We figure it all out... then forget.
I love books and movies from the 1950s. The literate classes nailed everything about the post-war world right out of the box.
Television is a creepy mind control dumbing down machine.
Consumerism is a disease.
The suburban nuclear family is alienating, but promoted to increase the gross number of cars and appliances needed.
Advertising is everything. Future political candidates will be sold like soap and beer.
The military-industrial complex... even the president wanred about it, to deaf ears.
The daily life in service of a corporation is inhuman... think about the implications of the phrase "the rat race" that people casually used (and use) to describe their lives. It refers to rats being put through mazes by psychologists... an exercise the rat cannot hope to understand but must pursue to get fed...
People knew all of this in the 1950s. But these obvious things about the world of the day and the world to come were far too inconvenient so we dismissed what we could and rationalized the rest. "Off to the rat race!" "Ha, ha, ha."
What's so funny about it?
And Reagan? That scene was understood immediately too. The art of discontent in the early 1980s was all about Orwellian, corporate controlled dystopia with staggering inequality.
I think that art may out-pace reality too much. The prophetic vision is too advanced... we look around and say, "Well... it isn't THAT bad," and dismiss and rationalize before the grim future-reality even becomes wide-spread.
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