Huxley Is Much Scarier

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What Orwell feared were those who’d ban books. What Huxley feared was that there’d be no reason to ban a book… for no one would want to read one. Orwell feared those who’d deprive us of information. Huxley feared those who’d give us so much that it’d reduce us to passivity and egoism. Orwell feared we’d become a captive audience. Huxley feared a sea of irrelevance would drown the truth. Orwell feared that we’d become a captive culture. Huxley feared we’d become a trivial culture, preoccupied with some equivalent of the feelies, the orgy porgy, and the centrifugal bumblepuppy. As Huxley remarked in Brave New World Revisited, the civil libertarians and rationalists who are ever on the alert to oppose tyranny “failed to take into account man’s almost infinite appetite for distractions”. In Brave New World, they control by inflicting pleasure. In short, Orwell feared that what we hate would ruin us. Huxley feared that what we love would ruin us.

Neil Postman

Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business

1985

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