This led me to ponder whether this microcosm of technological dysfunction and dissatisfaction applies to technology on a much larger scale, as technology has been sold to the masses as the solution to all of our ills and a sure sign we are progressing as a civilization and culture. Technological advances have given the masses the false impression their lives have gotten better, when in reality the technology has enslaved and controlled them while providing a never-ending distraction from reality, critical thinking and the truth.
With virtually everyone in America having access to the internet, smart phones containing more computing power than NASA used to launch rocket ships into outer space, and the proliferation of computers even in the poorest school districts, the masses should be far more intelligent and informed than previous generations. But nothing could be further from the truth.
Technology is wasted on people who haven’t been taught to think critically, have been indoctrinated by government run schools to be subservient cogs in the machine, and believe feelings and emotions are more important than knowledge and understanding. The proliferation of social media (Twitter, Facebook, Instagram) has resulted in the dumbing down of human interactions and replacement of discussing issues with virtue signaling, selfies, faux manufactured outrage, and glorifying shallow celebrities. We’re addicted to technology.
It is incomprehensible our society has embraced technology for amusement, trivialities, and superficial displays of diversion, rather than advancement of knowledge, proliferation of ideas, and cultural progress and enrichment. The works of Aristotle, Socrates, Shakespeare, Dickens, Twain, Tolstoy, Steinbeck, Orwell and Huxley are available with one click of your iGadget, but instead the masses choose to play Angry Birds, Candy Crush, and Madden, while worshipping at the altar of Kardashian. So much knowledge and wisdom at your fingertips, guaranteed to make you smarter and 99.9% choose to amuse themselves into a stupor of ignorance.
Are we just a society of intellectual lightweights, driven by emotions and sensitivities? Or is this infinite infantilism designed and implemented by those controlling the culture through their ownership of all media platforms? It appears to be a purposeful deliberate strategy implemented by the ruling class to dumb down the masses through the public education (indoctrination) system, divert their attention and thoughts through modern day electronic bread and circuses, enslaving them in debt, and pillaging global wealth and power through control of the political, financial, and mass media structures. And now they utilize the technology to spy on you and make sure you are not contradicting the establishment narrative.
“Our politics, religion, news, athletics, education and commerce have been transformed into congenial adjuncts of show business, largely without protest or even much popular notice. The result is that we are a people on the verge of amusing ourselves to death.” ― Neil Postman
If the daily machinations, intrigues, schemes, and plot twists broadcast 24/7 seem like an orchestrated reality TV show, it’s because they are. It’s nothing more than an enhanced Truman Show where we are all Truman. The controllers produce the daily disinformation propaganda; superficial story-lines designed to play upon your emotions; plot twists designed to invoke hope, despair, anger, fear, and desire; and a ceaseless mantra that the government, mega-corporations, Wall Street bankers, and chosen “experts” know what is best for us.
They don’t want a citizenry who understands what is going on, how to think critically and question the establishment, or live within their means. They want obedient consumers who believe what they are told by “authorities” and are just smart enough to follow the rules laid down by their superiors. A nation built on illusions, delusions, disinformation and confusion.
“Television is altering the meaning of ‘being informed’ by creating a species of information that might properly be called disinformation. Disinformation does not mean false information. It means misleading information – misplaced, irrelevant, fragmented or superficial information – information that creates the illusion of knowing something, but which in fact leads one away from knowing.” ― Neil Postman
Television has always been an effective tool in keeping the masses under control. Talking media heads, sold to the public as highly intelligent and educated journalists, mouthed their lines, written by invisible men working on behalf of the wealthy ruling class, to sooth the savage beasts known as the masses. Control the message and you control society.
With the advent of the internet, what should have been a vast awakening and enlightenment of the masses, has just been a degradation to the lowest common denominator. Social media platforms have eliminated thought, conversation, seriousness, knowledge, intelligence, and clarity from the public square and replaced it with narcissism, vitriol, virtue signaling, triviality, attacking anyone with a different viewpoint, and self-promotion.
Now that the Silicon Valley social media behemoth corporations have hundreds of millions addicted to amusing themselves to death, they can decide what is acceptable speech and that which doesn’t conform to their left-wing views. Censorship, public shaming, manufactured outrage and destroying those with an alternative point of view is now in the control of a small cabal of extremely rich men.
Neil Postman published his book in 1985, one year after the title of Orwell’s chilling view of a dark and brutal dystopian future. Postman’s view at the time was Huxley’s Brave New World dystopia had proven to be the more accurate assessment of the future. And he was probably right thirty-four years ago. He accurately assessed how the masses had been trained like Pavlov’s dogs to follow their emotions rather than their intellects.
“For in the end, he was trying to tell us what afflicted the people in ‘Brave New World’ was not that they were laughing instead of thinking, but that they did not know what they were laughing about and why they had stopped thinking.” ― Neil Postman, Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business
The average person actually thinks they are informed, when they have been programmed by disinformation peddled by the corporate media at the behest of their oligarch masters. Ignorance is not strength. War is not peace. Freedom is not slavery.
The misleading information – superficial, irrelevant, fake news – is designed to create the illusion of knowledge when, in reality, it leads you away from knowledge. Postman didn’t think the dumbing down of Americans was deliberate. He attributed it to TV entertaining rather than informing.
I believe those in control of the levers of society have made a calculated effort to convince the masses their willful ignorance is actually knowledge. The ignorant are much easier to manipulate and lead down any path necessary to benefit those in charge. Accumulating wealth and power is much easier when the masses can’t think, understand basic mathematical truths, or comprehend reality.
Orwell warns that we will be overcome by an externally imposed oppression. But in Huxley’s vision, no Big Brother is required to deprive people of their autonomy, maturity and history. As he saw it, people will come to love their oppression, to adore the technologies that undo their capacities to think.
The establishment now openly suppresses the truth through their control of all mainstream media channels and outlets. The alternate media is scorned and ridiculed as conspiracy theorists, nutjobs, and Russian collaborators. The level of fake news vomited by Deep State propagandists has reached a new level of hysteria. Dissenting viewpoints are crushed through economic penalties inflicted upon those who dare go against the approved doctrine of the state.
The use of technology to control the minds of the masses has produced unintended consequences which threatens the power of the Party. A true Surveillance State, more comprehensive than Orwell ever conceived, is operating in full view. Trying to lock down the internet has proven to be difficult for the ruling class as more and more critical thinking, pissed off citizens congregate on truth telling websites and stir discontent among the awakening masses.
Huxley’s soft tyranny, where we have been conditioned to obey and never consider revolution, is being replaced by Orwell’s vicious tyranny where persecution, torture and power will be on full display as this revolution begins in earnest. Portman was just early in his conclusion. Huxley and Orwell were both right. The Party doesn’t care about us. They just use us to attain their own felonious needs. We need to break free from the chains enslaving our minds and take back our country by force. Time is growing short. Will we meekly accept the fate of Winston Smith and John the Savage inflicted by the State or will we rise up against the technological tyranny oppressing our freedoms and liberties? The answer will decide our fate.
We know that no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it. Power is not a means; it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship. The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power. Now you begin to understand me.” – George Orwell, 1984
“One believes things because one has been conditioned to believe them. Most men and women will grow up to love their servitude and will never dream of revolution.” – Aldous Huxley, Brave New World
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