| by comrade commissar | Thomas | @ Thursday, August 05, 2004, 4:43:00 PM | permalink |
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(With reference to this orginal post, which led to this retort..)
Oh boy. Hot potato on my hands. Let's analyse it step-by-step. First, the part on my Brave New World references: Wouldn't a "Fordian world" imply that as a member of this society, you would have undergone the same foetal conditioning as everyone else? (Alcohol, heat, "The lower the caste, the shorter the oxygen", etc.)I think I'm at fault for being vague. When I made an analogy to a "Fordian World" with relation to Sleep, I meant to only mean the aspect of the society's focus on pleasure, (eg. sex, soma) in the same way that sleep is also a form of all-consuming pleasure. I should have realise that given the wide range of topics covered by Aldous Huxley in BNW, I should have been more specific. An Orwellian society would basically be a bad system. The similarity I'm trying to draw between an Orwellian society & Sleep is that more often than not, we would not be given choices in either case. Sleep may be inevitable (most of the time hopefully), & hence forced upon us, (1984-style) but it is wonderful & pleasurable. (Fordian society) Sleep can maintain a strong grip on us by appealing to our innate psychological hendonistic motives. So much so that we no longer try to struggle or resist it. The Fordian world of pleasure & Sleep both work better than the Orwellian society because our entire consciousness is contented & convinced, & not just merely coerced into obedience. We no longer see a reason to doublethink or commit thoughtcrime. I'm not saying that Sleep is a bad thing. I'm saying that sometimes, when you have to work/study, it might be wise to fight the fatigue & get up 1 or 2 hours earlier (easier said than done *guilty*) The idea of the steak in the machine world could be paralleled with that of a really good dream. "It seems so real! Why should I snap out of it?" But actually, other than that, most of the bits about the Matrix were added in to look cool ;p Hey, Cypher & Neo always are symbols of 1337. |
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