In my mind at the moment is the following quote from Brave New World, combined with my refreshed memory of temp slavery and the realisation that business news is full of conversations about unhappiness at work, frustration and stress and the medical profession is still pumping the population full of anti-depressants.
“The most important Manhattan Projects of the future will be vast
government-sponsored inquiries into what the politicians and the
participating scientists will call ‘the problem of happiness’ – in other
words, the problem of making people love their servitude. Without economic
security, the love of servitude cannot possibly come into existence; for the
sake of brevity, I will assume that the all-powerful executive and its
managers will succeed in solving the problem of permanent security. But
security tends very quickly to be taken for granted. Its achievement is
merely a superficial, external revolution. The love of servitude cannot be
established except as the result of a deep, personal revolution in human
minds and hearts.” [Aldous Huxley]
His ‘suggestions’?
1) The development of suggestion, through drugs and conditioning.
2) A science of determining which people should be doing what and in
what part of the social and economic hierarchy.
3) Something ‘less harmful’ and ‘more pleasure-giving’ than gin or
heroin.
4) A foolproof system of eugenics, designed to standardize the human
product and so to facillitate the task of the managers.