As we move into the 1980's, we offer two predictions: Double-digit inflation will end, and Orwell's 1984 will not come true.
The bad news is that double-digit inflation will end because it will succumb to triple-digit inflation; and that the West is not moving toward 1984 because it is moving toward Brave New World.. In George Orwell's fascinating vision (1948), men are coerced into a society of slaves; in Aldous Huxley's unforgettable novel (1932) they are conditioned into it.
In a recent speech,(*) a German journalist noted the failure of Soviet propaganda: "I guarantee you that there are no Communists under 40 in East Germany; the only Communists are in the West." To which this (ex-Czechoslovak) writer will add a guarantee that there are no Communists under 40 anywhere in Eastern Europe, and probably very few, if any, in the USSR itself.
Why?
Because the 1984 type of brainwashing does not work. Nobody is so stupid as to believe that the American imperialists will kill widows and orphans for profit¾nobody, that is, who is force-fed such nonsense. Why, then, can large segments of the population in the West be made to believe that the evil corporations, driven by lust for profits, will give cancer to anybody in sight (including themselves, apparently), as well as future generations?
Not, we submit, because of the rantings of the Fondas and Caldicotts. They are themselves too 1984-ish to have lasting effect; they probably just give most people the creeps. But in Brave New World, people "planned" for work in urban factories are, in childhood, shown pictures of flowers and the countryside as they are given electric shocks. No need to coerce them into city living when they grow up: They hate the country quite "naturally."
So why do millions in America regard profit and capitalism as dirty words? Why do they distrust science and technology? Why will they let fraudulent charlatans frighten them out of their wits with witch's brew concocted from scientific vocabulary?
Because they have been conditioned; not by Marx's Kapital, but by NBC's Colombo, in which every businessman¾subtly and unobtrusively¾is a fool, a crook, or both, as he is in virtually any other TV series.(**) (And the average American now spends only more time working and sleeping than in front of the conditioning tube.) This editorial lacks the space to give a million other examples from the printed media, the movies, school textbooks, college courses, and every other conceivable channel of communication where the conditioning spices are added subtly, but persistently.
And in energy? The viewer/student/reader may not be impressed with the arguments (there aren't any good ones) why solar energy should be more promising than nuclear. But all the while his subconscious is being conditioned into tender feelings toward the benign, beautiful, and soothing adjective solar, and into revulsion against the sinister, alarming, and altogether indecent adjective nuclear.
The lessons learned from 1984 and Brave New World over the past several decades can perhaps be put quite simply: Man's spirit cannot be broken; but it can be bent.
Beware!
We strongly recommend it to readers for other reasons than discussed here: Speech by Uwe Siemon-Netto at A.I.M. Banquet, 3 Nov.1979; text $1, tape $3, from A. I. M., 777 - 14th St. NW, #427, Wash., DC 20005.
** See B. Stein, The Viewfrom Sunset Boulevard, Basic Books, 1978.
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Vol. 7, No. 5
Newsletter: Access to Energy Newsletter Archive Volume: Volume 7 Issue/No.: Vol. 7, No. 5 Date: January 01, 1980 03:04 PM Title: Huxley, not Orwell
Copyright © 2004 - Access to Energy Newsletter Archive
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