Well, here's one that rockets to the top of the reading list: David Lebedoff's "The Same Man," a new book arguing that George Orwell and Evelyn Waugh were essentially the same man. From Michael Dirda's review:
Nonetheless, Mr. Lebedoff says, the leftist anti-Stalinist and the reactionary Catholic apologist both arrived at the same fundamental -- and, in Mr. Lebedoff's view, sound -- critique of the modern world and all its hedonistic, shallow falsity."What they had most in common was a hatred of moral relativism," Mr. Lebedoff writes of his subjects. "They both believed that morality is absolute, though they defined and applied it differently. But each believed with all his heart, brain, and soul that there were such things as moral right and moral wrong, and that these were not subject to changes in fashion. Moral relativism was, in fact, the gravest of sins. Everything else they believed in common flowed from this basic perception. . . . They fought the dictators, of course, but both knew that the larger battles were yet to come, and that victory over the advance scouting parties of soulless uniformity was only a first step. . . . What both believed -- their core, who they were -- was that individual freedom mattered more than anything else on earth and reliance on tradition was the best way to maintain it."
Mr. Lebedoff argues that, even taking into account the increase in material comfort and medical knowledge in the 21st century, Orwell and Waugh "would dread and abhor much about our time, and might even see it as worse than their own." After all, he continues, "their fundamental concern was that the Modern Age would strip humans of their humanity." This, Mr. Lebedoff asserts, is clearly happening, and with a vengeance.
A convergence of leftist and rightist traditionalists against the modern world? As Peter Kreeft foresaw in 1996, there is a common base of understanding there.
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Though there are many ideas I agree with in the review, nevertheless I wonder whether concerns about a "robotic" society have become somewhat dated. It's not the uniform dreariness of Orwell's 1984 that poses the greatest danger - as the portrait of a now discredited political system, it now comes across as almost quaint, strangely unreal in its poverty and standardization. Orwell's vision has become dated, it is in other words deeply modern.
The problem of moral relativism in postmodern times points to a different kind of reality - a consumer society that extols individuality as its highest value. The erosion of humanity takes the form of unrestrained competition and the overpowering yearning for distinction - thus people tattoo and pierce themselves, buy the latest gadgets, artificially enhance their looks and endowments, indulge the most exotic and shocking pleasures. The guides to our postmodern dystopia are British author J. G. Ballard and French novelist Michel Houellebecq. Ballard, for example, points out that the therapeutic approach to life logically culminates in assaulting and killing other people (usually refugees and other homeless who have no legal status) for the sake of maintaining one's psychic equilibrium in a society of endless work and fantastic profit. Houellebecq is the poet of sexual jealousy and joyless serial coupling, in which his sated protagonists come to the bitter recognition that self-destruction is the outcome that awaits the unrestrained pursuit of sexual pleasure. The spread of competition into all spheres of life not only destroys familial bonds and renders friendships provisional, but it also generates intense self-loathing, which was no small factor in the rise of National Socialism
Political Atheist, I read one of Houellebecq's novels, "The Elementary Particles" in which there is a significant discussion about Aldous Huxley's "Brave New World."
I just read the Dirda review of "The Same Man," and will definitely add to my list of serious reading, Rod. Thanks.
Alicia,
Ballard's "Super-Cannes" is set in a gated community reserved for the senior employees of a major multinational corporation. The protagonist, a new arrival, finds himself investigating a shooting rampage carried out by a doctor who was known for his dedication to helping others.
I recommend Houellebecq's "Platform," which gives a more geopolitical twist to his themes - it's sex clubs on the one side, and radical Islam on the other.
Orwell castigated the intelligentsia for their moral corruption, the bourgeois for their tastelessness and the working class for their sentimentality. It's hard to imagine what he would have made of modern Britain with its ubiquitous television cameras, its infantilized working class, its vapid middle class and its corrupt politicians. Oh wait...
Thanks for the recommendation, Political Atheist.
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