BNW Atlas Shrugged 1984

[Anonymous No.4466464]

So is the US government (and much of the West in general) using these books as an instruction manual to dominate and enslave the people?

I believe that in the US, we have a sort of BNW/1984 fusion coupled with a dash of Atlas Shrugged government control to completely rape us financially and politically.

Your thoughts /lit/? Would you agree that the methods outlined in these books are actually being used against us as we speak? It sure seems that way to me.

[Anonymous No.4466467]

I would agree that we are experiencing the worst of both worlds.

[Anonymous No.4466471]

Read Neil Postman's Amusing Ourselves to Death -- which that image appears to be from.

[Anonymous No.4466473]

why do you believe so?

[Anonymous No.4466500]

>>4466467
Don't you mean the worst of boast worlds?

[Anonymous No.4466507]

>>4466473
Have you been living under a rock?

[Anonymous No.4466513]

You've got cause and effect the wrong way around. Governments didn't read these books and think "Yes! That's a great way to gain power!". The authors looked at the politics and society of their times, and extrapolated what they saw into the future. In places they were accurate.

[Anonymous No.4466515]

Yeah, there definitely are elements of all those books in our current society. The whole post-9/11 situation with the Police State, NDAA, Patriot act, authoritarianism, War on Terror, NSA spying ,etc. is very Orwellian. Our current celebrity/escapism-obsessed society and increasing pacification is also very Huxlean. Of course, we're also seeing the rise of government taking control of various parts of the economy (and for the worse, mind you) with the recent implementation of Obamacare and other regulations. For fucks sake, you need a license to cut hair and handle food. We definately are on the path to Authoritarianism/Caesarism and the only way it will stop is for some kind of mass global awakening

[Anonymous No.4466524]

It's not really that bad, it's just that we are not as free as we believe. We are not that democratic either. Try to implement direct democracy and you will see what happens.

[Anonymous No.4466528]

I think the advantages of enslaving and controlling anybody are finally being seen as the resource wasters and inefficiencies they have been since the steam engine was invented. I'd be surprised if any government bent on stifling creative expression and regulating commerce and social behavior lastes very long in competition with those that don't.

It's not that they can't do it, it's that it's a waste of time and energy and puts them at a great disadvantage competing with countries that don't do it.

[Anonymous No.4466533]

>>4466528
Well I'd argue that the Elites see the people as a liability, a resource that's not giving them as much as they'd like, which is why I think ultimately they will try to wipe out much of Earth's population

[Anonymous No.4466552]

>>4466533
As long as they need people to buy products and create wealth there's no point in it. The more people the more cool art and music and movies and books, and the more variety of all kinds. Why anybody would want to kill them off i couldn't understand. Just because you don't need slaves, doesn't mean you don't need civilization.

[Anonymous No.4466562]

it is an impersonal process OP, none in the government is aware of what they are doing, it is not even the government, the change is taking place in every single statement of human society

[Anonymous No.4466571]

Nice to see that OP has a study hall this semester, or otherwise we would have had to wait until he was home from school to get this brilliant thread.

[Anonymous No.4466578]

>>4466571

[Anonymous No.4466586]

>>4466464


>Atlas Shrugged government control


I'm sorry OP, but this was just funny

[Anonymous No.4466669]

>>4466533
please, none of this.

[Anonymous No.4466762]

>>4466513
This

[Anonymous No.4467021]

>>4466533
Yeah, that plan would totally create a perfect utopia for the rich.

Fuck off back to /x/.

[Anonymous No.4467025]

>believing the world is a dystopia
>my sides hurt so fucking much right now

[Anonymous No.4467072]

who is john galt?

[Anonymous No.4467078]

>>4467025
>not thinking we live in a dystopia

[Anonymous No.4467095]

>>4467078
Please, enlighten me as to how the world is even close to the dystopias portrayed in dystopian fiction.

[Anonymous No.4467120]

>>4467095
Have you read Society of Spectacle? If you haven't, I recommend it you do.
While I don't agree with some of statements Debord makes in it, I still agree with the basic idea of "Society of Spectacle".
Basically our entire society was truncated into a spectacle, where you live your life more as an observer in cinema than someone who could have any real power to really truly change it.
You're given a "limited" freedom inside the society and act according to it.
To make it easier to understand, modern society of spectacle means commodification and production of identity. You're not you unless you buy all these accessories that help you identify yourself, to make you both same and different at the same time.
If this isn't dystopia, then I don't know what it is.

