@jamaalburkmar: If you’re interested. The author is Neil Postman and the book was written in 1985 and yet these words feel more present than ever. #aldoushuxley #1984 #orwellian #BookTok

Niyla :

🎯 Brave new world, Animal Farm, 1984, The Hand Maid’s Tale, Of Mice and Men, Lord of the Flies, In Cold Blood, - I read these before my 16th birthday and they have stayed with me in such a profound way. Books are oxygen and society has largely stopped breathing 😢

Bluke 🇳🇿 :

there's a Drake fandom??

aur🫩ra :

i wrote an essay about this issue in relation to huxley’s brave new world for a class last spring 😎😎

AfroSFutures :

Best video you have made. I really believe that the lack of reading in our current culture is responsible in part to the low bar we get with movies That is why I couldn't take your Fantastic Four and Deadpool and Wolverine video seriously. The MCU isn't really the problem. People not reading is.

PJ Somervelle 🌱 :

Who would have thought both Huxley and Orwell would be right in 2025 😭

amy :

i read this in the 90s and thought it was excessive and overwrought. i was definitely wrong & have been thinking of it lately

Christopher :( :

BatterseaBorrible :

My take on them both is that Orwell is referring more to the structures of culture under capitalism whereas Huxley talks about individual affect. If they’d got married and had a theory it’d be more Foucault? They’re both right.

HollywoodHayson :

Fabulous, Jamaal! Love it! I’ve keep ‘meaning’ to read these books and just put it off for others. Amusing Ourselves To Death sounds freakin’ incredible. I think it’s going to be uncomfortable read 😬 And, congrats on the 100K+ - I’m not surprised 😊

kenyasscott :

Oof! Love this. Thanks!

Squade :

little did they know, we got both

Little wordy 🇦🇺🇵🇸🏳️‍🌈 :

I was going to say I like it as a manifesto. ✨ But also, Huxley is one of the favourite authors of a lot of conservatives. I think that that is because its main thesis is that society is going away from god, more than toward technology. So yes, but also no.

tikkitok000 :

Brave new world had a profound affect on me as a teenager. It’s still as relevant as ever.

Jean, em dash lover :

Postman is amazing and holds up a little too well sometimes. 😬 You should read Siva Vaidyanathan’s books. He’s heavily influenced by Postman in his study of Facebook and Google.

pres :

thank you for the book suggestion

L. :

Huxley’s dystopia always rang truer to me than Orwell’s. The bread and circuses, our comfort and complicity, is precisely what he was trying to warn us about.

Elius :

“The company-city subgenre always seemed to star a hero who outsmarted, overthrew, or escaped “the company.” I’ve never seen one where the hero fought like hell to get taken in and underpaid by the company. In real life, that’s the way it will be. That’s the way it is” - Octavia E. Butler, Parable of the Sower, 1993

Mike-Bowers :

Another book worth mentioning, written in 1945, is “That Hideous Strength” by CS Lewis which basically illustrates oppressive behavior framed as compassion, expertise and progress. The book shows that the people the most vulnerable to propaganda are not the illiterate ones, but the elite, the hyper educated, the technocrats, the experts, the think tanks and committees who are convinced they are not only the smartest ones in the room, the Illuminati, but that they know better what’s best, and thus people have to be lectured and reconditioned. Chilling prophecy for a book written in 1945.

miriamkb :

I've been feeling that the deluge of AI art is exactly this - no need to ban art because art will become devoid of emotion and as a result humanity

Destro_Is_Still_Black :

well, that's chilling and terrifyingly relevant. keep going sir. your videos always give me something to think about

Hershpat :

I'm here for ragebait Jamal to finally find his end game form😂😂😂

Jacob Naish :

Similar affected. Nice read. Whether it’s Gramscian hegemony of some kind of post colonial internalised logic it’s the perceived benefits and small pleasures of liberal capitalism that are our false idols still. 👏

Stephen Timoney :

Watches video… opens Spotify… starts listen to book…