Huxley and Orwell were contemporaries. Huxley’s dystopian masterpiece was published in 1932 at the outset of the rise of totalitarianism, while Orwell’s was published in 1949 after 65 million people perished in a World War and Stalin had already murdered tens of millions of his own citizens. Those were dark times. They also coincided with Edward Bernays 1928 publication of Propaganda, in which he revealed the existence of an invisible government who used propaganda to manipulate the minds of the public to insure those controlling the levers of power were able to engineer their desired outcomes.
Debate has raged over the decades whether Huxley’s or Orwell’s dystopian vision of the future would be more accurate. Both visions required the successful use of propaganda by those in power to achieve their agendas. Huxley wrote a letter to Orwell after reading 1984 in 1949, shortly before Orwell’s death. His conclusion was as follows:...........read more..........
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