George Orwell’s fictionalized world where Big Brother reigns supreme is no longer a figment of the imagination, but a prophetic vision of present-day threats. Brent Bozell, founder of the Media Research Center, explains how and why Big Tech is making Orwell’s 1984 a 21st century reality.
OLDER POST…. (1/2016)
Someone recently said:
- Why is it that the left loves to rewrite history? My theory is that to them the end justifies the means ironically in history that has led to genocide here and there.
To which I replied, “I agree.” (And I continued, as I am wont-to-do):
Another reason is that history is a giant mirror reflecting their failed paths to equality. From the French Revolution, to segregation and eventually the Civil War, to their terrorist arm of the Party (the KKK), to pouring water and oil into a pot and calling it a “melting pot” (multiculturalism in leftist terms is really segregation all over again). From the Fabian Socialists to Bernie Sander “types,” from the founder of Planned Parenthood having guest columns in her newsletter by NAZI doctors to allowing gender abortions and legislating to make it legal to leave a baby on a table to die from the environment… it is all an embarrassing mirror that they need to change and obfuscate. (And, there is nothing analogous.)
In reading an excellent book, early on there was this nugget:
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…. 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 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.
Joshua Charles, Liberty’s Secrets: The Lost Wisdom of America’s Founders (Washington, DC: WND Books, 2015), XIV; that is a large quote itself from Neil Postuman’s book, Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business (New York, NY: Penguin Books, 2006), XIX-XX.
While Charles and Neil take the “Brave New World” route… I think we can split the horns of the dilemma a bit (so-to-speak) and say yes… a small percentage of dedicated persons (to their faith or ethos) are feeling the boot mentioned in Orwell’s epic tale. From fining people out of business by taking their bank accounts because they refuse to make cakes for celebrations they wish not to support, to $250,000 for people who wish to call people by their real gender.
However, outside of this smaller percentage who is feeling the [sarcasm] equality of State [/sarcasm], there is a much larger percentage who do not want to be bothered as they amuse themselves to death (totalitarian bents ignored in political theories).
They do not want to be bothered by what would have in our history brought people to arms. All they care about is the next text on their iPhone or another round online with friends playing Call of Duty, or who got injured in the last NFL game that impacts the chances of their team winning. THESE people who have replaced worldviews with entertainment will one-day get a rood awakening when their toys are gone.
Liberals — especially — want this amusement to curtail knowing about history so they can get another radical candidate in office who likewise thinks the Constitution is a living/breathing document.
Sorry for the rant… but you got me thinking.