Jake Boes: Senior Portfolio
Brave New World vs 1984
In 1931, a novel named Brave New World was written by Aldous Huxley, describing a futuristic world in which mass production and technological advancements had developed an oppressed society, devoid of individuality or personal freedoms. Then, in 1949, George Orwell released his own novel, titled 1984, describing a differing outlook of the future, one in which constant war and total censorship had created an oppressed society, devoid of individuality or personal freedoms. Huxley and Orwell had each been in various conflicts and wars in the 20th century, and had become alarmed and disillusioned by the direction they believed society was headed. Both authors had written about a future in which the known world had become dominated by super-powerful, totalitarian governments, making the statement that perfect societies, in which hunger and poverty have been eradicated, would only come at the costs of our personal freedoms. The two novels also put forth the idea that in order to maintain the long term survival of these perfect societies, a caste system would need to be put into place. In Brave New World there were seven castes, with each caste indoctrinated with the idea that their caste was the greatest, or best suited for them, deterring any caste from attempting an upstart in search of higher standards of living. In 1984, there are three such castes: the proles, the poverty-ridden lower class, who had some degree of freedom; the rich, upper class, Inner Party members, who lived in luxury but were under constant surveillance; and the middle class party members, who were not only poor, but also under constant surveillance. However, despite the many similarities between the books; such as a rebellious main character who is driven by a female counterpart, the two novels also have vast differences, which have made different aspects of either book relevant or irrelevant as society progresses towards its goal of becoming self sustaining and indefinite. A very large difference between the two is how each society came to be. In 1984, the political party that had come to power, (the English Socialist Party, or Ingsoc as it is known in the novel) had forged the society through revolution and war against the previous capitalist society; thus creating a violent and aggressive society, focusing on hate and punishment. In Brave New World, the society had developed peacefully, through mass production and vast consumption; thus creating a passive and dull society, focusing on the many distractions provided for them. Looking at society today, Aldous Huxley’s vision of the future may be closer to reality than George Orwell’s dark look at the society of the future.
One of the differences that cast Brave New World as the more realistic look on the future is the idea that humanity will come to oppress itself by burying itself in trivialities. Aldous Huxley himself once remarked upon civil libertarians, always on the lookout for signs of tyranny, in “Brave New World Revisited”, stating “They have failed to take into account man’s almost infinite appetite for distractions.” This quote, published in 1958, seemingly prophesied our increasing subscription to distractions of all kind, and with the advent of the Internet and cell phones, the fuel for our distractions has exploded exponentially. The Internet, originally commissioned and researched by the United States government for the purpose of creating distributed computer networks, has now become one of the largest sources of distraction from the world around us. The fascinating world of the Internet has seemingly become more important to us than the world of reality, and its dull, repetitive demeanor. An estimated 1 out of 4 people on the entire planet have used Internet services, and is rising everyday. In the United States, over seventy-five percent of the population has used the Internet for some purpose. Although the Internet had accomplished its initial goal of distributing important information, the Internet has become more widely used as a means of casual communication. In 2008, an average of 210 billion emails were sent every day, with around seventy percent of the emails being spam advertisements. That accounts for over 53 trillion spam emails that year. Another means of communication, that serves as a more of a distraction than email, is Facebook. Facebook is a rapidly growing social networking website in which users create a profile with which they can communicate with their friends and share information and media among their peers. Facebook alone has over 600 million unique, active users around the world, with almost half of the United States population owning an account on the website. With the amount of social interaction available to us, a few different sociological effects begin to set in. A study and survey performed by psychologists from Edinburgh Napier University showed that students who frequently use Facebook are commonly stressed out by the social networking tool. Many of the students cited fear of missing out on social information or losing touch with contacts they communicate with on the website. Thirty-two percent of the students taking part in the survey admitting to feeling guilty whenever they denied a friend request on the website, which raised feelings of anxiety associated with the social networking tool. Ten percent of the students also admittied that they did not like receive friend requests, because of the anxiety associated with the decision required when one receives a friend request on Facebook. The study also indicated that the more friends you have on Facebook, the more stress the student felt from the responsibilties of having an account. Despite all of this, Facebook grows larger each day, and is a huge distraction from reality. Although Huxley did not envision a future in which everyone is glued to their computers, anxiously awaiting confirmation from their peers, he did envision a future in which social constructs suppressed and distracted the characters from realizing their harsh reality.
