Brave New World is a book about a dystopian future. It bears some resemblance to the dystopian future we ended up living in.
It was written by Arduous Huxley. Published in 1932, it’s notable how perceptive Huxley was even before taking the psychedelics that would provide subject matter for his later works.
Similarities
- The trend in government is to assert more and more control in order to eliminate unpredictability and variation. An example of this is the nonstop economic meddling by governments at every level. For a non-fiction work on the iatrogenic effects of habitual intervention, see [Antifragile] by Nassim Nicholas Taleb.
- Promiscuous sex for the sole purpose of pleasure is widely accepted.
- In both Brave New World and our dystopia, most of the populace is content, and even expects, to be given a role by society which will provide for them with minimal change or risk.
Differences
- In Brave New World, the government deports dissidents who threaten the status quo, sending them to an island where they and the other complainers can live out their lives without spreading their toxic ideas. In the dystopian future we live in, dissidents who truly pose a threat are more likely to be imprisoned indefinitely, possibly in a secret overseas prison. At least one extrajudicial prison is located on an island, so there is that similarity.
- In Brave New World, the society deifies Henry Ford, an inventor of mass production and consummate capitalist. In our dystopia, mass production and those who conduct it are vilified instead.
- In Brave New World, the cabal that controls everything chooses their members unilaterally. In our dystopia, the cabal is a bit larger, and an illusion of choice is given to the populace.