quote:To me none of these stories were about "evil" societies. They were all about societies who found that thinking for yourself takes hard work, and individuals will sacrifice a lot to avoid that work.
I have to go on record as disagreeing with that assessment. Sure, the various rulers of those fictional societies exploited the fact that most humans don't really think for themselves, and they certainly demanded the sacrifice of the individual. But the society at large didn't understand the difficulty of independent thought, and the individuals sacrificed didn't offer themselves up to avoid being dissenters.
And to say that none of those societies were "evil" is merely to say that you don't believe anything is "evil". That is about your personal ethical system, it has nothing to do with a discussion of the stories themselves.
quote:And you might be lumping the complex ideas I have expressed into the word "bashing" because it is easier than thinking about them.
Yes, I might, if you were expressing anything more complex than "People in America these days are too cowardly and/or fearful and/or unthinking to challenge U.S. political authorities by producing and/or appreciating a contemporary equivalent to Orwell, Huxley, et al."
The point I've been trying to make is that willingness to challenge U.S. political authorities is not necessary to producing a contemporary Orwell. To think that U.S. political power is the only thing in the world able to provide a target for important social criticism sounds very much like a cookie-cutter leftist idea, rather than the "thinking for yourself" that you say is important.
No, I don't think the U.S. is perfect, and I do believe there is a need for criticism of U.S. political power. But there are other things in the world that deserve criticism as well, which could provide the fodder needed by a new Orwell or Huxley.
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