It
struck him that the truly characteristic thing about modern life was
not its cruelty and insecurity, but simply its bareness, its dinginess,
its listlessness.
Life, if you looked about you, bore no
resemblance not only to the lies that streamed out of the telescreens,
but even to the ideals that the Party was trying to achieve.
Great
areas of it, even for a Party member, were neutral and nonpolitical, a
matter of slogging through dreary jobs, fighting for a place on the
Tube, darning a worn-out sock, cadging a saccharine tablet, saving a
cigarette end.
The ideal set up by the Party was something huge, terrible, and glittering-- a world of steel and concrete, of monstrous machines and terrifying weapons-- a nation of warriors and fanatics, marching forward in perfect unity, all thinking the same thoughts and shouting the same slogans, perpetually working, fighting, triumphing, persecuting-- three million people all with the same face.
-1984; George Orwell
This book brings up some great topics, thoughts, and conversations.
I'm one of the ones who believe this is what the world looks like today, and what it will increasingly become.
