Gus > Yet I believe Orwell's feeling is right in the Marxist sense of "alienation".
Again, that's debatable. As it happens, and probably always did, life for most people is surely one of quiet desperation. Going to work, doing work they don't like, being kicked around at work, commuting for hours, illness, bad food, struggling to get out of debt, etc etc. And it's not just poverty. I hated to go to work -- and I wasn't poor -- and a had a fantastic job. There were just more things I preferred to do than go to work. Indeed, for many, especially those with means, life is considerably better than it was. In fact, the ordinary middle class person today can go more places, communicate with more people, experience more things, eat more exotic foods, have better health care, read more books and have far better entertainment than Louis XIV, three centuries ago, who was probably the most indulged person on earth at that time.
> Think of genetics, RFID tracking, video surveillance, the internet, smart cards,....
Yes, personal control has certainly increased and with every good reason -- there are probably two billion more people on the earth than when Orwell lived. Today we are virtually overrunning the place and population control -- if not actual regulation -- is now almost mandatory. And crooks abound everywhere. In fact, I don't regard video surveillance, smart cards etc as intrinsically bad -- it's just that they fall into the hands of bad people -- those who seek to use them to gain personal power over others.
But as far as the internet is concerned -- and the PC -- I would say those are two of the most liberating tools man has ever made for himself, possibly since the Stone Age. For a start, Steve Wosniak, Steve Jobs and Bill Gates, who started the Apple PC, were anything but power seeking fascists, in fact, the opposite. In terms of education, self-upliftment and communication the PC and the internet have been two of the greatest technical revolutions man has seen. Today, Joe SixPack, in fact anyone who has a few hundred dollars, can have "brain power" at his finger tips which was, merely thirty years ago, available to only the most wealthy institutions. In fact, any individual on earth can have access to more books and more knowledge than was in the library at Alexandria. To me, the internet is an absolute revelation. In fact, there isn't a day that goes by that I don't think about it in wonderment -- and, indeed, privilege that I was able to experience such a miraculous thing in my lifetime.
I mean -- just think of you and me -- two idiots who live six thousand miles apart -- and we can and do communicate any amount of drivel to our hearts' desire every day -- by means of a facility which is, again, thousands of miles apart from each of us -- and for free. It costs us nothing to do this. And, we don't even know each other -- yet, in another sense, we do. Certainly our minds know each other. No-one can and should take this awe-inspiring situation for granted. We have become blase and we should not be. No, the internet and the PC are certainly things Orwell did not take into account -- and neither did George Bush and his gang of criminals. |
