Entering the ‘Brave New World’

‘People will come to love their oppression, to adore the technologies that undo their capacities to think.’

In “Amusing Ourselves to Death, author Neil Postman said that in the modern world, people were more oppressed by their addiction to amusement, as reflected in “Brave New World” by Aldous Huxley (R), rather than by the state, as portrayed in “1984” by George Orwell (L). Hulton Archive/Getty Images

Aldous Huxley, author of the famous dystopian novel Brave New World, believed that pleasure was a veritable poison brewing quietly in the belly of modern civilisation.

According to the English writer and philosopher, pleasure these days is akin to a sneaky, silent assassin—looking innocent enough, but deadly as a dose of strychnine in your tea.