I think the current reality is more of a mix between "A Brave New World" and "Farenheit 451". Bradbury deserves a mention there.
Funny you would say that... I agree, although I wasn't thinking about Fahrenheit 451 when I mentioned another "mix" scenario in another thread[1] that touched on Nineteen Eighty-Four.
My thought then was:
Interestingly, I think reality is converging towards something like a hybrid of the two worlds described by Orwell and Huxley. Well, in the case of Huxley not so much the literal use of hypnosis and psycho-analysis, but if you treat that stuff as a metaphor, then you can see the connection.
TV, pop music, Fox News, and so much other low-value content has become the "sedative for the masses" at the same time that the government assumes more and more power and control...
"Of course," you might say, "we're nowhere close to Orwell's world with his Minitru, etc ." But if you substitute "We are at war with the USSR and the Taliban are our allies and have always been our allies" and "We are at war with the Taliban and the Russians are our allies and have always been our allies" for certain bits of Orwell's work, you might notice some eerie parallels and scary possibilities.
