_%28novel%29

We is generally considered to be the grandfather of the satirical futuristic dystopia genre (but see The Iron Heel). It takes the totalitarian and conformative aspects of modern industrial society to an extreme conclusion, depicting a state that believes that free will is the cause of unhappiness, and that citizens' lives should be controlled with mathematical precision based on the system of industrial efficiency created by Frederick Winslow Taylor.

George Orwell believed that Aldous Huxley's Brave New World (1932) "must be partly derived from" We.[11] However, in a 1962 letter, Huxley says that he wrote Brave New World long before he had heard of We.[12] According to We translator Natasha Randall, Orwell believed that Huxley was lying.[13]

Ayn Rand's Anthem (1938) has several major similarities to We, although it is stylistically and thematically different.[14]

George Orwell began Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949) some eight months after he read We in a French translation and wrote a review of it.[15] Orwell is reported as "saying that he was taking it as the model for his next novel."[16] Brown writes that for Orwell and certain others, We "appears to have been the crucial literary experience."[17] Shane states that "Zamyatin's influence on Orwell is beyond dispute".[18] Russell, in an overview of the criticism of We, concludes that "1984 shares so many features with We that there can be no doubt about its general debt to it", however there is a minority of critics who view the similarities between We and 1984 as "entirely superficial". Further, Russell finds "that Orwell's novel is both bleaker and more topical than Zamyatin's, lacking entirely that ironic humour that pervades the Russian work."[12]

-t

[RonneJJones]

No, Orwell stole the plot for 1984 from "We".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/We_%28novel%29

We is generally considered to be the grandfather of the satirical futuristic dystopia genre (but see The Iron Heel). It takes the totalitarian and conformative aspects of modern industrial society to an extreme conclusion, depicting a state that believes that free will is the cause of unhappiness, and that citizens' lives should be controlled with mathematical precision based on the system of industrial efficiency created by Frederick Winslow Taylor.

George Orwell believed that Aldous Huxley's Brave New World (1932) "must be partly derived from" We.[11] However, in a 1962 letter, Huxley says that he wrote Brave New World long before he had heard of We.[12] According to We translator Natasha Randall, Orwell believed that Huxley was lying.[13]

Ayn Rand's Anthem (1938) has several major similarities to We, although it is stylistically and thematically different.[14]

George Orwell began Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949) some eight months after he read We in a French translation and wrote a review of it.[15] Orwell is reported as "saying that he was taking it as the model for his next novel."[16] Brown writes that for Orwell and certain others, We "appears to have been the crucial literary experience."[17] Shane states that "Zamyatin's influence on Orwell is beyond dispute".[18] Russell, in an overview of the criticism of We, concludes that "1984 shares so many features with We that there can be no doubt about its general debt to it", however there is a minority of critics who view the similarities between We and 1984 as "entirely superficial". Further, Russell finds "that Orwell's novel is both bleaker and more topical than Zamyatin's, lacking entirely that ironic humour that pervades the Russian work."[12]

-t
Interesting information. Thx. I am not familiar with "We," but will check it out.

However, given that Iron Heel was published in 1907, and that Jack London was running around with people like Upton Sinclair, I find it hard to accept that either Huxley or Orweil or Yevgeny Zamyatin or Rand did not read London's Iron Heel before they wrote their books, especially given that Iron Heel was published in 1907, some 14 years before "We" was first published, 25 yrs before Brave New World, 30 yrs before Rand's Anthem, and 40 yrs before 1984.

From what I can tell, Iron Heel was targeted at Americans. Perhaps "We" was the Russian equivalent, but I'd need to read it to provide a more informed opinion.

[tangent4ronpaul]

Interesting information. Thx. I am not familiar with "We," but will check it out.

However, given that Iron Heel was published in 1907, and that Jack London was running around with people like Upton Sinclair, I find it hard to accept that either Huxley or Orweil or Yevgeny Zamyatin or Rand did not read London's Iron Heel before they wrote their books, especially given that Iron Heel was published in 1907, some 14 years before "We" was first published, 25 yrs before Brave New World, 30 yrs before Rand's Anthem, and 40 yrs before 1984.

From what I can tell, Iron Heel was targeted at Americans. Perhaps "We" was the Russian equivalent, but I'd need to read it to provide a more informed opinion.

It would seem to have had some influence on 1984, though if you look at the synopsis of We you will recognize many things that were directly lifted from it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Iron_Heel

The Iron Heel is reminiscent of George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four, and is cited by Orwell's biographer Michael Shelden as having influenced that work.[3]

There is a free online audiobook of We. Link is at the URL I posted before. The only online text version I found is in Russian. Hmm, looks like Google books has it online in English, well - most of it. They skipped some pages. Look for the new edition at the bottom of the first match that comes up.

-t

[heavenlyboy34]

Fascinating, OP.

[heavenlyboy34]

Interesting information. Thx. I am not familiar with "We," but will check it out.

