“We were keeping our eye on 1984. When the year came and the prophecy didn't, thoughtful Americans sang softly in praise of themselves. The roots of liberal democracy had held. Wherever else the terror had happened, we, at least, had not been visited by Orwellian nightmares.

But we had forgotten that alongside Orwell's dark vision, there was another - slightly older, slightly less well known, equally chilling: Aldous Huxley's Brave New World. Contrary to common belief even among the educated, Huxley and Orwell did not prophesy the same thing. Orwell warns that we will be overcome by an externally imposed oppression. But in Huxley's vision, no Big Brother is required to deprive people of their autonomy, maturity and history. As he saw it, people will come to love their oppression, to adore the technologies that undo their capacities to think.

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. 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 1984, Orwell added, people are controlled by inflicting pain. In Brave New World, they are controlled by inflicting pleasure. In short, Orwell feared that what we fear will ruin us. Huxley feared that what we desire will ruin us.

This book is about the possibility that Huxley, not Orwell, was right.” ― Neil Postman, Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business, year 1985

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The Republican Party is full of “sycophantic cowards who would gladly watch Ukrainians get killed if it meant Trump had a higher chance of winning reelection,” according to one American veteran training Ukrainian soldiers.

Tori Otten
January 24, 2024

Donald Trump celebrated winning the New Hampshire primary in his signature style: a series of deluded ravings. But connoisseurs of the former president’s rants were treated to an unexpected dollop of irony last night, as Trump came out against the losers of elections laying claim to victory.

Trump was the victor Tuesday night, winning the Granite State’s Republican primary with 54.5 percent of the vote. Nikki Haley came second, but her 43.2 percent support was far higher than anyone initially expected—a fact she celebrated as she promised supporters she would keep pushing.

Haley’s resilience immediately infuriated Trump, who turned his victory speech into a Haley roast. “I find in life, you can’t let people get away with bullshit,” he said, flanked by the nightmare blunt rotation of Vivek Ramaswamy, Tim Scott, and Eric Trump.

“And when I watched her in the fancy dress—that probably wasn’t so fancy—come up, I said, ‘What’s she doing? We won.’ And she did the same thing last week,” Trump said, referring to Haley celebrating after coming third in Iowa.

Having failed to fully purge himself of his excess emotions during his speech, Trump then took his grievances to social media, at one point writing on Truth Social, “Could somebody please explain to Nikki Haley that she lost—and lost really badly. She also lost Iowa, BIG, last week.”

It’s pretty rich for Trump to say that people who lose should just accept their loss. After all, he has been indicted twice, once at the federal level and once at the state, for failing to accept a loss so hard that he tried to overturn the 2020 presidential election.

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