AlteredEgg.com - Distracted by Media

Distracted by Media

I was reading Brave New World Revisited by Aldous Huxley yesterday and came across these sentences:

Only the vigilant can maintain their liberties, and only those who are constantly and intelligently on the spot can hope to govern themselves effectively by democratic procedures. A society, most of whose members spend a great part of their time, not on the spot, not here and now and in the calculable future, but somewhere else, in the irrelevant other worlds of sport and soap opera, of mythology and metaphysical fantasy, will find it hard to resist the encroachments of those who would manipulate and control it.

This was written in 1958. Back then television was still fairly new, and the internet wasn’t even a glimmer on the horizon. If Huxley was concerned about distractions back then, what would he say now that we have unlimited games, sports, video, news, books and music, via the smart-phones in our pockets?

His words ring true with me as I view the world today:

We can walk a few doors down to visit immigrants who fled from their country after seeing their families slaughtered. They found refuge in a country where we treat horror movies as an art form, and play video games that let us slaughter people for entertainment.
A few short decades ago our forefathers chose to lay down their lives to protect our democratic freedom. Today our elections have astonishingly low voter participation.
Election campaigns are becoming less based on facts and logical debate and more based on manipulating the emotions of the masses using slick marketing and attack strategies, and it works.
I've seen a pro-life organisation shut down for lack of funding and there seems to be decreasing interest in the subject.

What do all these points have to do with Huxley’s statement? They seem to point to a society that is increasingly apathetic about engaging the world around them and fighting for what really matters. But who is trying to manipulate and control us? I don't see any immediate human enemy. I will say, however, that as someone who believes in the Christian world view and its associated battle between good and evil, I think Huxley’s principle is applicable and I see every reason to stay alert. I’m just not sure what to do about it at this time.