Author, Simon.
Published, July 13, 2009.
Justin Taylor, at Between Two Worlds, posted a link to this cartoon/comic by Stuart McMillen. McMillen drew this in response to a book called Amusing Ourselves to Death by Neil Postman.
The book propounds that Aldous Huxley, in his novel Brave New World, was actually right in his predictions. He contrasts Huxley’s thought with that of George Orwell’s in 1984. This is compelling and thought provoking. See here for the cartoon.
You might notice the Dreamworld symbol in one of the drawings. It turns out that McMillen is from Brisbane. McMillen’s site, Recombitant Records, is a cartoon blog. He cartoon-blogs about clean energy, bike riding, and stuff. Check it out!
Yes!
For anyone who is interested in these dystopian future themes, may I also recommend Fahrenheit 451 (yes, i may).
I wouldn’t go as far as to say that any of these books changed my life (because that sounds weird, though it’s technically true, because if they hadn’t been written I would have had those hours of my life back…) but they certainly made me think, in an ongoing way, about time, leisure and the stuff we do to “relax” and how sometimes that’s just sedating our minds to avoid anything difficult/challenging/worthwhile.
And now I’m sounding like a whacko.
Also, when I think about the things I do just to whittle away the hours, I sometimes decide to pull it back a bit, and just discover that now I have an evening at home, and nothing that I deem “worthwhile” to do.
Therein ends tonight’s thoughts.
I always preferred “Brave New World” to “1984″ for that exact reason…even though 1984 did seem equally possible, it seemed much more reasonable that Brave New World was in fact a reality…