I'm interested in the subject matter dealt with in this book, namely...

I'm interested in the subject matter dealt with in this book, namely, the abundance of pleasure and entertainment keeps us distracted.

But I'm not sure if I should read something written in the 30s and which seems to imply those problems are a result of conspiracy of a totalitarian government...

Given the historical context which I don't think applies today, I'm thinking I should just get a non-fiction on this topic (any recommendations)?

Why would the threat of a totalitarian government be isolated to the 1930s?

>seems to imply those problems are a result of conspiracy of a totalitarian government

Huxley would argue that these 'problems' facilitated the autocratic regime.

>I'm interested in an idea
>But I don't want to read it when it's presented in this way
You people are the worst

Because today these distractions are simply the result of entertainment as a product of a free market. Television, social media, pornography... there are businesses behind these, it's not the state pulling the strings to control us.

And to blame it on technology or capitalism is just as paranoid. It is simply our inability to consume media in a responsible manner - this goes back to the 19th century when telegraph was just invented.

How is it unfair to criticize the format? Should I go watch a youtube video then? Or go read a Facebook post about? Ridiculous argument fuck out of here.

It's short, read it then read Brave New World Revisited, which is Huxley's assessment of its relevance to the real world and the societal trends he was seeing in the 50s.

the government thing makes sense as a result of social, political and technological evolution
i dont think its some dystopian le revolution shit

Jacques Ellul - Propaganda and The Technological Society
Donald N Wood - Post-Intellectualism

>keeps us distracted.
from who?

>And to blame it on technology or capitalism is just as paranoid. It is simply our inability to consume media in a responsible manner - this goes back to the 19th century when telegraph was just invented.

There is no talk of blame here insofar as you mean primary cause, only of responsibility in the sense of perpetuating and stimulating certain behaviors. Disassociating businesses from politics stems from a naive understanding of orthogonality making us think that these variables are uncorrelated when they are not strictly so. Disney does not need to have a particular political agenda to be responsible in strongly stimulating political action and political formats (e.g Black Panther), making it all the stronger due to pairing it with mass entertainment. If anything, it is a mere difference in that you're not being distracted by pleasure but rather funneled into a particular mindset (one that will make you consume more, but also has meaningful civic implications).

It is also naive to believe agents like Facebook or TV media groups do not (at the very least) attempt to pull strings around. State and business are once again conflated here, with many people who own large business conglomerates being in consortium with, or being themselves part of the political sphere. This is specially true out of the Europe-USA axis, with one extreme example being Brazil where more than 70% of politicians are also invested in some of the country's largest enterprises (including entertainment, and also the food industry).

To sum it up, saying these distractions are a product of a free market without assuming any strings are being pulled towards a common goal would be gross oversimplification. Our inability to consume media responsibly, as you say, is meaningfully aggravated by capital and technology, regardless if said inability has existed before capitalism. This influence is so large, I'd wager they have taken place as the main perpetuating agents by now (i.e even if you are able to consume media 'moderately', you are already drowning in it and subject to distracted people anyways).

Furthermore, the historical context does somewhat apply today; The main difference is not State vs Business because Huxley's vision of a futuristic state was that of an efficient technocrat company. Rather, the difference is that he envisioned a single axis of power ruling over every people through pleasure, whereas the world we live in has many different "powerful agents" competing and cooperating to "milk and herd" human capital (not only labor but also consumption). That would make Brave New World a simplistic, first order approximation that would actually be an OK place for you to start.

>But I'm not sure if I should read something written in the 30s and which seems to imply those problems are a result of conspiracy of a totalitarian government
yes you should, it's pretty short and easy to read and the most famous book dealing with this subject matter
the book doesn't imply anything, it just gives the example of a possible anti-utopia (that just happened to come partially true)

>ITT:

>Ad Hominem, but it's made of straw men

the world as it is right now is like a mix between 1984 and brave new world.
its like 1984 due to the fact that we are being watched all the time, our lives revolve around a technology that is spying on us, and at any moment one wrong move could land us in jail or worse, this is especially true for europe at the moment.
however, this world is also like brave new world due to the fact that there are people who ENJOY being spied on, who will defend the government to the bitter end because they are afforded such an extreme luxury they dont have to think. julian assange and edward snowden would have been hailed as heroes 15 years prior, yet now they are international criminals and there's a weird grey morality surrounding them and people like them, all because they dared to defy the secrecy of the government. "all dissidence from the government is wrong think because the government would never try to enslave us. they gave me money and social benefits, why would they want to keep me from asking questions?"

the book is far too important to not read. it applies more today than it ever did 80 years ago.

>the world as it is right now is like a mix between 1984 and brave new world.
If I had a cent for every time I've read a dumbass american armchair political analyst say this I'd be so rich that I could buy a nuke and blow your joke of a country out of existence.

It isn't a strawman if it's accurate.

Good post. I guess I did conflate business and politics in a naive manner... I've been reading Adorno so what I had in mind was his idea that this Huxleyan mass media is simply a product of a market that aims to keep people distracted for *its own* self-interest and survival, but this happens in a more evolutionary and spontaneous way, i.e. there isn't a cohort of leaders devising some plan to subdue the people into docility so they will continue working and consuming.

Ironically, Adorno does point out how these same tactics of injecting messages into easy-to-digest media could be used to further their political interests, which I guess is what you've said with regards to Disney and Facebook.

BUT there is a distinction to be made, in one case, the media is infiltrated by a group for the sake of promoting a political ideology, while in another the political agenda is simply pushed for the sake of the business' growth. Furthermore, BOTH of these cases differ from the scenario in which a single entity (the state) controls everything, and you know this too...

>whereas the world we live in has many different "powerful agents" competing and cooperating

Which is precisely why I made the first point about these pleasurable commodities being the logical consequence of a free market: you are free to COMPETE on subliminal mass media--this is not the case in the totalitarian nation.

In conclusion, I agree with you entirely. I just think there is a difference between political control as a consequence of the media (capitalism) and media control as a result of politics (totalitarianism).

Any other book recommendations on this kind of stuff?

>BRAAAAAP: The Post

>implying im American
no $ for you burger
:^)

meant for

>t. I'm a part of anti-fa and haven't read a book since high school

This.

Amusing Ourselves To Death - Neil Postman
The Shallows - Nicholas Carr