Sunday, December 15, 2013
Dystopia Now
Don't worry about anything - technology is the answer to everything. Put your faith in iPads, iPods, Macs, Netflix, cable tv, candy crush, or any other technological innovation and you create your own dystopian society. Technology is the new religion of America. Everyone is enraptured by their cell phones, people have to check them constantly. Everything has to be shared, nothing private. People are atomized and separated from one another; the collective and community aspects die slowly. People are constantly rushed, with no time to think deeply, there is no silence. There is a sense of something being off-kilter and not right. No matter how much you buy it never fills the emptiness. Many drown their sorrows in drugs and alcohol. Is life not to be slowly contemplated? How many people let life come to them? America has become Brave New World, and we didn't need outsiders we created it ourselves. As Goethe said "Man errors as long as he strives". Speed, efficiency, results based, progress are all considered American today. However there is another tradition which goes against this modern divergence- transcendentalism. A movement for simplicity, solitude, reflection, thinking, anti-consumerism and mindfulness. I for one refuse to give in to the 'herd' mentality and gladly oppose this death culture and so should everyone who truly cares about others. If each of us refuse to give in, if we fight against it, if we live our lives under another model we can finally truly free ourselves.
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While I do agree that our society has become a society where "nothing is private," I wouldn't go as far as saying its Brave New World. It might be New World-esque in the sense that technology dictates our happiness, but, there are no massive group orgies among us, and pill-popping soma... Unless that's how you role Weisback-- I don't know, i'm not judging! But, like in Brave New World, maybe it would be better for society as a whole if we learned from the Savage Reservation, and regressed back to how the people there live their lives, don't you think?
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ReplyDeleteKerwin need I remind you we do have some - alcohol, marijuana, cocaine, meth, oxy, etc. We just self-medicate ourselves into oblivion since our lives are hopelessly desperate. There is a strict hierarchical class structure just like in Brave New World without much movement out of the social class one is born into. Looks very similar to me...
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