One such distraction is a commonly used is a state-endorsed, hallucinogenic drug called Soma. “A gramme is better than a damn,” is a slogan frequently uttered, encouraging the use of Soma whenever an individual begins to feel affected by the harsh world around them. Soma is commonly taken as self-medication when a member of the society begins to feel stress or discomfort at the reality of the trivial world in which they live. Such existential anxiety is often looked down on as a symptom of birthing defects by the sufferers peers. In my own experiences, I have often felt the same anxiety, and when shared with others, I often receive the same condescending response; I am told that I am anti-social and pessimistic. A common trend I have seen in my generation is a heavy reliance on social constructs and chemical stimulants to keep one focused on the more “important” aspects of reality, such as social interactions and acceptance among social groups, something that was heavily addressed by Huxley in his novel. In order to distract oneself from the reality of the harsh world, many people have become more concerned with the questions of ‘Who, what, where, and when?’ than the question of ‘Why?’ Commonly associated with toddlers discovering the world around them, the question of ‘Why?’ is slowly cast out by more trivial questions, which can bring much less significant answers.
There are many other distractions in the novel, such as consumption, which is taught to be a highly moral activity. This differs from 1984 in that Orwell predicted a society in which the people are only given what the government thinks they need, which proves to be just enough to sustain life. Citizens of the world in which Orwell imagined were kept in a state of perpetual poverty, as dictated by the Party. This is a huge difference from the inhabitants of The World State in Brave New World, where the upper classes live a luxurious life of consumption and consumerism. Children are taught many short sayings encouraging consumption, such as, “Ending is better than mending,” and, “The more stitches, the less riches.” Such conditioning towards consumption encourages spending, which in turns keeps the economy consistently booming. This is a key piece of the puzzle that helps sustain the perfect society indefinitely. This is evident in our world of rising capitalism and consumerism, where the fast food chain McDonald’s feeds over 46 million people everyday, in over one hundred countries, across six continents. Americans alone consume 222 pounds of meat and poultry each year. It isn’t just food being consumed, global oil production is at nearly 100 million barrels a day. However, one of the most consumed commodity in the modern world is the consumption of media. In 1984 the only form of media are utterly fabricated and constantly monitored newspapers and the telescreen, which broadcasts propaganda while it is used to silently watch over the inhabitants of the horrible future world. This is a vast difference from our world. With over ninety-six percent of American homes having at least one television, and cable and satellite television providing us with hundreds upon hundreds of channels, media consumption is a huge deal in our interconnected modern world. Americans now average around five hours of television every day, and over eighty-five percent of Americans now own a cell phone. We also take in over five thousand advertisements every single day, from various forms of media. That’s an average of more than three advertisements every minute (including while you sleep). Speaking of sleep, according to a study that took place in 2010, people now spend more time taking in various forms of media than they spend sleeping. This massive consumption of media continues to be the largest distraction from reality that our modern world faces, leaving us in such a state of technological worship that we can not turn back from.
Another distraction that leads the characters in Huxley’s book away from higher meaning and purpose in life is the casualness of recreational sex. In 1984, sex completely controlled by the government, and considered to be a dirty task only used for the purpose of procreation. This differs from the wildly public and carefree outlook on sex in Brave New World. According to the World State in which Huxley’s characters live, sex is not a private, meaningful activity to be shared between two beings, or a dirty task to put to use only to benefit the government, but a social activity such as seeing a movie or going out to dinner. This is reflected by the contraceptive belts worn by most females in the novel, which are considered extremely fashionable, and a common saying and government slogan, “Every one belongs to everyone else.” In Chapter 6 of Brave New World the character Lenina goes on a date with the main character of the story, Bernard Marx (who considers most aspects of the society he lives in to be repulsive), and ends up taking a helicopter ride. On the way, Bernard shares his wish to be somewhere alone, where he can simply be himself, not part of the vast social body of unimportance. Lenina is shocked by the notion and insists that they continue back to land. She is also puzzled as to why Bernard simply does not drown such feelings out with Soma, which he refuses to take. After returning to Bernard’s room, the two have casual sex, which Bernard later reflects on with great distaste. The atmosphere of casual sex may seem rather unnerving and foreboding, however, recent trends show that casual sex seems to be decreasing rather than becoming more common. Despite the widespread use of the contraceptive birth control pill and other forms of birth control, such as the Plan B morning after pill, virginity rates among teenagers have risen 5% in the past ten years. This is one aspect in which Huxley’s novel may have not predicted.
However, in the end, nothing was ever concealed from the characters in Brave New World; all histories were accessible, books were still available, and all members of society were technically considered to be free. The characters in the novel instead chose their oppression, and welcomed the suppression of any emotion or deep thought. While Orwell feared that our government would rule upon us like an iron fist, Huxley believed they would not need to, as we would bring upon our own oppression. Orwell feared the censorship and changing of factual information, where Huxley believed no one would even wish to know such information. Orwell feared that the governments would be able to control the truth, and bend it to their whim, but Huxley feared no one would care for the truth, as it would be drowned out by distractions from reality. While neither writer could have precisely predicted where our society would head in the future, Huxley’s dark vision of the future, drowned in irrelevance and distraction, seems to be the future in which we are headed.
