Dystopian control in Brave New World and Nineteen Eighty-Four

Huxley & G. Orwell

Two Novels, Two Bizarre Worlds: A Paper comparing the novels Brave New World and Nineteen Eighty-Four

The classical novels Brave New World by Aldous Huxley and Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell are often compared because of their similar dystopian character. Both novels present perverted worlds set in the future that is chaotic in the sense that people do not enjoy their freedom and individuality. Brave New World introduces a 'frightening vision of the future' and posits a society-norm-controlled world where people are conditioned since birth to hold the values that the World State idealizes thus, loss their individual identities and submit to the standards set by society in fear of becoming outcasts. According to Bessa (2007), Huxley suggests that people in the World State destroys each other. Nineteen Eighty-Four on the other hand, zeroes in on a repressive totalitarian era and discusses a society that is government-controlled, ruled by party headed by Big Brother. The government's invasive character is captured in the caption of the party's poster BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU. Indeed, the two worlds described in the abovementioned novels depict oppression by states that seek to cling to power so they can incessantly manipulate their people. Although fictional in nature, the novels have introduced issues that leave more questions than answers, which the present world could think about and address. Perhaps, the first step is to answer this single question: Are the notions in Huxley's and Orwell's works manifest in our world today?

The two novels are satirical in nature criticizing issues in the contemporary society. LeBouef (2007) regards satire as a very powerful artistic form to critique specific human behavior. In his paper he wrote, "while they do provide some degree of social critique and are somewhat humorous, they are intended to provoke any sort of real social change, and they are too overt to qualify as satire in the modern sense" (p.2).

While the two novels raise similar ideas, like the abolition of the concept of family and absence of individual freedom, they have also different views on issues (e.g. sex), which will be discussed in the following section of this paper. Socio-cultural implications of the ideas presented in the novels will be tackled as well in this paper.

Issues raised and challenged

Power control and passivity

Both novels highlight the control of power in the societies described and how it is achieved. In Brave New World, the power is in the grip of the World State, which does not point to a governing individual or group but to a system or the society itself. The application of technology in human reproduction and sleep learning strategy were combined to change the society in a way that is harmonious to the idealism of the state. Children are decanted and developed in hatcheries and are thought of values that the state wants them to believe in. They are conditioned to behave as one in a particular caste and not to want for more. The populace in the World State enjoys life and hangover-free "vacations" as they have a regular intake of a hallucinogen called Soma.

Meanwhile, in Nineteen Eighty-Four, the government holds the power over the populace of Oceania. A ruling party led by Big Brother coerces people through Thought Police to follow its regulations and erring citizens are considered criminals who are first subjected to surveillance and if proven to be disobedient, will be tortured in the Ministry of Love. According to Orwell, "A Party member lives from birth to death under the eye of the Thought Police. Even when he is alone he can never be sure that he is alone. Wherever he may be, asleep or awake, working or resting, in his bath or in bed, he can be inspected without warning and without knowing that he is being inspected." (Orwell, 1949); this clearly defines an insidious and invasive state.

Put simply, "In 1984 the lust for power is satisfied by inflicting pain; in Brave New World, by inflicting a hardly less humiliating pleasure" (Huxley, 2004. p259).

Nineteen Eighty-Four exemplifies totalitarianism and its fangs. Peter Grieder (2007) in his paper entitled "In Defense of Totalitarianism Theory as a Tool of Historical Scholarship" says that "Totalitarianism may therefore be summarised as the concerted but disguised attempt by a state to exercise total control over, coerce, integrate, manipulate, mobilize and seduce its population in the name of an ideology, regardless of the extent to which this was actually achieved in practice." Put another way, totalitarianism means total control.

Totalitarian system has gained a lot of criticism. Critics describe the deception behind it and how it shapes or destructs societies. For Roviello (2007), "The totalitarian lie is a kind of perversion, to the extent that it forces individuals to participate actively, on the front line, indeed with enthusiasm, in the mendacious destruction of the very requirements of their existence, including when their own lives are at stake." But for Huxley, "A really efficient totalitarian state would be one in which the all-powerful executive of political bosses and their army of managers control a population of slaves who do not have to be coerced, because they love their servitude."

Orwell (1949) added in his novel, as he describes how totalitarian system works, that totalitarianism entails to "the possibility of enforcing not only complete obedience to the will of the State, but complete uniformity of opinion on all subjects." This holds true to Huxley's World State as well, wherein all people behave in uniformity as an effect of conditioning and reinforcement of the States' willpower.

As mentioned, control of power in the two worlds was achieved through conditioning and brainwashing. The two novels have challenged this idea of power thirst as states, apparently, have no clear vision of what it really intend for the populace other than perpetual manipulation. In the words of Mario Varrichio (1999),

Both Huxley and Orwell strongly denounce visual conditioning and the political use made of it: in fact, in the dystopic worlds described by the two authors images and screens constitute fundamental means of exercising mental and physical dominance over people. Also, their condemnation implicitly extends to the distorting power of media in non-fictional reality and to their frightening future potential."

Moreover, Huxley argues that conditioning eliminates competitiveness as member of castes are raised to do the jobs particularly intended for them and they remain contented with their prescribed social status.

