naturalplastic wrote:
Interesting question.
At first glance the answer seems to be "Orwell was right only about places like Iran and in North Korea, but Huxley was right about everywhere else including ( and especially) the US".
Both things go on. Maybe it aint totally either-or.
Technology has indeed created ever greater and greater "weapons of mass distraction".
In the Sixties everyone worried that big mainframe computers would aid "Big Brother" in enslaving us all to big government and big corporations. Now we worry about information tech helping "little Brother" (the forces of anarchy and crime). Except the later can be in the service of the former (misinformation campaigns can be waged in democracies to aid dictatorships).
I agree.
I particularly think the concept of
Soma for happiness is relevant to the US, since a lot of folk in the US, more so than any other place in the world, seem to be on anti-depressants or mood stabilizers as a substitute for happiness.
Technology replacing religion as a means of spiritual fulfillment also seems relevant to the current day.
1984 seems more relevant to less developed countries with more crude methods of suppressing and controlling their populations.