1984 to 2540
I have a subtle but great triumph! that I can't quite share in the public forum. For some reason, I feel more tired but definitely less squelched. I even finished a book and started a new one! Brave New World—I'm sorry to admit—was anticlimactic. It did an intriguing job of illuminating the traps we've created for ourselves, but it was hard (nearly impossible) to invest in any of the characters.
Let me linger on its virtues, however: hypnopaedic learning, zygote manipulation, and the sexual revolution. (When I say virtues, I mean to say virtuous condemnation.)
Hypnopaedic learning is, in short, endlessly repeating cheap phrases while children are asleep. It eerily resembled so many of the slogans we blare on most media.
Even worse! It just struck me. I hear my students parrot really scary notions: I need to get into a good college or I have to do well on the SATs or I'm going to be a doctor. The notions themselves are neither good nor bad, but lusting after them brainlessly is always bad. Kids are typically trained to think that an expensive college counts as a "good college." Kids are typically trained to think that SATs measure intelligence and worth (neither of which is remotely true). And I will never deny our need for good doctors, but that's the exact problem: we need good doctors, not cheap parrots.
The zygote manipulation was a bit too futuristic: they had huge factories where they modified eggs and sperm as they germinated to produce specific castes for specific tasks. We're not that advanced yet, but we have long been murdering those that we don't think would fit nicely in our society, and we are starting to monitor genetics.
The sexual revolution Huxley wrote wasn't too unfamiliar. The only change I suppose was that promiscuity was formally trained as opposed to accidentally trained. "Everyone belongs to everyone else."
The book ended with a drug-induced orgy, and the young man—who had been trying to rise above the moral squalor of that world—hanged himself in shame. His dangling feet slowly turned northeast, east, southeast, south. It was as bleak and abrupt as 1984. He loved Big Brother.
What do we do with that? Most of us don't read, so there's no need to worry, LOL. (Am I allowed to LOL at myself?) It's interesting to note that so many of the stories that imagine suppression or control often prioritize books: burning books (Fahrenheit 451), restricting books (1984), hiding books (Brave New World), or collecting and permanently archiving books (Equilibrium).
Quick interjection: one of the most beautiful sounds is listening to rain fall in a forest.
I hate to admit it, but, if you want to become smarter and freer, you ought to read books.
Let me linger on its virtues, however: hypnopaedic learning, zygote manipulation, and the sexual revolution. (When I say virtues, I mean to say virtuous condemnation.)
Hypnopaedic learning is, in short, endlessly repeating cheap phrases while children are asleep. It eerily resembled so many of the slogans we blare on most media.
Even worse! It just struck me. I hear my students parrot really scary notions: I need to get into a good college or I have to do well on the SATs or I'm going to be a doctor. The notions themselves are neither good nor bad, but lusting after them brainlessly is always bad. Kids are typically trained to think that an expensive college counts as a "good college." Kids are typically trained to think that SATs measure intelligence and worth (neither of which is remotely true). And I will never deny our need for good doctors, but that's the exact problem: we need good doctors, not cheap parrots.
The zygote manipulation was a bit too futuristic: they had huge factories where they modified eggs and sperm as they germinated to produce specific castes for specific tasks. We're not that advanced yet, but we have long been murdering those that we don't think would fit nicely in our society, and we are starting to monitor genetics.
The sexual revolution Huxley wrote wasn't too unfamiliar. The only change I suppose was that promiscuity was formally trained as opposed to accidentally trained. "Everyone belongs to everyone else."
The book ended with a drug-induced orgy, and the young man—who had been trying to rise above the moral squalor of that world—hanged himself in shame. His dangling feet slowly turned northeast, east, southeast, south. It was as bleak and abrupt as 1984. He loved Big Brother.
What do we do with that? Most of us don't read, so there's no need to worry, LOL. (Am I allowed to LOL at myself?) It's interesting to note that so many of the stories that imagine suppression or control often prioritize books: burning books (Fahrenheit 451), restricting books (1984), hiding books (Brave New World), or collecting and permanently archiving books (Equilibrium).
Quick interjection: one of the most beautiful sounds is listening to rain fall in a forest.
I hate to admit it, but, if you want to become smarter and freer, you ought to read books.
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