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The Author of Brave New World, a dystopian novel about the demise of culture. Huxley’s book imagines a future world where the things we love destroy us: our desire to be entertained, to be shallowly happy, results in the virtual elimination of thought itself. Postman’s book suggests that Huxley’s account will be proven right if we are not more mindful of how we interact with media.
Aldous Huxley Quotes in Amusing Ourselves to Death
The Amusing Ourselves to Death quotes below are all either spoken by Aldous Huxley or refer to Aldous Huxley. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
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Foreword Quotes
This book is about the possibility that Huxley, not Orwell, was right.
Related Characters:
Aldous Huxley, George Orwell
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Page Number and Citation:
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Explanation and Analysis:
Postman has summarized the plots of two famous dystopian novels: Aldous Huxley's Brave New Worldand George Orwell's 1984. Both novels depict a totalitarian government which, through carefully constructed technologies of control, have repressed the populations over which they rule such that political dissent is impossible. However, these methods of control differ vastly––in Orwell's novel, surveillance technologies, economic scarcity, and strict censorship mean that there are no opportunities to think, watch, read, or say anything that opposes the hate-filled, ultranationalistic government agenda. Huxley, meanwhile, depicts a society in which citizens have endless opportunity for entertainment, including drugs, travel, sex, or "feelies," a spin off "movies" (which were a fairly new medium in Huxley's time).
By saying that Huxley "was right," Postman implies that it would be more plausible for a population to be subdued and controlled by entertainment than by severe and direct government oppression. Crucially, he also suggests that Huxley was "right" in the sense that his dystopian vision is close – uncomfortably close – to the reality of 1980s American society. This comparison illustrates Postman's view that television has acclimatized the population to constant, shallow entertainment, and that in so doing has eroded citizen's ability to engage in rational thought and discourse.
Chapter 6 Quotes
Had Irving Berlin changed one word in the title of his celebrated song [There’s No Business like Show Business], he would have been as prophetic, albeit more terse, as Aldous Huxley. He need only have written, There's No Business But Show Business.
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Chapter 11 Quotes
Brave New World was not that they were laughing instead of thinking, but that they did not know what they were laughing about and why they had stopped thinking.
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Aldous Huxley Character Timeline in Amusing Ourselves to Death
The timeline below shows where the character Aldous Huxley appears in Amusing Ourselves to Death. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Foreword
...begins his book by summarizing George Orwell’s 1949 dystopian novel 1984, as well as Aldous Huxley’s (also dystopian) 1932 novel Brave New World. Postman points out that these authors, though they...
(full context)
Chapter 1: The Medium is the Metaphor
...the form of the media that presents it. Postman believes that McLuhan, like Orwell and Huxley, “spoke in the tradition of prophecy.” Postman was once a student of McLuhan, and he...
(full context)
Chapter 6: The Age of Show Business
...Business like Show Business], he would have been as prophetic, albeit more terse, as Aldous Huxley. He need only have written, There's No Business But Show Business.”
(full context)
Chapter 7: Now…This
...would have been stymied by this situation; there is nothing ‘Orwellian’ about it,” Postman says. Huxley, on the other hand, would not be surprised in the least at the current state...
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Chapter 11: The Huxleyan Warning
...may be shriveled,” Postman says. “In the first—the Orwellian—culture becomes a prison. In the second—the Huxleyan—culture becomes a burlesque.” For Orwell, the danger comes from people full of hatred and resentment,...
(full context)
