Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business

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 rexix
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marked 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.