The Machinery of Night
Sometimes the pessimist in me fears that our country may be too asleep from mindless, pornographic entertainment and the failure of the decadent, cozy-with-the-powerful, corrupted remains of the Fourth Estate to care much about the potential utter ruination of America as a democratic republic.
Maybe the Powerful in America have figured out that you don’t need to be a formal autocracy to rule the world and your citizens as an empire; you just need to keep the plebes busy with porn and “When Planes Crash” -style “reality” television and gladiatorial contests and bread and circuses. Just keep their reptilian brains busy and stimulated enough so they don’t notice their increasing powerlessness and slavery – they just feel free because they vote every few years for candidates, none of whom pose any real threat to the lever-pullers controlling the Machinery of Night (to borrow a phrase from Allen Ginsberg) that binds their souls and enacts their slavery.
Or, maybe Americans will begin to talk to one another about the danger posed to their freedom by ceaseless propaganda-in-service-of-empire, and turn off their televisions and porn and stop eating themselves into gaseous stupors, so they can look hard enough to actually see what’s really going on all around them.
Comments are closed.
You sound a little like Herbert Marcuse.
Or, maybe this is the depression talking. I don’t think so, though.
In my teenage years, I often enjoyed reading dystopia novels. “1984″ was probably my favorite, but in retrospect, I think that “Brave New World” was the more prescient.
I think so too, Bill – it is easier just to let ‘em amuse themselves into bondage than to impose it by force.
Or, maybe this is the depression talking. I don’t think so, though.
From the Scientific American review on Amazon.com of Cordelia Fine’s book A Mind of its Own: How Your Brain Distorts and Deceives:
Having experienced it myself, I would never want to encourage depression or recommend it to anyone. But I do think there is a lot of truth to what Cordelia Fine says.
If Purgatory exists, perhaps it is the process of having our defenses and our illusions about ourselves and the world stripped away so we see things as they really are.
If you’re in the mood for reality-based depression, go read John Taylor Gatto’s, “The Underground History of American Education.” In it you’ll begin to realize that the rabbit hole goes far deeper that we generally care to acknowledge – and you’ll likely cease to be so optimistic.