Really? It’s a classic dystopian novel!
I have to recommend Zeynep Tufekci’s Twitter and Teargas: the power and fragility of networked protests.
An excellent discussion of the roles of social media in mass protests.
Also Carol Anderson’s White Rage: the unspoken truth of our racial divide.
How racism has shaped & continues to shape the US.
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Then I think this: Brave New World Revisited: Brave New World Revisited (1958) by Aldous Huxley is a good replacement. Based in post-WWII, a recounting of how propaganda/thought control was used, and how emerging tech will be used to amplify those gains. While the sleep-learning bit is anachronistic/vintage wrong futurism, there’s a lot that he absolutely nailed.
I just read this relevant quote from Neil Postman’s “Amusing Ourselves to Death” in Brook Gladstones “The Trouble with Reality” essay:
"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 information 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. Huxley feared that we would become a trivial culture, preoccupied with some equivalent of the feelies, the orgy porgy and the centrifugal bumblepuppy.
In 1984, Orwell added, people are controlled by inflicting pain.
In Brave New World, they are controlled by inflicting pleasure. In short, Orwell feared that what we hate will ruin us. Huxley feared that what we love will ruin us."
With the apathy and low voter turnout we are still seeing (not to mention issues of media literacy and civic education) I think it can be argued that both Brave New World and 1984 are relevant, speaking to different but equally important concerns.
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