Similarities Between Huxley And George Orwell

Aldous Huxley and George Orwell, authors of the dystopian novels Brave New World and 1984 respectively, had contrasting visions for the conceivable future state of modern society. For Huxley, our fate is a world lacking of emotional complexity. Its citizens are encouraged to avoid social constructs (such as the family unit and marriage) which can provoke unpleasant sentiments (like vexation, sorrow, and anxiety) and engage in a life of extreme leisure and pleasure which consists of mood-altering drugs (i.e. soma), sexual promiscuity, conditioning, and superficial relationships. On the contrary, Orwell’s depiction of our destiny was that of a drab totalitarian state of repressed sexuality, physical and psychological torture, and uncertainty.

Unsurprisingly, Huxley believed his depiction was, stating in a letter to Orwell that “ruling oligarchy will find less arduous and wasteful ways of governing and of satisfying its lust for power, and these ways will resemble those which I described in Brave New World” (Huxley). Was Huxley correct in his assumption or simply overconfident in his belief? In my perspective, Huxley’s notion that Brave New World is more accurate depiction of the future state of civilization than George Orwell’s 1984 is only valid to an extent. We see that certain aspects of Huxley’s world (such as pronounced sexuality) are widespread in most modern societies, westernized or not. However, it should be noted that contemporary methods of social control and societal conditioning are closer parallels of

By using methods such as sleep-teaching, the administration is able to successfully (and openly) create compliant citizens, regardless of their position on the ladder of social hierarchy or their living conditions. In 1984, however, the techniques of conditioning are a less apparent. Citizens are not reared by the hands of the government, yet throughout their entire lives, they are bombarded with pro-Party propaganda. Party members are immersed in a world filled with telescreens prattling about how “people…[are] bigger, healthier, stronger, happier, more intelligent, better educated” (Orwell 74) than the people who existed before the leadership of the Party, menacing posters of Big Brother, and daily activities such as the Two Minute Hate, where citizens come together and have negative, often violent reactions to the face of Emmanuel Goldstein, the likely fictitious enemy of the Party. All children are active in the Party-run program called “The Spies.” Why doesn’t the Party engage in the more visibly intrusive methods of conditioning à la Brave New World? I believe that the Party wants to have the appearance of being “hands-off” in the beliefs of its subjects. It is true, outside of the realm of fiction, that when someone’s viewpoints are being forced upon us (as free-thinking adults), we