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Apr 07, 2020carolwu96 rated this title 4.5 out of 5 stars
According to Neil Postman, author of Amusing Ourselves to Death, two chilling predictions forebode the future. One, the boisterous blindness described in Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World; the other, the governmental oppression in George Orwell’s 1984. ⁣ ⁣ I had read Brave New World last summer, touring a world in which everyone forsook critical thinking and followed assigned roles. 1984 was written in a similar manner: rather than the plot, the book focused on the functioning of the system. Yet they were also different: while Brave New World depicted blissful ignorance, 1984 was all about forced compliance. ⁣ ⁣ 1984 took its components from history. Constant monitoring and the Thought Police, for example, were reminiscent of the Chinese Cultural Revolution, during which the family unit collapsed and children-turned-spies sent dissenting parents to the government.⁣ ⁣ 1984 also had surprising foresight into the future. President of the supposed beacon of the democratic world, Donald Trump displays an obsession with omniscience eerily similar to that of the Oceania government. Just like the Big Brother, “nobody knows more” about anything than Donald Trump! ⁣ ⁣ Another similarity lies in the two government’s manner in purging public anger. Trump blames his failures on China, just as Oceania’s government targets indifferent rival countries to divert attention from the real problem — hierarchal inequality. Ironically, it was Trump’s own recent response to the unequal distribution of coronavirus testing kits that betrayed the real problem; according to him, inequality is just “the story of life.” ⁣ ⁣ Amidst all the horror, it was the concept of Newspeak, an evolving language specifically created to limit the human thought, that gave the most shivers. It is also here that I think, contrary to Postman’s belief, Brave New World and 1984 converge. Although one appears to assert control through distraction and the other suppression, both are just ways to regulate minds to the profit of the ruling class. ⁣ ⁣ Ignorance is Strength, but whose ignorance, and to whose strength? For more book and movie reviews, visit me on Instagram @ RandomStuffIRead :)