Think we live in an Orwellian society? I don't agree...

[McKenzie]

...not totally anyway.

Yup, Orwell's vision is partly in place. Surveillance cameras, RFID chips, face scanning technology, tracking of cell phones and the whole gamut of stuff that would be needed to keep the population under a watchful eye is there. Yet not many people fight back or even seem to be bothered by that. I have wondered why that is the case, for years, and I reckon it's because we live in a society where most people are seduced by the easy lifestyle and comfort. Something more like Huxley's "Brave New World" more than 1984. That's not an entirely apt analogy but it serves to illustrate what I feel.

Link to an analysis of BNW here for those interested>>>

http://www.huxley.net/

We live in a society that is entertained to death at the cost of losing the desire to fight for what is right simply because it means discomfort; most people have become hopelessly seduced by the warm, cosiness of all the goodies on offer. Most people hate their work (I love mine...mostly) and seek to "have a good time" in their non-working hours. In order to meet that need there is a huge entertainment industry, the teevee (puke), countless straight to video trash movies, mass spectator sports etc. Just look at the range of magazines on news stands, for example. Keep 'em amused and they won't get restless; it seems to work.

If people were not seduced by the range of goodies on offer they might just start to notice that the world is becoming a rather nasty place. (Assuming we had a functioning media that is but just pretend we do for now). In that scenario we'd probably then become subject to every form of control that Orwell wrote about in his novel. There's no need for that at present because a large part of the people is kept stupified and "amused" (sic). And those in power know that only too well.

I think J K Galbraith said something similar in "The Culture of Contentment".

Sorry for ranting but I get really dispirited when I realise just how far up shit creek we really are.

[renate]

1. good point

It's been a while since I read 1984 (and I don't intend to do it any time soon because it would be truly painful--no longer fiction), but that is the difference between the book and what's happening now, isn't it? Bread and circuses... they always do the trick.

[Cats Against Frist]

2. No, we're in 1984:

"The aide said that guys like me were "in what we call the reality-based community," which he defined as people who "believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality." I nodded and murmured something about enlightenment principles and empiricism. He cut me off. "That's not the way the world really works anymore," he continued. "We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality - judiciously, as you will - we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do."

From the NYT Suskind article. Perhaps the most salient and chilling quote in all of history. We're living Orwell big-style.

[McKenzie]

3. You are correct in one sense

yes, we are being manipulated, Yes, our vision of reality (well not all of our visions of reality) is manufactured. That's where the Huxleyian thing kicks in. It gives people something comforting to focus upon so they don't start getting uneasy over what's going on. The mass entertainment of society is a useful tool for keeping people doped up, and in an unreal world, which could well be an Orwellian thing after all. Maybe what I said about being seduced by comfort in my OP is just another aspect of Orwellian control.

"and you think you're so clever, so classless and free
But you're still fucking peasants as far as I can see
they keep you doped with religion and sex and tv"

John Lennon "Working Class Hero"

[xchrom]

4. republicans go for their goals.

they act -- they stay together even when they don't agree one hundred percent.

i don't have to like repukes -- but i'm not going to be so stupid as to look frankly at what they do.

[bobthedrummer]

5. It's called perception management now.

There are private companies that do this for the administration of George W. Bush.

For example, there is The Rendon Group.
http://www.prwatch.org/prwissues/2001Q4/rendon.html

Another example is The Lincoln Group.
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Lincoln_Group

Then there is the military to consider. The Department of Defense Dictionary definition of "perception management:
Actions to convey and/or deny selected information and indicators to foreign audiences to influence their emotions, motives, and objective reasoning as well as to intelligence systems and leaders at all levels to influence official estimates, ultimately resulting in foreign behaviors and offical actions favorable to the originator's objectives.

In various ways, perception management combines truth projection, operations security, cover and deception, and psychological operations."

Last week Pentagon officials, including Donald Rumsfeld, acknowledged that some of these programs (including psychological operations) had found their way from foreign audiences to US audiences.

Some subjects that were once ridiculed as outrageous conspiracy theory have been proven to be true.

It's 2006.

[McKenzie]

7. and I thought I was clued up on this stuff

I haven't seen these articles before although I have the main page of that site bookmarked.

Thanks for the useful leads...this is a subject that interests me a lot.

[AX10]

6. Right now, it's the "Brave New World". Some may say, "Grave New World".

1984 is coming in the near future though.

[bobthedrummer]

8. Domestic spying links (from Crisis Papers)

Here's some very useful articles on domestic spying.

http://www.crisispapers.org/topics/spyscandal.htm