George Orwell’s classic 1984 is racing off the bookshelves, claiming the No.1 best seller spot on Amazon:
From AP:
Signet Classics told The Associated Press in a statement Wednesday that sales have been “remarkably robust” for a book that already is a classroom standard. The publisher noted that books such as Orwell’s tap into “the fears, anxieties, and even hopes” of readers.
The heightened interest in Orwell’s Dystopian classic, in which language itself is held captive, follows assertions by President Donald Trump and some White House aides about the size of his inaugural crowd and whether voter fraud led him to lose the popular vote to Hillary Clinton last fall. Administration adviser Kellyanne Conway has called such assertions “alternate facts.”
MB readers should avail themselves of Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World instead, given Trumps core background as a celebrity “reality” show host, not as some proto-Big Brother.
As Neil Postman compared the two:
- 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 egotism.
- 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 our fear will ruin us. Huxley feared that our desire will ruin us.
How was the cricket yesterday? Did you hear a new season of My Kitchen Rules starts soon!