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Aldous Huxley's Brave New World and George Orwell's 1984 tower above other novels that explore the future of humankind. Both novels are stark warnings about what can become of us if we leave our governance up to others. While aspects of both novels resemble the present to a startling degree, the world we now inhabit both resembles Brave New World much more than Orwell's 1984 and is significantly more disturbing.

On the surface, who wouldn't want to live within the civilized' areas of Brave New World? Privilege and entitlement for the upper castes. Full employment, frequent sex without commitment, and a generous amount of leisure for everyone else. Heck, one doesn't so much as need to think, given that axioms to handle any situation have been drilled into the inhabitants since birth. Does life get any better than this?

And given that Brave New World offers such a rosy existence, who in their right mind would choose to live in Orwell's ultra-repressed Oceania instead? I would.

Yes, Orwell's protagonist, Winston Smith, undergoes extreme oppression and ultimately severe torture, but he enjoys an intellectual freedom for a time that is unattainable for all the inhabitants in Huxley's world who are mere hatchery and conditioning products. Brave New Worldians do not live, they are automatons who follow a script. Since all aspects of their lives are laid out for them, none of it has any meaning. Winston, on the other hand, is able to feel genuine attraction for Julia (as if anything could be more human than that) and struggle in pursuit of a relationship with her which is all the more meaningful, given that they have to be prepared to sacrifice everything in order to be together.

This need to repress desire in 1984 keeps some people hungering for a different world order which admits the possibility that at some time the oppressed could succeed at overthrowing Big Brother. In Brave New World, however, the domination of the human spirit is so complete that people do not even realize a problem exists. And this is where the hackles rise on the back of my neck... Is it not infinitely easier to tune in to America's Next Top Model or CSI: Miami-our daily dose of soma-than it is to educate ourselves about what our elected officials are really up to?

Learn more about this author, Russell Dawson.
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