Teach your teens about brain washing with Orwell and Huxley

November 8, 2:47 AMSeattle Parenting & Education ExaminerChristine Vincent

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Amazon's editorial review of George Orwell's 1984 tells us that the novel has been required reading for high school students ever since its publication. The same seems to be true for its counterpart Brave New World by Aldous Huxley.  If your teen is not familiar with these two classics on government mind control, please make their reading a requirement in your family. 

Lets face it, we are all brain washed, we always have been and always will be. However, if I am aware of the mechanisms of brain washing, I  can identify the various entities competing for control over my mind. I can look at their motives and then choose which ones I want  to be conditioned by and which ones I 'd rather not expose myself to. It is not quite as simple as that, of course, but one has to start somewhere. 1984 and Brave New World both expose the strategies of mind conditioning  by means of exciting stories.

Make your teen read these books! If your teen is not likely to follow your suggestions, read them yourself, make it clear that you consider them inappropriate for kids and leave them in conspicuous places! After the teen has read them, talk about them! This is terrifyingly simple because our society has become so very close to the dystopias described by Huxley and Orwell. Talk about examples of newspeak, of cloning, of the drug soma, the substitution of God by Ford and what that means for the individual. Talk about these things at every opportunity to make your kids aware of the forces of manipulation at work in their lives.

Then, to top it all of, sit down together and watch Charley Chaplin's Modern Times where you can see Big Brother watching the poor hero on the screen!

You may also be interested in my review of The 49th Parallel  as a movie for teens

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