Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : Stockman Scott's Political Debate Porch -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: geode00 who wrote (65708)	11/3/2004 1:20:36 PM
From: longnshort	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 89467

who's Bush gonna put on the Supreme Court?

To: geode00 who wrote (65708)	11/3/2004 1:42:27 PM
From: jackielalanne	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 89467

After this election, I think Aldous Huxley was right in his prophecy. This is the forward to the book, "Amusing Ourselves to Death, Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business" , written in 1985 by Neil Postman. It is interesting to read again, especially in light of the election. amazon.com Forward 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. Where ever 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 capacity 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 that would deprive us information. Huxley feared those that would give us so much that we would be reduced to passivity and egotism. Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from us. Huxley feared that the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance. Orwell feared that we would be come 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 libertarian and rationist 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.