“We must not be too distracted by the clunkiness of the means of surveillance current in Winston Smith’s era. In “our” 1984, after all, the integrated circuit chip was less than a decade old, and almost embarrassingly primitive next to the wonders of computer technology circa 2003, most notably the Internet, a development that promises social control on a scale those quaint old twentieth-century tyrants with their goofy mustaches could only dream about.” (p. XVI)
An Orwellian universe in which government maintains tight control of information and language offers little hope. Despite Pynchon’s pessimism regarding technological advancement, his vision of a postmodern world awash in information and competing messages provides for more possibility and potentially elevates the role of librarians as defenders of privacy and intellectual freedom and as navigational beacons. Just watch out for the bribable ones and look for the tattoo.
that paragraph is shocking in its prescience ..the bribable ones. And the bribe is to think this makes them better.