🐰 Down The Rabbit Hole 🕳️

“The problem with television is not that it presents us with entertaining subject matter but that all subject matter is presented as entertaining, which is another issue altogether.”

- Neil Postman,

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

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Greetings!

As I mentioned previously, there is so much gold to be found in the works of the twentieth century's great cultural critics that it makes sense to continue to revisit them regularly. To that end, the second quote from Neil Postman that I’m going to look at is also from his best-known work, Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business:

“What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one. Orwell feared those who would deprive us of information. Huxley feared those who would give us so much that we would be reduced to passivity and egoism. Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from us. Huxley feared the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance. Orwell feared we would become a captive culture. Huxley feared we would become a trivial culture, preoccupied with some equivalent of the feelies, the orgy porgy, and the centrifugal bumblepuppy.”

- Neil Postman, Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business

It is remarkable that Postman published this in 1985. Already, long before the rise of the internet, television was realizing Huxley’s fears. It’s even more remarkable that Huxley had these fears in 1932, long before the real rise of television. It’s clear now, with the rise of the internet, that Huxley’s fears have been largely realized.

But first, let’s look at Orwell’s fears, which have largely not been realized: Orwell feared that authoritarian governments would ban books, that we would therefore be deprived of information, and that the truth would be actively hidden. Ultimately, Orwell’s fear was that we would become a captive culture controlled by an authoritarian regime. While some of Orwell’s fears have come to pass (in particular, truth being hidden), it is not for the reason that he feared.

It is, instead, Huxley’s fears that have more or less all come true: that people would lose interest in reading, making book bans unnecessary, that information overload would lead to passivity and egoism, that truth would be buried in irrelevant information, and ultimately that we would become a trivial culture obsessed with superficial entertainment. It would seem that the rise and popularity of platforms such as TikTok mark a low point for our culture and do not bode well for the future.

So…what can we do? Again, real change begins with each of us. In order to push back against the triviality of our culture, we need to become more serious people. One way we can do this is to spend a lot less time on TikTok (Instagram, etc.) and a lot more time reading long and challenging books, and then interacting with people in the real world to discuss these books.

I am grateful for the Substack comments on this post, and one thing that has become clear since writing the above is that there is, indeed, no reason to think that Huxley's and Orwell's visions are mutually exclusive. Unfortunately, it would appear that they are simply on different timelines: Huxley's vision has made it much more likely that an Orwellian vision can become a reality. That said, there is hope and we do have agency to make things better! As always, thanks for being a subscriber.

All the best...and I'll be in touch again soon!

Herman

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