The Birth And Dying Of Individual Freedom In The Western World--A Case Study Of Nineteen Eighty-Four And Brave New World

The consciousness of individual freedom originated from the late Middle Ages, and developed as capitalism pushed forward its expansion. Many Humanistic and Enlightened men had imposed great hope upon it, expecting the full expression of man's potential as an individual to think, feel and act independently, to govern one's own life, and to make decision by oneself. However, as the development of science and technology led to unification and mechanism, as the advent of new media shifted our typographical culture into a visual culture, as the production of capitalism turned into the mode of consumerism, individual freedom has become illusion, facing its inevitable doom toward dying in modern era.