In 1932 Huxley’s Brave New World was published.
19 years later Orwell’s 1984 was published.
In the 21st century both dystopian classics began to blend:
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Stone-cutters fighting time with marble, you foredefeated
Challengers of oblivion
Eat cynical earnings, knowing rock splits, records fall down,
The square-limbed Roman letters
Scale in the thaws, wear in the rain. The poet as well
Builds his monument mockingly;
For man will be blotted out, the blithe earth die, the brave sun
Die blind and blacken to the heart:
Yet stones have stood for a thousand years, and pained
thoughts found
The honey of peace in old poems.
— Robinson Jeffers
His soul stretched tight across the skies
That fade behind a city block,
Or trampled by insistent feet
At four and five and six o’clock;
And short square fingers stuffing pipes,
And evening newspapers, and eyes
Assured of certain certainties,
The conscience of a blackened street
Impatient to assume the world.
I am moved by fancies that are curled
Around these images, and cling:
The notion of some infinitely gentle
Infinitely suffering thing.
Wipe your hand across your mouth, and laugh;
The worlds revolve like ancient women
Gathering fuel in vacant lots.
— Eliot
I CELEBRATE myself, and sing myself,
And what I assume you shall assume,
For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.
I loafe and invite my soul,
I lean and loafe at my ease observing a spear of summer grass.
My tongue, every atom of my blood, form’d from this soil, this
air,
Born here of parents born here from parents the same, and their
parents the same,
I, now thirty-seven years old in perfect health begin,
Hoping to cease not till death.
— Walt Whitman
The scientists are in terror
and the European mind stops
Wyndham Lewis chose blindness
rather than have his mind stop.
Night under wind mid garofani,
the petals are almost still
Mozart, Linnaeus, Sulmona,
When one’s friends hate each other
how can there be peace in the world?
Their asperities diverted me in my green time.
A blown husk that is finished
but the light sings eternal
a pale flare over marshes
where the salt hay whispers to tide’s change
Time, space,
neither life nor death is the answer.
And of man seeking good,
doing evil.
In meiner Heimat
where the dead walked
and the living were made of cardboard.
Gerard Van der Leun
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I’d include “It Can’t Happen Here” by Sinclair Lewis, too. Lewis, like all so-called progressives, got it wrong when he assigned responsibility for the authoritarian government to a rabid right-wing movement. It’s always the oh-so-tolerant-left that cannot abide anyone breaking cadence with their goose-stepping ways.
As for Amazon’s Alexa: I am completely baffled why any sane person would have one of those devices in his house. (He typed as the NSA recorded everyone of his keystrokes). Oh, well…..
Those quotes are taken from the Foreword to Neil Postman’s AMUSING OURSELVES TO DEATH. It is an absolute must-read for anyone who wants to understand how we got to *Clown World 2019*. Like Christopher Lasch, who wrote the equally prescient THE CULTURE OF NARCISSISM, Postman was a clear-eyed old-school liberal who saw the media-/entertainment-driven behavioral-sink that America was sliding into, and warned us about it *decades* ago.
I was gonna comment on this but Siri said I shouldn’t.
When did Jeb Bush start selling blenders.
Blendtec is the best blender out there.
Sorry got distracted the View was on.
“What you need is a gram of Soma.”
“All the advantages of Christianity and alcohol,none of their defects.”
“And do remember that a gram is better than a damn.”
They went out,laughing.
Huxley,the eternal Savage,rules.
The final verdict isn’t in on Orwell v. Huxley. I suspect the 2020’s will supply it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2HKTx5WFcs0
Richard, it may interest you to know that NSA is hiring.
To apply, just message your resume anywhere.
@H:
Groovy! And the bestest part of that is that there’s no need for an interview because they already know everything.
“Siri”. “Please open the link for ‘American Digest'”.
“I’m sorry John, there is no such link”.
Simply amazing, and amusing. I sent this to ALL my associates around the world!. Boff Em.
Made my day.
DW