Amusing Ourselves to Death

My friend, Craig Kline, a doctor and devout disciple in "The D" (that's Detroit for those who aren't up on their slang) shared this recently with our small group.

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Note: I thought I would send you guys a quote that has encouraged me ever since someone else pointed it out to me awhile ago. If you don't know, "1984" was a book about a society that controlled people with power, lies, and pain. "A Brave New World" was a book that told about a people that were destroyed by pleasure.

Craig



"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 know, equally chilling: 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, 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 books for there would be no one who wanted to read one. Orwell feared those would deprive us of information. Huxley feared those who would give us so much information 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, the centrifugal bumblepuppy. As Huxley remarked, 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, people are controlled by inflicting pain. In 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. This book is about the possibility that Huxley, not Orwell, was right." - Neil Postman, from the intro to his book, "Amusing Ourselves to Death".