“It is perfectly possible for a man to be out of prison, and yet not free -
to be under no physical constraint and yet to be a psychological captive,
compelled to think, feel and act as the representatives of the national
state, or of some private interest within the nation, wants him to think,
feel and act.
The nature of psychological compulsion is such that those who act under
constraint remain under the impression that they are acting on their own
initiative. The victim of mind-manipulation does not know that he is a
victim. To him the walls of his prison are invisible, and he believes
himself to be free. That he is not free is apparent only to other people.
His servitude is strictly objective.”
Brave New World Revisited, Aldous Huxley, 1958
“What the mass media offers is not popular art, but entertainment which is intended to be consumed like food, forgotten, and replaced by a new dish.” - W. H. Auden, The Dyer’s Hand, 1962
“The media no longer ask those who know something … to share that knowledge with the public. Instead they ask those who know nothing to represent the ignorance of the public and, in so doing, to legitimate it.” - Serge Daney (1944ñ1992), French film critic. Quoted in Sight and Sound (London, July 1992)
“By a routine that was not even secret, all letters were opened in transit… Don’t you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought? In the end we shall make thought crime literally impossible because there will be no words with which to express it…Every year fewer and fewer words and the range of consciousness always a little smaller.” - George Orwell, 1984.
{ 0 comments… add one now }