Hate Inc.: Why Today's Media Makes Us Despise One Another

by Matt Taibbi

George Orwell wrote about in 1984. The book contains a character named Syme, a philologist coworker of protagonist Winston Smith. Winston is terrified of Syme, because Syme is smart, which means he’s capable of detecting Winston’s secret thoughtcrime. But Syme’s intelligence is of a particular, limited kind. He is fantastic at the job of dystopian propaganda, a master of the hideous intricacies of “Newspeak” and an ardent supporter of Big Brother: “In an intellectual way,” Orwell wrote, “he was venomously orthodox.” Unlike Winston, who spent his days terrified of being found out as a secret human, Syme radiated confidence. He believed deeply in The Party, so why would they ever snatch on him? But in Airstrip One, being too smart in any way was an offense. Syme, Winston knew, would sooner or later be vaporized. The crime would not be the wrong politics, but simply having too functional a brain. There’s an element of this with the press. The people in this business who are clever or original in any way—even in negative ways—almost always meet their comeuppances. They find themselves replaced by duller, meaner, more muddle-headed versions of themselves.