In saying this, I do not mean to imply that television news deliberately aims to deprive Americans of a coherent, contextual understanding of their world. It means misleading information-misplace, irrelevant, fragmented or superficial information-information that creates the illusion of knowing something but which in fact leads one away from knowing. Disinformation does not mean false information. I am using this world almost in the precise sense in which it is used by spies in the CIA or KGB. What is happening here is that television is altering the meaning of 'being informed' by creating a species of information that might properly be called disinformation. It is probably more accurate to call them emotions rather than opinions, which would account for the fact that they change from week to week, as the pollsters tell us. But these are opinions of a quite different roder from eighteenth- or nineteenth-century opinions. “In America, everyone is entitled to an opinion, and it is certainly useful to have a few when a pollster shows up. Huxley feared that what we love will ruin us'.” In short, Orwell feared that what we hate will ruin us. In Brave New World, they are controlled by inflicting pleasure. In 1984, Huxley added, 'people are controlled by inflicting pain. 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.' Huxley feared we would become a trivial culture, preoccupied with some equivalent of the feelies, the orgy porgy, and the centrifugal bumblepuppy. Orwell feared we would become a captive culture.

Huxley feared the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance. Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from us. Huxley feared those who would give us so much that we would be reduced to passivity and egoism. Orwell feared those who would deprive us of information. 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. “What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. This book is about the possibility that Huxley, not Orwell, was right.”Īmusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business Huxley feared that what we desire will ruin us. In short, Orwell feared that what we fear will ruin us. 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.

What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. As he saw it, people will come to love their oppression, to adore the technologies that undo their capacities to think. But in Huxley's vision, no Big Brother is required to deprive people of their autonomy, maturity and history. Orwell warns that we will be overcome by an externally imposed oppression. Contrary to common belief even among the educated, Huxley and Orwell did not prophesy the same thing. Wherever else the terror had happened, we, at least, had not been visited by Orwellian nightmares.īut 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. When the year came and the prophecy didn't, thoughtful Americans sang softly in praise of themselves.

Neil postman amusing ourselves to death