George Orwell in “1984,” democracy is bludgeoned into submission by totalitarian brutality. In many ways, it was the competing post-democratic vision of Aldous Huxley, articulated in his famous novel “Brave New World,” that seems to be closer to fruition. Huxley argued that freedom would be slowly eaten alive by technological change and an insatiable public appetite for entertainment. Reflecting on that possibility in his 1985 book, “Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business,” cultural critic Neil Postman wrote, “As he” — Huxley — “saw it, people will come to love their oppression, to adore the technologies that undo their capacities to think.”
