In 1984, George Orwell wrote, "with the development of television, and the technical advance which made it possible to receive and transmit simultaneously on the same instrument, private life came to an end." Orwell's novel was not a doomsday prophecy so much as a chilling metaphor of externally imposed oppression by the state. Orwell's prophesy spoke of a totalitarian government. The people would be deprived of everything private, even their thoughts. "Big Brother" saw everything and controlled every aspect of daily life. This prediction placed emphasis on an "external" factor, which would alter freedom of thought and speech, a cherished part of our democratic society.
Huxley's Brave New World, written a few years before Orwell's book, entertained a similar prospect of the future - but with one fundamental difference: in Huxley's vision, people would be come oppressed by their "internal" love of distraction. Huxley saw the Western society becoming preoccupied with......
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