Tuesday, December 2, 2014

"The American Delusion: Distracted, Diverted and Insulated from the Grim Reality of the Police State."

“In the age of advanced technology, spiritual devastation is more likely to come from an enemy with a smiling face than from one whose countenance exudes suspicion and hate. In the Huxleyan prophecy, Big Brother does not watch us, by his choice. We watch him, by ours. There is no need for wardens or gates or Ministries of Truth. When a population becomes distracted by trivia, when cultural life is redefined as a perpetual round of entertainments, when serious public conversation becomes a form of baby talk, when, in short, a people become an audience and their public business a vaudeville act, then a nation finds itself at risk: culture-death is a clear possibility.”—Author Neil Postman

5 comments:

PO'd American said...

Amen, Amen! I on the other hand believe the old adage: never look for complicated reasons when just plain "stupid" applies.

Sean said...

Try getting any young man aged 16-30 to stop looking at some electronic device 8+ hours a day. Just try.

Anonymous said...

NOTHING about this is accidental or stupid, those are ruses which allow the perpetrators to excuse their actions.

All of it is a plan by Marxists to get what they want (you and your children), without paying any price for it.

MissAnthropy said...

The quote mixes sources a bit (Big Brother was Orwell not Huxley) but that is itself an interesting study in contrast.

Orwell and Huxley both wrote of future societies with an omnipotent, omniscient State. Both of these visions, 1984 and Brave New World, respectively, are often used as examples in discussing real life statism. Which of them is most plausible?

Someone once said, I can't remember who, that the primary difference in these two dystopias is that in Orwell's dystopia a man cannot read a book because it is banned outright, whereas in Huxley's dystopia a man cannot read a book because any desire to do so has been purged from his mind and spirit.

I would say Huxley's vision is the closer approximation of where we've been going. We are a society with more information and knowledge literally at our fingertips than at anytime in history, yet the bulk of this human herd seems content to succor itself on banalities.

Paul X said...

"holding the government accountable to abiding by the rule of law"

Talk about pie-in-the-sky...

I'm not buying this article. Every military that ever took us on, started with the supposition that Americans are self-absorbed and spoiled. How did that work out for them?

Evidently people can straighten up and fight when they have bullets coming at them. This is the same old conservative rant, "If people aren't more like me then it is cultural suicide!" A bunch of baloney if you ask me.