Sources
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
1984 by George Orwell
http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brave_New_World
http://www.pensnest.co.uk/A-Level%20Pages/mod5compare.html
http://www.serendipity.li/jsmill/post_1.html
http://www.huxley.net/bnw-revisited/index.html
http://www.webpronews.com/too-many-facebook-friends-causes-stress-2011-02
http://postyour.info/statistics/do-you-approve-of-casual-sex.htm
http://ronaldmcdonaldusa.blogspot.com/2004/10/shocking-statistics.html
http://www.greenlivingtips.com/articles/185/1/Consumption-statistics.html
http://www.frankwbaker.com/mediause.htm
One of the differences that cast Brave New World as the more realistic look on the future is the idea that humanity will come to oppress itself by burying itself in trivialities. Aldous Huxley himself once remarked upon civil libertarians, always on the lookout for signs of tyranny, in “Brave New World Revisited”, stating “They have failed to take into account man’s almost infinite appetite for distractions.” This quote, published in 1958, seemingly prophesied our increasing subscription to distractions of all kind, and with the advent of the Internet and cell phones, the fuel for our distractions has exploded exponentially. The Internet, originally commissioned and researched by the United States government for the purpose of creating distributed computer networks, has now become one of the largest sources of distraction from the world around us. The fascinating world of the Internet has seemingly become more important to us than the world of reality, and its dull, repetitive demeanor. An estimated 1 out of 4 people on the entire planet have used Internet services, and is rising everyday. In the United States, over seventy-five percent of the population has used the Internet for some purpose. Although the Internet had accomplished its initial goal of distributing important information, the Internet has become more widely used as a means of casual communication. In 2008, an average of 210 billion emails were sent every day, with around seventy percent of the emails being spam advertisements. That accounts for over 53 trillion spam emails that year. Another means of communication, that serves as a more of a distraction than email, is Facebook. Facebook is a rapidly growing social networking website in which users create a profile with which they can communicate with their friends and share information and media among their peers. Facebook alone has over 600 million unique, active users around the world, with almost half of the United States population owning an account on the website. With the amount of social interaction available to us, a few different sociological effects begin to set in. A study and survey performed by psychologists from Edinburgh Napier University showed that students who frequently use Facebook are commonly stressed out by the social networking tool. Many of the students cited fear of missing out on social information or losing touch with contacts they communicate with on the website. Thirty-two percent of the students taking part in the survey admitting to feeling guilty whenever they denied a friend request on the website, which raised feelings of anxiety associated with the social networking tool. Ten percent of the students also admittied that they did not like receive friend requests, because of the anxiety associated with the decision required when one receives a friend request on Facebook. The study also indicated that the more friends you have on Facebook, the more stress the student felt from the responsibilties of having an account. Despite all of this, Facebook grows larger each day, and is a huge distraction from reality. Although Huxley did not envision a future in which everyone is glued to their computers, anxiously awaiting confirmation from their peers, he did envision a future in which social constructs suppressed and distracted the characters from realizing their harsh reality.
One such distraction is a commonly used is a state-endorsed, hallucinogenic drug called Soma. “A gramme is better than a damn,” is a slogan frequently uttered, encouraging the use of Soma whenever an individual begins to feel affected by the harsh world around them. Soma is commonly taken as self-medication when a member of the society begins to feel stress or discomfort at the reality of the trivial world in which they live. Such existential anxiety is often looked down on as a symptom of birthing defects by the sufferers peers. In my own experiences, I have often felt the same anxiety, and when shared with others, I often receive the same condescending response; I am told that I am anti-social and pessimistic. A common trend I have seen in my generation is a heavy reliance on social constructs and chemical stimulants to keep one focused on the more “important” aspects of reality, such as social interactions and acceptance among social groups, something that was heavily addressed by Huxley in his novel. In order to distract oneself from the reality of the harsh world, many people have become more concerned with the questions of ‘Who, what, where, and when?’ than the question of ‘Why?’ Commonly associated with toddlers discovering the world around them, the question of ‘Why?’ is slowly cast out by more trivial questions, which can bring much less significant answers.
