Orwell & Huxley - Neil Postman

Neil Postman, wrote a powerful book in 1985 entitled "Amusing Ourselves To Death". In it he contrasted George Orwell’s "1984" vision of the future (published in 1949) with Aldous Huxley’s  "Brave New World" (published in 1932). I have changed the formatting to highlight Postman's contrasts.

“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. As Huxley remarked in Brave New World Revisited, that civil libertarians and rationalists who are ever on the alert to oppose tyranny “failed to take into account man’s almost infinite appetite for distractions.” 

In 1984 Orwell 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. 

This book is about the possibility that Huxley, not Orwell, was right.” [Neil Postman, "Amusing Ourselves To Death", 1985, Penguin Books]

Like so many things in our world, it is not either or, but both and. I think Orwell & Huxley were both right. All of the factors they mention are in play. While specifics can be argued, my sense is the ability to be rational, to sustain attention to a complicated book or speech has largely been lost. And therefore the people or group with the loudest voices get heard more than the rest.