Aldous Huxley và George Orwell: Ai đúng hơn ai?

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James Jeffrey argues that the tyranny that is engulfing Great Britain is more like that envisioned by Aldous Huxley than by George Orwell. Here’s his opening:

Having the jackboot (giày ống, ủng) of George Orwell’s 1984 stamping on one’s face (đạp vào mặt) would be preferable in a way. At least it would involve a sort of honesty (chân thật) from the oppressor about the oppression. Unlike the current pervasive underhand (lừa lọc, dối trá, giấu diếm, lén lút; nham hiểm; bí mật, kín đáo, sau hậu trường) attrition (quá trình làm yếu sức lực và lòng tin của ai bằng cách quấy rầy liên tục; sự tiêu hao sinh lực; sự sám hối, sự thống khổ vì tội lỗi) that is sapping (làm hao mòn, làm mất dần) our democratic life blood, taking with it individual liberty, energy, creativity and love, steering us closer toward Aldous Huxley’s very un-brave “Brave New World”.

Orwell’s brutal dystopian (sự lạc chỗ) depiction published in 1949 can be seen as a reply and an update, as Orwell saw it, to the warnings of Huxley’s earlier dystopian vision published in 1932. Huxley depicted a scientific dictatorship in which a passive population was subdued through scientific and psychological engineering while kept consistently useful to the ruling class.

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