Soma Or Big Brother?
Our good friend Ricki poses an interesting question:
When I was a teenager, I read both “1984” and “Brave New World.” My friends always thought “1984” was going to be the scenario that happened in the future. I thought it would be “Brave New World.”
Me? I think we’re allowing a mix of both along with a healthy dose of “Animal Farm.”
And by “healthy” I mean “incredibly dangerous.”
What do y’all think?
Life, Littrachure, Nanny State, People, Politics | Mr. Bingley | 
October 29, 2009 6:41 am
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I feel more like “The Stranger”.
Lord the the flies and the public is Piggy.
How about “Brave New Animal Farm”?
I think all three were way too optimistic.
Our controllers have found evil means unheard of when those books were written.
Huxley
Which is just a graphic restating of Neil Postman’s forward for “Amusing Ourselves to Death” on the same topic.
If this isn’t too Obamist, I’d make every high school kid read all three then compare to current events. That’d bring on real hope ‘n’ change, I’d wager.
Maybe I’m being overly cynical, but I’m thinking more along the lines of “Escape from New York”.
Just so long as it ain’t “Planet Of The Apes”, Guns. The original version, not the goofy remake.
All of the above plus a healthy slug of “Harrison Bergeron” with Anita Dunn playing the Handicapper General.
Animal Farm it is. Pigs are the current administration. Elderly are the poor horse, get old, not useful.. Glue Factory it is. dems are the sheep, and the rest of us are trying not to get swept up in the pigs rulings.
I never really saw much in “Brave New World” that was so horrifying. From what I could tell, no one was forced to take the soma, and if you dissented they didn’t do much but send you to live in Iceland. Having lived in Iceland I didn’t really think that such a bad deal. Sure, not the book doesn’t portray an ideal society, but it’s hardly something to write a book about expecting to terrify people.
Animal Farm is probably the closest of the ones mentioned here, but I think we’re closer to “Atlas Shrugged” except there is no John Galt.