Thursday, April 28, 2022

Huxley and Orwell, Meet 2022

"It must be wonderful to be seventeen, and to know everything." --  Arthur C. Clarke. 

In the late 1960s, when I was in my late teens, I was required to read two books in high school. (There were at least two, but these were the ones I remembered). They were Brave New World and 1984

Yes, this was in a public (not private) school. Most of us got the picture. 

That's the level of education you need to have alarm bells go off witnessing modern America. 

That's what frightens me the most -- people educated beyond their ability to apply common sense. What can be more terrifying than modern authoritarians taking measures to protect groups of people and ideas through authoritarian measures. Everything is skewed in one direction at the expense of everything else. Huxley's Brave New World and Orwell's Doublespeak are alive and well today. Imagine Lord of the Flies but with adults on the island cheerleading the kids' actions and you have a pretty good idea of our modern educational system. My only solace is that I still have the God-given agency to impact the people around me, and that is my commitment.