PERHAPS nothing better symbolises how vast majorities remain captive to the gravitational pull of police states than the masks imposed upon them during the 2020-2021 virus outbreak. More than five years later, a great many people refuse to set foot on the street without their faces covered by a useless piece of loose cloth. The emergence of the almost fanatical habit of using something that is more of a muzzle than a sanitary device demonstrates how a neglected brain can be hacked in a matter of weeks. Mask-wearing enforced by law created an atmosphere of fear, blind obedience and conformism.
In his 1985 book Amusing Ourselves to Death, Neil Postman observes: ‘Huxley and Orwell did not prophesy the same thing. Orwell warns that we will be overcome by an externally imposed oppression. But in Huxley’s vision, no Big Brother is required to deprive people of their autonomy, maturity and history. As he saw it, people will come to love their oppression, to adore the technologies that undo their capacities to think.’
Mind and body were severely damaged by the reckless way the pandemic was tackled. However, the gist of this imposture is what really concerns all those alarmed by the way governments steamrollered over business, privacy, health and freedom of choice. On the one hand, a minuscule minority imposed the use of a mask by banging a fist on the table; on the other, millions obeyed and applauded. Both movements conclusively prove that the totalitarian condition has deeply permeated liberal democracies around the world. All within the state, none outside the state, none against the state, shouted Benito Mussolini and the masses cheered Il Capo.
For Big Media – aka legacy media – the pandemic was their moment. Nothing pays more dividends than gory stories, a chain reaction collision, floods and flames. As if real life were a matinee melodrama, what matters most is the impact a story makes, while truth is often treated as if it were a hindrance to the business. The coronavirus was one of the most efficient click-harvesting machines ever. The news industry thrived as never before, taking advantage of the situation for all it was worth. The Covid-19 death counter flashed across screens all day long.
Between May 2020 and April 2021, hundreds of grief-stricken families were forced to observe severe restrictions including limits of 30 mourners at funerals and social contact with their loved ones. Bereaved relatives were not allowed to touch or carry coffins because of ‘the risk of contamination’. Meanwhile, public servants were partying surrounded by bottles of expensive wines. They lied most bravely but not convincingly.
State bureaucrats blatantly flouted the draconian rules they put in place for the non-anointed. Sadly, they are not the exception that proves the rule but the rule that proves that 18th century aristocratic society may be far away in time but very close when it comes to ranks, titles, privileges and impunity. After all, what is a state bureaucrat but a person who looks with unconcern on taxpayers struggling for life in the water only to encumber them with help when they reach the shore?
Over the last two decades the expansion of police society – across both capitalist and non-capitalist systems – has intensified, fuelled by online minorities and off-line majorities that cry out for protection and assurances. In many ways, present times seem to prove Huxley right. He feared that in a world highly controlled by technology, individual freedoms would gradually disappear through voluntary compliance until everyone became prison guard and prisoner at the same time.
Postman concludes: ‘What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book for there would be no one who wanted to read one. Orwell feared those who would deprive us of information. Huxley feared those who would give us so much that we would be reduced to passivity and egoism. Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from us. Huxley feared that the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance. Orwell feared that we would become a captive culture. In Nineteen Eighty Four people are controlled by inflicting pain. In Brave New World, they are controlled by inflicting pleasure.’
Is it far-fetched to suggest that in the dawn of digital age huge swarms of adults have come to accept, if not desire, the comfort of being spied on, controlled, punished, and plundered while they are clinging to their mobile phone as if it were an oxygen cylinder?
