Conclusion

So we're faced with a War of The Worlds, ironically enough. Which Dystopia is more apropos to the world we really live in? We have Huxley's realm in his novel Brave New World, based in pleasure and power; we have Orwell's world in his novel 1984, based in punishment and power. Both take a look at the potential future of our world. They are both warnings. They both serve to deter the reader from making the same mistakes that are depicted in the book. The question is, though, which book more truthfully depicts where our society is headed? Which book is better? That is, which encompasses a more whole truth?

Let's first examine the timeliness of the novels. 1984 was written in 1948. It was incredibly insightful then. It's plot, characters, and theme all spoke to the dangers that Nazi Germany embodied in that era. It was totalitarianism in it's most real and extreme form. The idea that all individuality and individual thought could be controlled and/or eliminated was an ideal that needed to be dealt with at the time. "From the perspective of 1948, the world of Nineteen Eighty-Four seemed very probable; but from the perspective of 1959, much less so" (Conclusion: The Two Futures: A.F. 632 and 1984). This is because, after Nazi Germany fails, and the world remains intact people begin to see why. Totalitarianism doesn't work. It doesn't vascillate. It doesnt expand and contract with change. It simply tries to contain every individual thought until eventually, individuality, like all things contained for too long, builds in pressure and bursts out of its holdings. Nazi Germany was defeated by it's own evil. It was a state at war that lived by the sword in every sense and died by the sword as well. Orwell's world is not unlike that. While it is the perfect form of Nazi Germany, there are yet Winston Smith's present who are willing to fight against it. It is not so farfetched to imagine that eventually a brotherhood of Winstons and Julias will exist and will rise up and will overthrow Big Brother.

There is restriction, and therefore, there is resistance. The two come hand in hand invariably.

"Huxley makes the point that terror is a less efficient administrative tool than pleasure" and I certainly agree. In the weeks before graduation I'm certainly more inclined to do my math homework for a lollipop than I am because my grade will fall 5 percentage points if I don't do it. I strive to be happy. I strive to smile. I strive to laugh. I strive for love. I strive for sex. I strive to strive and not to run. All of this is based on pleasure. I do what I do, perhaps out of laziness or, more likely out of human nature, for pleasure. In order to control me, most of those who know me best have sought to control manipulate what I should do into what I want to do. They have found that this works better than telling me what I shouldn't do. A little secret: I do what I shouldn't do anyway.

The Declaration of Independence guarantees the citizens of the United States "Life, Liberty, And The Pursuit of Happiness." It is there that Brave New World finds its thesis. Can the population be controlled by using the guarantee that our country prides itself on. Can "The Pursuit of Happiness" be the thing that ends our life and liberty? In Huxley's world the people revel in sex and drugs in order to maintain happiness. It's far from the same sex and drugs in our world, but how far really? Turn on the TV: diet pills to satiate the hunger for happiness, half naked women and well built men to satisfy the desire for sex in a world that seems to be stripped of its clothing which each passing year. All of this because our society derives pleasure from it's basic human longing for sex and happiness. Is it so farfetched to imagine that a world that bases it's stability on its people searching for pleasure is more likely to obtain total control than a society that bases it's stability on pain. People won't fight pleasure. "The power of pleasure has the advantage of being more stabilizing."