Orwell v. Huxley and the NSA Leak

If you haven't read 'Brave New World' or '1984' I highly recommend them. While both tend toward being a bit racy, the point is certainly not to glorify what we would identify as sinful behaviour. These works were not composed by believers and so they don't get every last jot and tittle quite right, but in no way does that negate the overall insight and dare I say wisdom that they bring to these sociological questions. If anything they are instructive in discerning how unbelievers think and react when confronted with morality enforced by a totalitarian state...something Christo-Americans evidently do not grasp.

http://www.theworld.org/2013/06/nsa-leak-orwell-1984/

(It's about 5 minutes long)

I've always been interested in the Orwell v. Huxley debate. Is our society headed toward the dystopian vision posited by Orwell? Is that applicable to Western Europe and/or America, or was his model really just a science-fictionalized version of Stalinism?

Or was Huxley right? People are so distracted they are unable to see or understand the nature of the power that dominates their society?

The author being interviewed is probably right. The answer is a bit of both. Orwell's version applied to the West is something of a caricature and yet there are many elements that are very pertinent to our present social situation. Today it's not a matter of being in the 'party' in the sense that it might have been in the USSR. But if you wish to join the 'mainstream' of society you do have to adopt certain values and a certain mindset. And increasingly the state in the name of 'security' is moving down a Totalitarian path.

While there are segments in our society who claim to be against government expansion, the reality is quite the opposite. As has been shown by others, the government has expanded exponentially since 2001. The Security/Military/Surveillance sector has grown so massive as to be hard to even quantify. And when I challenge anti-big government types on this point, they are quick to defend it and consider it a necessity.