Reply #7: Brave New World, without a doubt [View All]

[Bronyraurus]

The citizenry is doped into apathy (today it would be intellectually vapid and sex-obsessed pop culture, drugs, video games, etc...) about the state of the world. It is also heavily stratified into intellectual classes, as is ours. The highest good is not spirituality, but consumption of goods and almighty Ford. These are the methods of control in BNW, and it makes for a much happier populace (like ours) than totalitarianism does, but it crushes the soul just as well.

I hate to contradict other posters (ha, ha), but the US of 2007 does not resemble 1984. The most important method of government control over its subjects in 1984 is the elimination of dissenting thoughts through manipulation of the language and rewriting of history. Orwell's point was that a person cannot think incorrect thoughts if he does not have the language to express those thoughts. And for those who are just incorrigible, there is always the tortures of room 101, which exploit a person's deepest fears. In America, language is as free as ever (more so due to the internet), thought is as free as ever, and no one gets tortured for writing, thinking, or saying anything.

"What about Guantanamo?!"

Shutup.