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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsThis is genius: Huxley v Orwell
As Huxley said...
A really efficient totalitarian state would be one in which the all-powerful executive of political bosses and their army of managers control a population of slaves who do not have to be coerced, because they love their servitude.
Heh. Hhhhmmm.
Atticus
(15,124 posts)of the people have ever heard of either Huxley or Orwell.
unblock
(52,208 posts)robbob
(3,528 posts)I mean, if Im reading a book about the molecular structure and properties of the oxygen molecule if hardly matters if 95% of people dont care or arent interested in that topic; we are all still breathing oxygen.
Neil Postmans book is an observation of where we are at culturally. The fact that most people have never heard of Orwell or Huxley kind of just reinforces his point of how we are obsessed with the trivial.
Atticus
(15,124 posts)'mendacity'?" you would understand what difference it makes.
Bernardo de La Paz
(49,001 posts)Docreed2003
(16,858 posts)Everyone fears "1984", but I have said repeatedly in this forum that Huxley seems to have been closer on the mark in some ways. We are largely too distracted to be concerned with our fascist takeover. Thank you for sharing this!!
IthinkThereforeIAM
(3,076 posts)... as long as society gets the faux/temporary warm and fuzzy feelings from time to time...
DemoTex
(25,396 posts)Writer C.S. Lewis died on that day too.
stopwastingmymoney
(2,041 posts)A person could cook up a CT over that, or maybe a novel
Joinfortmill
(14,417 posts)PatSeg
(47,419 posts)I think in many respects they both were right.
lunatica
(53,410 posts)stomp them out to keep the rabble quiescent.
bronxiteforever
(9,287 posts)PA Democrat
(13,225 posts)For example today's version of Huxley's "soma" is mindless TV programming, social media obsession, video games, etc.
Today's version of Orwell's "two-minute hate" is the FOX "News", radio programming like Limbaugh, Trump's speeches inciting hatred of immigrants, Democrats, etc.
I count myself fortunate to have grown up in a time period in which most of those distractions were not available. We had one TV in our household, but hundreds of books. One of the biggest gifts my parents gave me as a child was a love of reading. I read both Brave New World and 1984 while in high school, and not because it was a class assignment.
bucolic_frolic
(43,149 posts)because they lie so much and have their own propaganda channel
Soph0571
(9,685 posts)Nitram
(22,794 posts)stick.
nuxvomica
(12,423 posts)Ironic that it might be my undoing distraction. Huxley was also prescient that the gut biome, such a trendy subject nowadays, might be the key to health and possibly immortality in After Many a Summer Dies the Swan.
kairos12
(12,858 posts)of Alternative Facts. When facts become a headache to discern people turn on The Wheel of Fortune or The Bachelor.
Rise and Fall of the American Empire brought on by an illiterate culture who are glued to their remotes with Cheetos stained fingertips.
eppur_se_muova
(36,261 posts)The carrot of mindless entertainment and the stick of frenzied hate-mongering are both hard at work in the world today.
Now we add "social distancing" to the mix. Soon there may be little of our lives that does not arrive through one tightly controlled network or another.
NNadir
(33,516 posts)klook
(12,154 posts)zentrum
(9,865 posts)Beakybird
(3,333 posts)I think that Huxley's fears of the future were more prescient, but there's a lot of Orwell in countries like China, with cameras everywhere and social media monitoring.
gab13by13
(21,330 posts)into a "Brave New World," where everyone is the same and those who rebel or are different are exiled or worse.
ancianita
(36,053 posts)ElementaryPenguin
(7,800 posts)spike jones
(1,678 posts)[link:|
No tears to cry no feelings left This species has amused itself to death
denem
(11,045 posts)For a start its wrong -in 1984, 80% of the population were proles - fed with trash culture, lotteries, porn etc - not too dissimilar to Huxley.
B Stieg
(2,410 posts)is not from the novel nor the film 1984 (1984).
It's the face from the famous 1984, first-ever, Macintosh Superbowl Commercial.
(played by actor Bob Flag)
Just sayin...
librechik
(30,674 posts)at this point I'm thinking Brave first then Big Brother forever.
AleksS
(1,665 posts)Why not both?
Uncle Joe
(58,355 posts)Thanks for the thread Soph.
empedocles
(15,751 posts)getting replays everywhere.
[I see a little test case playing out at flakewell's Liberty University. The information is out there on the virus, the LibU environiment idiotically denies it. Time will tell. One indicator will be summer and fall enrollments at LU].
Soph0571
(9,685 posts)Newest Reality
(12,712 posts)I consider Idiocracy to be one of the best documentaries ever
empedocles
(15,751 posts)the fact v. fiction problem at LU.
Haggis for Breakfast
(6,831 posts)empedocles
(15,751 posts)Newest Reality
(12,712 posts)Thanks!
I have long thought that we are living in a hybrid of Orwell and Huxley and those who have read both might notice that there is a spectrum now that might just indicate the relationship of a dual approach, in essence.
If you then read Debord's, The Society of the Spectacle; Chomsky's Manufacturing Consent; Baudrillard's America and Simulation and Simulacra; you then have a good overview of how this modern system tends to function, (media being the message) by using influence over bullets, (unless absolutely necessary) because the spoils are kept intact and increased functionality can be beneficial to profit margins.
Also, a good primer is The Century of the Self, an excellent BBC documentary.
grantcart
(53,061 posts)Turns out that the opiate of the masses is not religion but play stations and other electronic games.
softydog88
(126 posts)and have been sharing it with friends for a couple of years. I also bought the book, but I haven't read it yet. This underscores the fact that I need to. Here is a video lecture called "The Surrender of Culture to Technology," by the author, Neil Postman, if anyone is interested. There are also a number of videos of people discussing "Amusing Ourselves to Death."
[link:
3Hotdogs
(12,375 posts)yonder
(9,664 posts)muriel_volestrangler
(101,311 posts)and bringing them up with brainwashing (reinforced with pain if needed), "hypno-teaching" (can't remember if he had a particular phrase for it), and designing each person for a particular job and station in life (if necessary including poisoning fetuses). Plus cloning to get an identical workforce when wanted. It's not that much about the media (which, to be fair, Orwell did include too - what to have to keep the 'proles' content, propaganda to make the party workers think the war is going well, they're being treated with ration increases, and so on).
BunnyMcGee
(463 posts)Yes, I see this in folks around me. Glued to Facebook or TV.
Karadeniz
(22,513 posts)BlancheSplanchnik
(20,219 posts)It made my jaw drop, it was so prescient. Even still, its a must read.
Cetacea
(7,367 posts)Thank you!