Doesn't practically every high schooler (in the U.S. at least) read both books, be assigned an essay to ask which one has happened, and then come to the conclusion that we're far more like Brave New World? As a foreword to a book, this isn't exactly original stuff.

But there's also a counterpoint, which is that all the distraction, or the pleasure, or gossip, or whatever it is -- that's the stuff that it means to be human. We don't just mindlessly watch TV -- we talk about it with friends, joke about it, have fun with it. When a man comes home after a hard day of work, and wants to unwind by watching Celebrity Apprentice with his wife, I think sometimes people are a little to quick to judge. Everybody needs their 'guilty pleasures'. That doesn't mean that's all we are.