“We were keeping our eye on 1984. When the year came and the prophecy didn’t, thoughtful Americans sang softly in praise of themselves. The roots of liberal democracy had held. Wherever else the terror had happened, we, at least, had not been visited by Orwellian nightmares.
But we had forgotten that alongside Orwell’s dark vision, there was another – slightly older, slightly less well known, equally chilling: Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World. Contrary to common belief even among the educated, Huxley and Orwell did not prophesy the same thing. Orwell warns that we will be overcome by an externally imposed oppression. But in Huxley’s vision, no Big Brother is required to deprive people of their autonomy, maturity and history. As he saw it, people will come to love their oppression, to adore the technologies that undo their capacities to think.
What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one. Orwell feared those who would deprive us of information. Huxley feared those who would give us so much that we would be reduced to passivity and egoism. Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from us. Huxley feared the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance. Orwell feared we would become a captive culture. Huxley feared we would become a trivial culture, preoccupied with some equivalent of the feelies, the orgy porgy, and the centrifugal bumblepuppy. As Huxley remarked in Brave New World Revisited, the civil libertarians and rationalists who are ever on the alert to oppose tyranny “failed to take into account man’s almost infinite appetite for distractions.” In 1984, Orwell added, people are controlled by inflicting pain. In Brave New World, they are controlled by inflicting pleasure. In short, Orwell feared that what we fear will ruin us. Huxley feared that what we desire will ruin us.
This book is about the possibility that Huxley, not Orwell, was right.”
Neil Postman, Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business
1984 was true in 1984. Y’all were just too numb to recognize it or even read the book. Now that you have read the book you get all hand wringy and upset but this shit hole was sliding into 1984 long before 1984 came up on the magic clock.
Postman was brilliant – great analyst of modern culture. This whole book is great.
More SOMA please. The pathetic public line up to be sacrificed.
Both Huxley and Orwell were right. Those that don’t succumb to being Huxley’d will be Orwell’d.
Whatever is right. When I read those books sixty years or so ago, I wondered which would take place. Both, although up until his death (the day President Kennedy was murdered by suspects known), Huxley held to his belief that the proles would float blissfully into servitude.
There is, however, a need for correction for Postman: Orwell truly feared the day of 1894, and Huxley, a eugenicist, looked forward to it.