– #Simply Homework[1] –
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)
God bless Barry White and thanks for your support!
Kind regards.
Cal Caleido
Frame of Reference
Homo Minuscule: World With vs World Without Social Media (1) | Homo Minuscule: A Social (Life) Media Depression (2) | Homo Minuscule: Addicted To The Internet (3) | Homo Minuscule: www.247365.com (4) | Homo Minuscule: Insta Life vs. Reality (5) | Homo Minuscule: Global Internet Addiction (6) | Homo Minuscule: Human Plug-In (7)
Let's Try HighSciFi In A Mad World
Homebodies Blinded by the (Screen) Light
[1] Internet culture (Wikiped) ––– related (1) as follows: Information overload (Wikiped) ––– Internet addiction disorder - Topic : Internet Archive ––– Information Overload - A Conceptual Model (eajournals.org) ––– information overload - an overview (core.ac.uk) ––– Information Overload | Pew Research Center ––– related (2) as follows: Quantifying Information Overload in Social Media and its Impact on Social Contagions (mpi-sws.org) ––– related (3) as follows: Dealing with information overload: a comprehensive review - PMC (nih.gov) ––– Information Overload - Causes, Symptoms and Solutions (wordpress.com) ––– Drowning in the flood of information: a meta-analysis on the relation between information overload, behaviour, experience, and health and moderating factors: European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology: Vol 32, No 2 (tandfonline.com) ––– information overload - why some people seem to suffer more than others (cmu.edu) ––– Death by Information Overload (hbr.org) ––– The dark side of information: overload, anxiety and other paradoxes and pathologies | Semantic Scholar ––– The Influence of Information Overload - Problematic Internet Use on Adults' Well-Being (orca.cardiff.ac.uk) ––– How to Save Yourself From “Information Overload” (hbr.org) ––– related (4) as follows: Report: 80% of Global Workers Experience Information Overload (datanami.com) ––– related (5) as follows: Content without context is meaningless | Proceedings of the 18th ACM international conference on Multimedia ––– It’s Not Only Social Networks — The Entire Internet is Gamified to Meaninglessness | by Oz Zeren | ILLUMINATION | Medium ––– The year of garbage internet trends - Vox ––– Pointless Internet surfing: It's the American way | InfoWorld ––– related (6) as follows: Patterns of Meaningful and Meaningless Smartphone Use - Research Portal | Lancaster University (lancs.ac.uk) ––– What Makes Smartphone Use Meaningful or Meaningless? | Proceedings of the ACM on Interactive, Mobile, Wearable and Ubiquitous Technologies ––– related (7) as follows: Nietzsche’s Dionysus vs. The Nihilism of Social Media Shitposting | SpringerLink ––– Generation Doomer: How Nihilism on Social Media is Creating a New Generation of Extremists – GNET (gnet-research.org) ––– On how God became pocket-sized - Digital Machination’s Challenge to Active Nihilism (ut.ee) ––– Geert | On Digital Nihilism and Techno-Sadness, Interview with Geert Lovink (for Cyberzone) (networkcultures.org) ––– A Digital Nihilism: Ethical Reflections (Chapter 6) - Digital Image and Reality (cambridge.org) | The Digital Image and Reality (ctfassets.net) ––– Confronting Media Nihilism: How Transparency Builds Meaning During Crises (researchgate.net) ––– Manifestations of nihilism in selected contemporary media (core.ac.uk) ––– The Will to Technology and the Culture of Nihilism - Heidegger, Nietzsche & Marx (nietzschecircle.com) ––– The Logic of Nihilism (utwente.nl) ––– related: Nihilism | Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy (utm.edu)
Share this post