[Anonymous No.4467135]

>>4467095
Have you been outside of your house recently? I'm not even trying to herr 4chan nerd you. You need to be living under a rock not to notice how fucked our world is.
Also here is full comic, nice crop job OP.

[Anonymous No.4467146]

>>4467120
This is still better than anything that predates it for the majority of citizens.

[Anonymous No.4467150]

>>4467095
Everyone sitting in front of screens. Most people take drugs to cope with life. The majority takes legal drugs, subsided by the government. Your work is so shitty that you hunger for entertainment every free minute. The entertainment is granted and used to manipulate. Wars are fought but you don´t get decent news about them, only manipulative media.
It´s pretty near to those dystopias.
I´m not even "le conspiracy- theorist/sheeple red-piller" but captcha was "essraelic and"

[Anonymous No.4467170]

>>4467120
That's still nothing like dystopian fiction. We can read, watch, draw, write whatever the fuck we want (unless it's muhammad in some cases, apparently). We have privacy (though the NSA is concerning) the government doesn't torture dissidents.

Michael Moore actually compared the USA to 1984's Oceania in Fahrenheit 9/11. If you're that type of retard I guess it's pointless to try and cheer you up

[Anonymous No.4467175]

>>4467150
>The simulacrum is never that which conceals the truth--it is the truth which conceals that there is none.
>The simulacrum is true.

All your wars are fictive all media events are fictive, do you even journalism?

[Anonymous No.4467177]

>>4467120
The freedom that you call limited, is nowhere near dystopian levels. There is still relative democracy in that the will of the majority still determines the limits of freedom. The whole fact that we have a free internet means people will always have information available which checks back the censorship that is characteristic of dystopias. Also if you want to bitch about capitalism, have an alternative, otherwise you're just being purposefully pessimistic
>>4467135
You should stop being so pessimistic, there's good and bad in the world.
>>4467150
Those screens also provide education and information to millions. The drugs we take help us live longer. Entertainment can also bring happiness. There have been less conflict in the past 15 years than any time prior. Humanitarian aid is achieving great strides. Stop being so pessimistic and you'll see that even if there are negatives to the world we live in, its better than any pragmatic alternative.

[Anonymous No.4467178]

>>4467146
Obviously it's better than outright dictatorship. But those can be, and usually are easily overthrown.
Can we overthrow post-modern capitalism? Does majority even want to overthrow it, no matter how bad their lives are made by it?
If I got anything from marxism and post-marxism is, that capitalism is incredibly flexible and will always accept those who rebel against it and turn the rebellion in another commodity to be bought as part of identity production.
>>4467170
We obviously don't live in 1984. But I don't know if I'd say were better off.

[Anonymous No.4467185]

>>4467178
Yep because capitalism has done nothing good ever.

[Anonymous No.4467192]

>>4467178
You do realize that people's lives are inevitably going to be shaped by their governments and their environment right? What else is going to create their identity with?

[Anonymous No.4467194]

>>4467135
Both are right. When the distractions don't work they give you the pain instead. Attend your next G8 protest and find out.

[Anonymous No.4467202]

>>4467178
Until capitalism implodes under its own weight of infinite growth in a finite world, there's no alternative, socialism is the end product of capitalism realizing its core.

[Anonymous No.4467220]

>>4467177
>There is still relative democracy in that the will of the majority still determines the limits of freedom.
The thing is the modern democracy is "watered down" version of what it should be.
Yeah I'm back at identity "politics" and production, but that's pretty much what post-modern capitalism does. Politics has, we we could say it always was a place where you'd support someone with whom you identify.
I think that now this has become the opposite politicians sell them selves as a product that you think is the closet to your demand. But given that if you want to get elected you need to get a wide base, you don't sell yourself to just one specific group, let's say people of your hometown, but you sell yourself to a wider base, which means wider and more general promises.
>>4467185
Did I criticised capitalism? I just said, I doubt we can rebel under it, given how inclusive it is. That's a good thing not a bad thing.
>>4467192
Well I don't know, I guess themselves with influences of their family?
>>4467202
That won't happen.

[Anonymous No.4467480]

>>4467202
"Collapse" guy thinks he's redpilled

[Anonymous No.4468527]

>>4466464
>So is the US government (and much of the West in general) using these books as an instruction manual to dominate and enslave the people?

Not deliberately. The concepts of 'Bread and Circuses' as well as 'enemies at the gate' have been around for over 2000 years.