![]() ![]() Huxley feared we would become a trivial culture, preoccupied with some equivalent of the feelies, the orgy porgy, and the centrifugal bumblepuppy. ![]() ![]() Orwell feared we would become a captive culture. Huxley feared the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance. Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from us. Huxley feared those who would give us so much that we would be reduced to passivity and egoism. Orwell feared those who would deprive us of information. 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. What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. As he saw it, people will come to love their oppression, to adore the technologies that undo their capacities to think. But in Huxley’s vision, no Big Brother is required to deprive people of their autonomy, maturity and history. Orwell warns that we will be overcome by an externally imposed oppression. Thanks to Justin Taylor for the link:Ĭontrary to common belief even among the educated, Huxley and Orwell did not prophesy the same thing. In his Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business, Neil Postman points out some of the differences, and argues that one of them was far closer to the reality that ensued than the other. Fundamentally, however, they offer completely different accounts of what will enslave humanity in generations to come. ![]()
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