Upon researching George Orwell's background and trying to find reasons that prompted his writing of 1984, I came across an interesting letter. The letter is addressed to George Orwell and is from none other than Aldous Huxley. In my previous blog posts, I have compared 1984 to the dystopian novel Brave New World by Aldous Huxley many times.
The letter can be found here: http://www.lettersofnote.com/2012/03/1984-v-brave-new-world.html
In the letter, Huxley compares the differing totalitarian governments in the two books. He admires Orwell for his work, however, doubts the longevity of a government fueled by the incitement of fear. He predicts that such a government would eventually result in the one created in his own novel. Huxely argues that hypnosis is a more effective strategy than physical harm or imprisonment. I believe Huxley is trying to say that power led by fear usually results in resentment, that is often times strong enough to lead a rebellion.
In Brave New World, everyone experiences forms of hypnosis and conditioning before they are even born. So, instead of forcing beliefs upon people as they grow up, Huxley finds it more suitable to take personal opinions out of the equation completely. To never give citizens the chance to think individually. The rules and expectations of the society are embedded into their brain, therefore no one questions the culture. And at this point we see similarities between the two books. Both books contain people who cannot think for themselves. People who consume all the propaganda and lies from the government without question. The results of both governments are the same in the two books, but the cause is different. Two different forms of manipulation that incite the same conformity.
I find the end of the letter very interesting. Huxley predicts that the world will begin to use infant conditioning within the next generation (at the time he wrote this letter in 1949). Clearly, this has not occurred. But it makes me wonder what Aldous Huxley's political standing is and his views on government. Brave New World is fiction, however, how much of it does Huxley, not necessarily support, but predict? It is all a matter of morals.
Unfortunately I could not find any other letters between the two authors. As far as I know, there is not a published response from George Orwell. It would be very interesting to see whether he agrees of disagrees with Huxley and how he can support his opinion.
It is very interesting to hear about that letter because I read 1984 before we read Brave New World, and I had also connected the two works. It's cool how Huxley thinks about the practicality of Orwell's society, and whether it would work or not. Good job drawing the connections between the two!
ReplyDeleteThis letter was in the back of the our copy of Brave New World. I believe I mentioned it at one point, but maybe I didn't.
ReplyDeleteWhat do you imagine Orwell would respond with? It seems that, in most ways, his version of things has happened to a larger degree than Huxley's.
Although I can see where Huxley comes from, I don't think that he should dismiss the longevity of Big Brother. I simply view each book as two equally viable ways of controlling a populace through alternate tactics. I don't doubt Big Brother's use of physical harm. We see its affect in the end of the book where Winston is tortured. Orwell shows that O'Brien obtains a great deal of control over Winston due to the infliction of physical pain. Winston learns to love O'Brien, dreams lovingly of him, and eventually accepts the doctrine of The Party. Physical pain is surely presented as having a great deal of control over people by Orwell. From this I think Orwell would disagree with Huxley on that particular point.
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