The Age of Distraction

In 1931 Aldous Huxley published his legendary novel, A brave New World, in which he predicted that by 2030 the Western world would live under a frightful dictatorship. Three impersonal forces which would undermine the individual liberties of Western man, underlie Huxley's masterwork which he later amplified in his essay, The Enemies of Freedom. These free impersonal forces are: (1) the acceleration of overpopulation, (2) the acceleration of over organization or centralization, (3) three the acceleration of mass communication.

In a television interview with Mike Wallace in 1958 Huxley warned America, that through the acceleration of mass communication manipulated by subtle advertising methods, political candidates would be presented to the American voter
in such a way that the visual appearance would override the importance of the political platform.

This idea that the candidates had to be merchandised and that the people had to depend entirely on the personality. I mean the personality is important but there are certainly people with an extremely amiable personality who might not necessarily be very good in positions of political trust.
Aldus Huxley

Huxley, with keen foresight and an uncommon gift of prescience, told Wallace that the technique utilizing subliminal perception would be perfected into the 60s leaving the American voter bereft of making a rational choice when selecting a candidate for high office. This of course is the triumph of style over substance.

A democracy depends on the individual voter making an intelligent and rational choice, but what the dictatorial propagandists are doing is to try to bypass the rational side of man and to appeal directly to these unconscious forces below the surface.
Aldus Huxley

Subliminal perception occurs when stimuli presented below the surface of awareness are found to influence; thoughts, feelings, actions and decisions. In other words the concept of "subliminal perception" suggests that people's thoughts feelings actions are influenced by stimuli that are perceived without any awareness by the viewer. This can be clearly seen, as Huxley predicted in the 1960 presidential election, the first TV election in American history. In the televised debates between Kennedy and Nixon the senator from Massachusetts appeared clear-eyed handsome and confident, while the then Vice President Richard Nixon, appeared shifty-eyed shadowy and nervous. Certainly in an ideal world, not influenced by television, presentations a man's personal appearance (something he has limited control over) should not be the determining factor in electing him to the highest office of the United States.

However, one can indeed fault the media moguls who purposely flooded extra lighting are they handsome and polished Kennedy emphasizing the Senators appealing physical attributes while purposefully turning off the lights on the awkward and gangly Nixon,emphasizing the vice president's homely appearance employing the subliminal message of combative virile masculinity, coupled with the sexual enthusiasm of young women, the Masters of the newly evolving mainstream media had no trouble catapulting Kennedy into the Oval Office.

I run against a candidate, who reminds me ofo the symbol of his party, the circus elephant, his hair full of ivory, a long memory and no vision and you have seen elephants being led around the circus ring, they grabbed a tail of the elephant in front of them.
JFK

In the years before "media proliferation", I am wondering if it was easier to focus on the important issues surrounding politics, federal and local. I am wondering if people were better off, more informed and more engaged, because the proximity of politics to their own lives. Where now we are separated by a sea of wealth, clandestine behaviour and obfuscation, we tend to be disconnected from having any say, regardless of how important their decisions are on everyone's lives.

My concern is not what authors like Yvgeny Zamyatin, George Orwell and Aldus Huxley have written in their books, but rather, what was it that inspired them to write these novels, almost 60-100 years ago. Yvgeny Zamyatin's WE was written about 96 years ago. What did they witness, experience or see that made them extrapolate the future to such ends, as described in their novels. It is observable today that we can draw frighteningly similar parallels to society, to that of which is described in these novels. Did they know something we have missed, or have they created the path that we have decided to follow?

LB