In the forward to his 1985 book, Amusing Ourselves to Death, author Neil Postman notes that the year 1984 had come and gone without a fulfillment of George Orwell’s dark dystopian vision, and that Americans felt satisfied that the “roots of liberal democracy had Held.” Big Brother was not watching, and Americans retained their autonomy, freedom, and history. The nightmare world of Big Brother was just a nightmare.

However, he reminds us that alongside Orwell’s dark vision there was another, “slightly less well known, equally chilling: Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World.” In Huxley’s vision, no force would be required to deprive people of their freedom. Instead, as Huxley saw it, “people will come to love their oppression, to adore the technologies that undo their capacities to think.” Postman follows these observations with a series of further oppositions comparing the two visions.

What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was 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 bumble puppy.

…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.

Postman makes it clear that he thinks Huxley’s vision is coming true. Postman, however, blames television for most of the problem. Today, almost thirty years later, the Internet has more influence than television, and Postman’s arguments appear a bit dated. Have we avoided Huxley’s vision too? Or has the internet made Huxley’s and Postman’s vision even more likely? this question will be one of the central issues of this module.

Take one of the oppositions that Postman described in the paragraph quoted above. In your Brave New World notebook, write down the sentence or sentences that describe this opposition. Then think about connections with our own world. What is your gut feeling about it? Is Orwell’s or Huxley’s vision more accurate? What kind of evidence would you need to convince someone one way or the other? How would you investigate it?