There are many other distractions in the novel, such as consumption, which is taught to be a highly moral activity. This differs from 1984 in that Orwell predicted a society in which the people are only given what the government thinks they need, which proves to be just enough to sustain life. Citizens of the world in which Orwell imagined were kept in a state of perpetual poverty, as dictated by the Party. This is a huge difference from the inhabitants of The World State in Brave New World, where the upper classes live a luxurious life of consumption and consumerism. Children are taught many short sayings encouraging consumption, such as, “Ending is better than mending,” and, “The more stitches, the less riches.” Such conditioning towards consumption encourages spending, which in turns keeps the economy consistently booming. This is a key piece of the puzzle that helps sustain the perfect society indefinitely. This is evident in our world of rising capitalism and consumerism, where the fast food chain McDonald’s feeds over 46 million people everyday, in over one hundred countries, across six continents. Americans alone consume 222 pounds of meat and poultry each year. It isn’t just food being consumed, global oil production is at nearly 100 million barrels a day. However, one of the most consumed commodity in the modern world is the consumption of media. In 1984 the only form of media are utterly fabricated and constantly monitored newspapers and the telescreen, which broadcasts propaganda while it is used to silently watch over the inhabitants of the horrible future world. This is a vast difference from our world. With over ninety-six percent of American homes having at least one television, and cable and satellite television providing us with hundreds upon hundreds of channels, media consumption is a huge deal in our interconnected modern world. Americans now average around five hours of television every day, and over eighty-five percent of Americans now own a cell phone. We also take in over five thousand advertisements every single day, from various forms of media. That’s an average of more than three advertisements every minute (including while you sleep). Speaking of sleep, according to a study that took place in 2010, people now spend more time taking in various forms of media than they spend sleeping. This massive consumption of media continues to be the largest distraction from reality that our modern world faces, leaving us in such a state of technological worship that we can not turn back from.
Another distraction that leads the characters in Huxley’s book away from higher meaning and purpose in life is the casualness of recreational sex. In 1984, sex completely controlled by the government, and considered to be a dirty task only used for the purpose of procreation. This differs from the wildly public and carefree outlook on sex in Brave New World. According to the World State in which Huxley’s characters live, sex is not a private, meaningful activity to be shared between two beings, or a dirty task to put to use only to benefit the government, but a social activity such as seeing a movie or going out to dinner. This is reflected by the contraceptive belts worn by most females in the novel, which are considered extremely fashionable, and a common saying and government slogan, “Every one belongs to everyone else.” In Chapter 6 of Brave New World the character Lenina goes on a date with the main character of the story, Bernard Marx (who considers most aspects of the society he lives in to be repulsive), and ends up taking a helicopter ride. On the way, Bernard shares his wish to be somewhere alone, where he can simply be himself, not part of the vast social body of unimportance. Lenina is shocked by the notion and insists that they continue back to land. She is also puzzled as to why Bernard simply does not drown such feelings out with Soma, which he refuses to take. After returning to Bernard’s room, the two have casual sex, which Bernard later reflects on with great distaste. The atmosphere of casual sex may seem rather unnerving and foreboding, however, recent trends show that casual sex seems to be decreasing rather than becoming more common. Despite the widespread use of the contraceptive birth control pill and other forms of birth control, such as the Plan B morning after pill, virginity rates among teenagers have risen 5% in the past ten years. This is one aspect in which Huxley’s novel may have not predicted.
However, in the end, nothing was ever concealed from the characters in Brave New World; all histories were accessible, books were still available, and all members of society were technically considered to be free. The characters in the novel instead chose their oppression, and welcomed the suppression of any emotion or deep thought. While Orwell feared that our government would rule upon us like an iron fist, Huxley believed they would not need to, as we would bring upon our own oppression. Orwell feared the censorship and changing of factual information, where Huxley believed no one would even wish to know such information. Orwell feared that the governments would be able to control the truth, and bend it to their whim, but Huxley feared no one would care for the truth, as it would be drowned out by distractions from reality. While neither writer could have precisely predicted where our society would head in the future, Huxley’s dark vision of the future, drowned in irrelevance and distraction, seems to be the future in which we are headed.
Sources
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
1984 by George Orwell
http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brave_New_World
http://www.pensnest.co.uk/A-Level%20Pages/mod5compare.html
http://www.serendipity.li/jsmill/post_1.html
http://www.huxley.net/bnw-revisited/index.html
http://www.webpronews.com/too-many-facebook-friends-causes-stress-2011-02
http://postyour.info/statistics/do-you-approve-of-casual-sex.htm
http://ronaldmcdonaldusa.blogspot.com/2004/10/shocking-statistics.html
http://www.greenlivingtips.com/articles/185/1/Consumption-statistics.html
http://www.frankwbaker.com/mediause.htm
