Why didn’t I learn to treat everything like it was the last time. My greatest regret was how much I believed in the future.
– Jonathan Safran Foer, Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close
Det unødvendige trængte sig imidlertid på
One third, more or less, of all the sorrow that the person I think I am must endure is unavoidable. The remaining two thirds of all sorrow is homemade and, so far as the universe is concerned, unnecessary.
– Aldous Huxley
Den langsomme udvej
The mark of the immature man is that he wants to die nobly for a cause, while the mark of the mature man is that he wants to live humbly for one.
― J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye
Implikationer
Two possibilities exist: either we are alone in the Universe or we are not. Both are equally terrifying.
– Arthur C. Clarke
Undoings
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. 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 the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance. Orwell feared we would become a captive culture. Huxley feared we would become a trivial culture, preoccupied with some equivalent of the feelies, the orgy porgy, and the centrifugal bumblepuppy…. In 1984, Huxley 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.
– Neil Postman: Amusing Ourselves to Death (forord)
Only way out is in
The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it.
-Oscar Wilde, ‘Picture of Dorian Gray’
Gennem et prisme, som er mig
One would expect people to remember the past and to imagine the future. But in fact, when discoursing or writing about history, they imagine it in terms of their own experience, and when trying to gauge the future they cite supposed analogies from the past: til, by a double process of repetition, they imagine the past and remember the future.
– Sir Lewis Namier, 1942
Kold krig – borgerkrig
I have said for years that I felt like we were in a cold civil war, and all of a sudden, it is not so cold anymore.
Dan Carlin, Common Sense with Dan Carlin: Garbage in, Garbage out
Gengæld
An eye for an eye, and the whole world would be blind.
-Kahlil Gibran
Jeg ser i dig –
Treat a man as he is,
and he will remain as he is.
Treat a man as he could be,
and he will become what he should be.
– Ralph Waldo Emerson