Someday Never Comes

This comment is from "Noryungi" on Rigorous Intuition's post on V for Vendetta:

Let's see... We have had George Orwell (1984, Animal Farm), Aldous Huxley (Brave New World), Alan Moore (V for Vendetta), and I suppose many others (feel free to add to this short list).

We even had James Bamford, a courageous reporter if I ever saw one, who detailed in "Body of Secrets" CIA/NSA joint plans, drawn in the 1960s, for starting a war with Cuba using... terrorist attacks on American cities. Does that remind you of something, by any chance?

And despite all these warnings, it seems we are still lurching toward Armaggedon and/or fascism, the utter annihilation of every human rights and freedom thousands of people died to protect. All of this while being led by men that are, at best, bumbling incompetent idiots or, at worst, (if there is truly a link between all the stories on rigorous intuition) child rapists and drug fiends, devil worshippers and fascist elitists that are trying to create a world where all are slaves, except themselves.

It reminds me of the Oracle of Delphi, whose predictions were never trusted, or understood, until it was too late. Sometimes, I really think it's too late. We will be enslaved, and we will learn to love Big Brother and praise his name with grateful tears in our eyes.

Of course, in this near future, dangerous books will be quietly burned, like Bradbury detailed in Fahrenheit 451. Blogs will disappear, the past will be erased, the Internet will be controlled and patrolled and the slaves will adjust to their new lives quietly.

"They" may even leave us a minimum of free speech... after all, who cares who the slaves mock, or talk about, just as long as they obey, consume, and buy the shit they are told to buy? Sure, let them have their fun. It even takes their minds away from the awful truth: that they are slaves, that their children will be slaves and that there is no way around it. Arbeit macht frei, only with better creature's comforts and cable TV.

Think about it: we are almost halfway there already.

I think, however, that what sets the movie V for Vendetta apart is that, unlike the original graphic novel written in the 1980's, or 1984 and Brave New World long before that, is that we are now on the doorstep of totalitarianism. We are in the very midst of the crises which make such a world seem more likely than not. In other words, it is less theoretical or fantastic than the other works, and more people will more readily recognize themselves, their government, and the media in this movie. That's probably why so many people have high hopes that this movie will have a cultural impact.

That said, I'm inclined to agree with Noryungi. How many times have we said in the past that "if we don't stop this now, it is too late." V may awaken the masses. I hope it does. But if it doesn't, in six months there will be something else - a government atrocity, another movie, something - that will again make us hope that the masses will finally wake up. When it doesn't, something after that will make us hope. And after that, and so on.

But a part of me doubts that day will ever come.

The good news, however, is that even if they are never awakened, the "masses" don't change things anyway. Determined minorities and individuals with vision do. And even if they lose, that doesn't mean their fight is in vain. I don't speak out against the State because of the probability of success, but because I couldn't live with myself if I didn't.