The totalitarian systems of the future will be obsequious and subservient, plying us with drinks and soft slippers like a hostess on an airliner, adjusting our TV screen for us so that we won't ask exactly where the plane is going, or even whether there is a pilot on board.
J.G. Ballard (1998 interview)
I've been reading the above book lately, which by the way is an excellent medium to digest Ballard, whose ideas I've always thought to be more intriguing than his prose. But anyway, this quote really struck me because I fear we're already there, in this vision of his. This brand of self-delusion is so prevalent in all of Western societies. You see it everywhere. People don't want to think about things. They don't want to question the information fed to them by media sources. They don't want to consider the ramifications of not only their governments' actions, but also their own consumer habits. As long they can be secluded in the safe illusion of their homes and cars and things, who cares what the government does.
In many ways, we are living in a totalitarian world...we just don't seem to care. It seems most are happy being the workers of the hive.
Sorry for the downer Saturday, but sometimes things need to be said.
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