George Orwell’s 1984 and Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World are both books depicting dystopias. They serve as constant warnings and act as points of reference. We can draw increasing parallels to events and dangers presented in these particular novels since technological advances and presents governments and corporations alike all use new tools to try and control our lives.

Cambridge Analytica’s ability to use social media data to develop micro-targeted propaganda campaigns is one example. The ability of governments to spy on everything we do online is another.

Privacy, it seems, is becoming a thing of the past thanks to the internet.

One is reminded of the Eye of Sauron and the Palantíri from the Lord of the Rings, their vision and gaze able to spy across Middle Earth. Despite these grim comparisons, the wealth of human knowledge is now at our fingertips thanks to the internet, and we are able to truly form a global community. Personally, I think it is a price worth paying so far.

So, where does that all leave us? I am more inclined to believe that humanity is currently living in a Golden Age rather than a dystopia, thanks to technology, medicine and science.

In a century, we have gone from walking on the ground to flying up into the sky and have been to the moon and back.

Yet, all is not well in Paradise. At the United Nations climate summit in Madrid, the world did not commit to the changes needed to avert disaster, and many people remain sceptical of climate change.

Why is humanity unable to pursue its best interests, despite the wealth of knowledge available to each and every person?

Why do people persist in denying basic facts, like climate change, when all the research needed to back it up is so readily available on the internet?

If intelligence is defined by the ability to survive by resolving complicated problems, then, from a genius species, we have devolved into fools, threatened with extinction. Who, or what, is to blame for this reversal of fortunes? We must return now to George Orwell and Aldous Huxley.

Our problem is not that we have too little information at our fingertips, but rather that we have too much of it

Orwell feared a totalitarian state with total control over its citizens and the erosion of common sense and logic. The citizens of Oceania would believe that 2+2=5 if Big Brother said it was so and were taught to bitterly hate the enemies of the State and all those who did not conform.

While there are many similarities to be drawn with today’s world, especially in Communist China, I think that the real lessons that can explain the crisis we are facing in the West today can be found by reading Huxley.

In Brave New World, the dystopia is not defined by brutality but by overstimulation. In 1984, people are controlled by pain, but in Brave New World, people are controlled by pleasure instead.

The enemy of mankind is thus not limited to a brutal dictator, but we can be our own worst enemy.

The greater danger lies in mankind’s endless appetite for distraction.

In Brave New World, mankind is not controlled by what he hates and fears, but instead by what he loves and enjoys. Huxley’s dystopia is thus an endless playground that has lost its meaning – a hedonistic sea of indulgence without direction.

It is here that we can understand why our societies are potentially heading towards disaster.

Our problem is not that we have too little information at our fingertips, but rather that we have too much of it.

Truth is drowned out in a sea of irrelevance and fabrications which feel good and make us feel better about ourselves.

We are unable to comb through all this information with ease and happily settle for pleasant illusions.

Thus, conspiracy theories propagate, and people easily buy into whatever they see on television or YouTube, even when it is a lie.

In the past, people fully relied on quality journalism, the expertise of others and their own critical thinking instead.

While I have high hopes for our country to move towards better governance, thus far there is no politician from the major parties addressing the need to tackle party owned media stations.

In the age of L-Aqwa Żmien, in a time of overstimulation and propaganda, the fact that our political parties are able to maintain a dominant stranglehold over the media is a recipe for continued disaster.

It is here that Orwell and Huxley combine to warn us against a state where people go along with whatever they are told, failing to question. It is crucial, therefore, that Malta adopts regulations regarding political ownership of the media similar to elsewhere in Europe.

The academic Mario Thomas Vassallo, addressing the Nationalist Party extraordinary general council, stated: “This country will begin to breathe a sigh of relief when NET and ONE stop broadcasting.”

I envision a way these organisations could become independent of political control, but not disbanded so as to protect jobs.

In my opinion, this is the final mountain to climb for good governance in Malta and Gozo, and have hope for a culture that puts country before partisanship.

It will not solve the problems facing the world today, but our little country at least may begin to heal and to think for itself.

Timothy Alden is a founding member of Partit Demokratiku.