In Nineteen Eighty-Four, control also comes in the form of banning of books as well as falsifying records in order to spread a biased propaganda and to silence resistance among the people. The protagonist Winston Smith was the one tasked to falsify records and political literature but later on resigns and wages a rebellion instead. Perhaps because he never really understood the purpose of doing such as written in Nineteen Eighty-Four, "The immediate advantages of falsifying the past were obvious, but the ultimate motive was mysterious. He took up his pen again and wrote: I understand HOW: I do not understand WHY." (Orwell, 1949).

Capitalism

Principles of mass production are very clear in the novels. Huxley for instance, applied the idea of mass production in human reproduction, since the people has abandoned the natural method of reproduction. Mass production as the conventional feature of capitalism and Huxley's novel reinforces such. He talked about the requirement of the World State about constant consumption, which is considered as foundation of its stability. Huxley apparently criticizes the commercial dependence of the world towards goods. Conditioning centers teaches people to consume. Orwell similarly provides criticism to capitalism as well: "The centuries of capitalism were held to have produced nothing of any value." The Proles are the symbols of the capitalist system as they constitute the working class who work in assembly lines.

Destruction of the concept of family

Both novels dispose the concept of family. Huxley totally wiped out the idea of family as the rule in the World State states "everyone belongs to everyone else." Marriage is considered as an antisocial and dirty joke so intimate relationships do not exist. Like the love story of Bernard and Lenina, their budding relationship did not prosper because of the influence of the societal norm on non-existence of permanent relationships. Bernard was carried away by the said system and had sexual intercourse with the woman he likes. The concept of family is also defective even in Malpais, the other world described in Huxley's novel that is inhabited by natives and Linda and John the Savage. Linda's family is an example of a typical broken family of today's.

According to Tufts (2006), Huxley's travel to India has influenced his "depiction of the savage reservation and its oppressive incivility" (p.3).

Meanwhile, there is also a notion in Nineteen Eighty-Four to abolish family. O'Brien, a member of the Inner Party, spells it out in the book the Theory and Practice of Oligarchical Collectivism in order to remove destructions from their loyalty to the Party. In addition, family destruction comes when the children are used of the government to spy on their parents. Orwell narrates, "The children, on the other hand, were systematically turned against their parents and taught to spy on them and report their deviations. The family had become in effect an extension of the Thought Police. It was a device by means of which everyone could be surrounded night and day by informers who knew him intimately." Clearly, children are thought how to betray their love ones and become devoted only to the Party.

Sex/Morality

Huxley and Orwell differ in their thought as far as sex is concerned. In the World State, sex is encouraged while the Inner Party in Nineteen Eighty-Four discourages it in the same reason that it will disrupt the devotion of the members to the Party. The theory is illustrated in this Orwell's wordings, "The sex instinct will be eradicated. Procreation will be an annual formality like the renewal of a ration card. We shall abolish the orgasm. Our neurologists are at work upon it now. There will be no loyalty, except loyalty towards the Party. There will be no love, except the love of Big Brother."

Huxley provided an extreme distortion of morality by its portrayal of sex merely as an integral part of socialization and not for procreation. The idea is a parody of the youth's sexual adventurism that their disregard of moral values.

Socio-cultural Implications

Orwell and Huxley obviously delved into the extremes. Their novels provided pictures of a dreadful future, of negative utopia. Are sex is indeed a social activity today and totalitarianism present in some countries? It could be a yes or a no depending on which culture you are coming from. In fact Stein (2006) suggests that,

Active psychological warfare and mental torture are now accepted concepts in totalitarian countries. A prime result of the political pressure, both overt and unobtrusive, has been cynical re-evaluation of human values. A new progression of specialists has emerged whose task it is not to cure, but to aggravate and manipulate the weaknesses of selected victims so that they might become more easily amendable to influence, and to prescribed political ideologies. We may define such planned enforcement of ideas a mental coercion applied as a political tool as "thought control." It is interesting to know, however, why people reacted so hysterically and dramatically to the first detailed news on brainwashing. Terrible fears were aroused in them: especially the fear of conformity and the fear of the evil eye that can see through the person and magically dig the truth out of him" (Stein, 506).

But the challenge is really on finding ways to negate the predisposition of these novels. The idea of a repressive state or chaotic culture is not intended to terrify people but to inject an idea to fight for these anxieties when the time requires. Moyan agrees that:

It is truism that one of the most revealing indexes to the anxieties of our age is the great flood of works like Huxley's Brave New World, and Orwell's Nineteen Eight-Four. Appalling in their similarity, they describe nightmare states where men are conditioned to obedience, freedom is eliminated, and individuality crushed; where the past is systematically destroyed and men are isolated from nature; where science and technology are employed, not to enrich human life, but to maintain the states surveillance and control of its slave citizens" (Moyan, p111).

With regard to technological innovations that concerns of losing intimate relationships and individual identities, the outcome really depends on how we manage and balance the influence of technology and life. Indeed, there will be uncertainty on whether technological innovations will increase or decrease social welfare (Posner, p.6).

Meanwhile, "The concept of social control brings us to the focus of sociology and its perpetual problem -- the relation of the social order and the individual being, the relation of the unit and the whole. Control is simply coterminous with society, and in examining the former we simply describe the latter" (Beniger, p.61)