CHAPTER 13
The "Secret of Rulership" Revealed
The British Empire had a
long, and, sometimes, not so glorious history of deceit, abuse, exploitation, tyranny, and
plunder. It is, therefore, not surprising that the deepest and most sophisticated
revelations about political and economic nightmares -- collectivist and commercial -- came
from two brilliant Englishmen,-- George Orwell and Aldous Huxley.
Orwell revealed the deep
"secret of rulership." The "intellectual basis" for dominion, he
asserted, is "doublethink" -- a "vast system of mental
cheating," consisting of "conscious deception," "control of the
past," etc.1 Interestingly, Orwell also revealed
the antidote to doublethink (more on this later).
Aldous Huxley traced the
"Brave New Worldian nightmare" -- mind manipulation, brainwashing, and
commercial propaganda -- to "representatives of commercial and political
organizations who have developed a number of new techniques for manipulating, in the
interest of some minority, the thoughts and feelings of the masses."2 Huxley sarcastically depicted these
representatives as "people who took daily baths and went to church in top hats."3
For him, technology has
been hijacked by Big Business and Big Government for the purpose of increasing the
concentration of their economic and political power.4
What did Huxley recommend
people do? To preserve freedom and democracy, he said, people must resist "the
unscrupulous purveyors of poisonous propaganda" who take away, "little by
little," our "inalienable rights."5
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1
See George Orwell, Nineteen Eighty-Four, 1987 and 1989, at 223 ("doublethink"),
and 224 ("secret of rulership"). 2 See Aldous Huxley, Brave
New World Revisited, with an Introduction by David Bradshaw, 1958 and 1994, at 5-6
("Brave New Worldian nightmare").
3 Ibid., at
45-46 ("top hats").
4 Ibid., at 27
and 172 (Big Business and Big Government; concentration of power).
5 Ibid., at 45
("inalienable rights"), and 167 (the need for outlawing "psychological
slave trade . . . against the unscrupulous purveyors of poisonous propaganda"). |
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