However, given that Iron Heel was published in 1907, and that Jack London was running around with people like Upton Sinclair, I find it hard to accept that either Huxley or Orweil or Yevgeny Zamyatin or Rand did not read London's Iron Heel before they wrote their books, especially given that Iron Heel was published in 1907, some 14 years before "We" was first published, 25 yrs before Brave New World, 30 yrs before Rand's Anthem, and 40 yrs before 1984.

From what I can tell, Iron Heel was targeted at Americans. Perhaps "We" was the Russian equivalent, but I'd need to read it to provide a more informed opinion.


"We" is a must-read, IMO. In many ways, Zamyatin's dystopian vision is coming true here. (as a teaser, the government in the novel is known as "The One State"...very reminiscent of our leviathan government :eek: ) :cool:

[RonneJJones]

"We" is a must-read, IMO. In many ways, Zamyatin's dystopian vision is coming true here. (as a teaser, the government in the novel is known as "The One State"...very reminiscent of our leviathan government :eek: ) :cool:
So, the question I always have with these brilliant dystopian authors is: did they really predict the future this accurately only due to their incredible perception and insight, OR, were they simply given special access to some of the plans of the Oligarchs and relied upon that information to write their novels?

[tangent4ronpaul]

So, the question I always have with these brilliant dystopian authors is: did they really predict the future this accurately only due to their incredible perception and insight, OR, were they simply given special access to some of the plans of the Oligarchs and relied upon that information to write their novels?

I think it's more like history repeats itself, but the "winners" always write the history.

Another take would be that a fictional novel is literature, artistic in nature. A political book that names names, and calls out a regime is more likely to land you in a prison camp.

-t

[heavenlyboy34]

So, the question I always have with these brilliant dystopian authors is: did they really predict the future this accurately only due to their incredible perception and insight, OR, were they simply given special access to some of the plans of the Oligarchs and relied upon that information to write their novels?


Zamyatin opposed the Bolsheviks' censorship policy, so that's not likely. He is quoted as saying, "True literature can only exist when it is created, not by diligent and reliable officials, but by madmen, hermits, heretics, dreamers, rebels and skeptics".

[heavenlyboy34]

I think it's more like history repeats itself, but the "winners" always write the history.

Another take would be that a fictional novel is literature, artistic in nature. A political book that names names, and calls out a regime is more likely to land you in a prison camp.

-t

Especially during the Bolshevik regime! :eek: (when Zamyatin was active)

[tangent4ronpaul]

Especially during the Bolshevik regime! :eek: (when Zamyatin was active)

Yeah - in fact We was the very first book the Soviets banned and he did spend time in prison. We didn't get published in Russia until 1988.

-t

[heavenlyboy34]

Yeah - in fact We was the very first book the Soviets banned and he did spend time in prison. We didn't get published in Russia until 1988.

-t


Correct. Fortunately for them, the Russians had Samizdat. I wonder how long it will be till Americans need their own Samizdat? :confused::eek:

[tangent4ronpaul]

Correct. Fortunately for them, the Russians had Samizdat. I wonder how long it will be till Americans need their own Samizdat? :confused::eek:

What a coincidence you should bring that up... :)

http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthread.php?t=212622

-t

[tangent4ronpaul]

blimp

[moostraks]

I think it's more like history repeats itself, but the "winners" always write the history.

Another take would be that a fictional novel is literature, artistic in nature. A political book that names names, and calls out a regime is more likely to land you in a prison camp.

-t:D:D:D

On a cold, gray day in Mudville you managed to do something noone else has done, brought me some cheer.

Good work on naming some dystopian works I will check into folks. Thanks for the info. As I am having my own battle with the system (AGAIN!) I need some sympathetic perspectives that might enlighten me in how to succeed in conquering the beast. Somewhere there must be something I am missing, and as art portrays life maybe I will find the answer I am seeking.

[RonneJJones]

:D:D:D

On a cold, gray day in Mudville you managed to do something noone else has done, brought me some cheer.

Good work on naming some dystopian works I will check into folks. Thanks for the info. As I am having my own battle with the system (AGAIN!) I need some sympathetic perspectives that might enlighten me in how to succeed in conquering the beast. Somewhere there must be something I am missing, and as art portrays life maybe I will find the answer I am seeking.
As BuddyRey said in this post (http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showpost.php?p=2343632&postcount=33), the only way to beat this system is to abandon it.

[moostraks]

As BuddyRey said in this post (http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showpost.php?p=2343632&postcount=33), the only way to beat this system is to abandon it.

Would love to but eldest child is using it to beat our family into a bloody pulp...Again! Have been trying to keep other 6 safe but they are insistent on intruding.:(

[RonneJJones]

Would love to but eldest child is using it to beat our family into a bloody pulp...Again! Have been trying to keep other 6 safe but they are insistent on intruding.:(
Whatever it is, i hope things work out for you.

All the best.