Oct 10
30
The death of humanist science…
The positive utopias of the good society in literature were utopias of centrally planned states. No one has written them in a century. The dystopias are also centrally planned states. They reflect modern men’s declining faith in the healing powers of science as implemented by the state (emphasis added).
The power of science is seen as unstoppable. In the hands of bureaucrats, the tool of science produces a social order without liberty. The state’s controls may be justified as rational and therapeutic, but the system is tyrannical. This is the vision of the dystopias.
In “Brave New World,” the tool of control is a drug: soma. It keeps the masses docile. In “1984,” it is two-way television. There is no privacy. In “Animal Farm,” it is widespread belief in the good of the whole, which mandates individual sacrifice. The results are the same: an elite maintains control over the masses. There is no way out.
Excerpt from: Gary North‘s Reality Check, October 29, 2010: “WHY THE POLICE STATE IS DOOMED”.