A Scared New World

John Davis
Aug 26, 2017 · 3 min read
A historical portrayal statue in Santa Fe, New Mexico

We are living the nightmares of Bradbury, Orwell, Huxley, Asimov, and Rand. Every person is attached to a screen, the loudest voices of dissent discourage unique thought, and we yearn for the easy centralization of our lives. We have willingly, often unwittingly, become the collective. Words, images, and objects bear the potential for offense, and so we happily sacrifice them, culling them with a phony broad-mindedness, a synthetic kindness, a pretended sympathy. Our colleges, once venues for the open exchange of ideas, have become extended validation factories for those who received too many participation trophies.

The genuine and the historical have no place here anymore. Honesty, authenticity, and reality are so many statues to be torn down, so many memorials to protest and deface. Our squeakiest wheels demand the grease of pacification, a kind of sad pablum that neither challenges nor fortifies us. Weak-mindedness is the automatic assumption, and we revel in the gaslighting of our own presumed ignorance. We fulfill these expectations beautifully — dumbing down to conform, to confirm the hopes of the controllers: that we are indeed as stupid as they wish us to be. At last, by our own hands and choosing, we have created the dystopia about which our literature warned us.

In this culture, advertising will be the next to go. Anti-capitalist forces will tell us that any form of attempted commercial persuasion is a fascist assault on our persons. Like any cancerous progression, it will start quietly. A few mild voices will insinuate that “our minds should be our own” — a noble and mutually agreeable notion. Think freely; what could be more American? How dare we be told how and what to consider!

The cacophony will build, and the lesser mortals who desire to seem smarter will fall in line. They will feel the rush of dopamine and endorphins produced by Anticap protest crowds. They will nod submissively as megaphoned leaders shout, “Stop the brain-rape incurred by Madison Avenue and Silicon Valley! Advertising is oppression!” Cheers will go up. Billboards will go down. Minds will go soft.

Products deemed “harmful,” already stifled by excessive regulation, will lose any promotional opportunity. “Just look at how they target minority communities [see current anti-tobacco PSAs], and how they mislead our children! Shut them up!” Congressional cowards and spineless senators will once again placate the professional martyrs. Laws will reduce commercials to blank, inoffensive spaces.

The First Amendment will be doomed by The Last — officials will deem freedom too hazardous to our health. They will recruit the greatest physicians and pop scientists to produce “evidence.” With no understanding of history (since we destroyed it all), and with no solid liberal education (since we were shielded from it), the populace will become servile. The tech-zombies of yesteryear will become the downtrodden but firmly convinced minions of the oligarchy. Too afraid, too dumb, and too controlled to rise up from their station, they will mouth the status quo with Animal Farm-esque conviction.

Is this dark prophecy just a giant nose-of-the-camel fallacy? Ask the Titanic if the tip of the iceberg is something to worry about. Left unchecked, the victimized voices of our present will ironically lead to our future enslavement, not by chains or whips, but through censorship and apathy.

We don’t need a resistance; we need a renaissance. Rigor and realism must return to our classrooms, cultural literacy must increase, and a well-informed marketplace of ideas must be revived. When these three steps occur, the fear of unpopular philosophies will cease, and overwrought hyper-sensitivity will decrease. Advertising and media will thrive, for everyone will be comfortable in their power of discernment.

An informed and well-educated populace is one that reflects the best ideas we have to offer. But all ideas, including faith, heritage, and tradition, must be welcomed in order for such a society to exist. We can escape our current dystopia, but we have to desire that freedom first. Then we can begin digging toward better days together.

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