Would you rather live in the society presented by George Orwell's "1984" or Aldous Huxley's "Brave New World"?
Brave New World is a dystopian novel by Aldous Huxley, first published in 1932. Set in London in 2540, the novel anticipates developments in reproductive technology, biological engineering, and sleep-learning that combine to change society. The world it describes could also be a utopia, albeit an ironic one. Humanity is carefree, healthy, and technologically advanced. Warfare and poverty have been eliminated and everyone is permanently happy. The irony is that all of these things have been achieved by eliminating many things from which people currently derive happiness, family, cultural diversity, art, literature, science, religion, and philosophy. It is also a hedonistic society, deriving pleasure from promiscuous sex and drug use, especially the use of soma, a powerful stimulant taken to escape pain and bad memories through hallucinatory fantasies.
George Orwell displays his perception of a dystopia in 1984. Surmised technological advances, such as telescreens, are used to the benefit of the party and to exploit greater control over the masses, not to improve quality of life as intended. Elaborate strategies, such as perpetual warfare, are used to deny the masses, or proles, the education needed to understand the potential for a better life.
Brave New World is a dystopian novel by Aldous Huxley, first published in 1932. Set in London in 2540, the novel anticipates developments in reproductive technology, biological engineering, and sleep-learning that combine to change society. The world it describes could also be a utopia, albeit an ironic one. Humanity is carefree, healthy, and technologically advanced. Warfare and poverty have been eliminated and everyone is permanently happy. The irony is that all of these things have been achieved by eliminating many things from which people currently derive happiness, family, cultural diversity, art, literature, science, religion, and philosophy. It is also a hedonistic society, deriving pleasure from promiscuous sex and drug use, especially the use of soma, a powerful stimulant taken to escape pain and bad memories through hallucinatory fantasies.
George Orwell displays his perception of a dystopia in 1984. Surmised technological advances, such as telescreens, are used to the benefit of the party and to exploit greater control over the masses, not to improve quality of life as intended. Elaborate strategies, such as perpetual warfare, are used to deny the masses, or proles, the education needed to understand the potential for a better life.
