With the weather turning cooler, this is a good time to do a bit more reading, and I went back to an old favourite of mine, "Amusing Ourselves to Deat" by Neil Postman.
in his book he postaulates that what George Orwell feared most were those who would ban books, whereas what Aldous Huxley feared most was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one. And he goes on to say:
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", Huxley added, people are controlled by inflicting pain. In Huxley's "Brave New World", they are controlled by inflicting pleasure.
In short, Orwell feared that what we hate will ruin us. Huxley feared that what we love will ruin us.
Neil Postman describes our new world as "a peek-a-boo world", a peek-a-boo-world, where now this event, now that, pops into view for a moment, then vanishes again. It is a world without much coherence or sense; a world that does not ask us, indeed, does not permit us to do anything; a world that is, like the child’s game of peek-a-boo, entirely self-contained. But like peek-a-boo, it is also endlessly entertaining.
What happens when media and politics become forms of entertainment? As our world begins to look more and more like Orwell's "1984", this is an essential guide to the modern media and is more relevant than ever.
