The Dystopias of Orwell and Huxley Had One Big Thing in Common

Neil Postman’s book Amusing Ourselves to Death (1985) contrasted the striking differences between Orwell’s 1984 and Huxley’s Brave New World. But don't forget what the major similarity they shared.

I recently wrote about Aldous Huxley’s letter to George Orwell, in which he congratulated the 1984 writer for his book—and gently suggested his own book more correctly predicted mankind’s future.

The argument over which writer was more prophetic, Orwell or Huxley, is one I’ve heard for decades. Well before I had read either of these works, I recall family members discussing Neil Postman’s book Amusing Ourselves to Death (1985), which contrasts Orwell’s 1984 and Huxley’s Brave New World.

By the title of Postman’s book, you can probably guess which dystopian author he believed was more prescient about our future. Nevertheless, I think Postman offers an objective overview that boils down the dystopia each authored feared. Here’s a highly relevant passage from the book.

“What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one. Orwell feared those who would deprive us of information. Huxley feared those who would give us so much that we would be reduced to passivity and egoism. Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from us. Huxley feared the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance. Orwell feared we would become a captive culture. Huxley feared we would become a trivial culture, preoccupied with some equivalent of the feelies, the orgy porgy, and the centrifugal bumblepuppy.

As Huxley remarked in Brave New World Revisited, the civil libertarians and rationalists who are ever on the alert to oppose tyranny ‘failed to take into account man's almost infinite appetite for distractions.’

‘In 1984", Huxley added, ‘people are controlled by inflicting pain. In Brave New World, they are controlled by inflicting pleasure.’

In short, Orwell feared that what we hate will ruin us. Huxley feared that what we love will ruin us.”

I’ll leave it to readers to discuss which author was more prophetic, Huxley or Orwell. But it’s first worth examining the primary thing both of these dystopias had in common.

Now, it would be fun to explore all the themes 1984 and Brave New World shared—and I might just do that in a future article—but it’s clear these dystopias had one glaring similarity: each society was dominated by a government that controlled, monitored, and lied to its people.

At some level, then, it’s safe to say that both Orwell and Huxley—two of the most brilliant writers of the 20th century—saw a powerful, centralized government as a dangerous and evil force.

In this respect, their views were similar to America’s founding fathers, whose deep-seated distrust of government and centralized power led them to create a government built on checks and balances.

The Constitution was deliberately designed to frustrate and divide power because the founders saw concentrated power as an evil force, a threat to life and liberty.

“Government, even in its best state, is a necessary evil; in its worst state, an intolerable one,” said Thomas Paine.

Few people see government this way today, which is odd considering that the 20th century demonstrated the horrors of collectivism and statism in tragic detail. (Even putting the two World Wars aside, governments murdered an estimated 200 million people in the twentieth century alone.)

I expect that people will continue to debate whose work was more prophetic, Orwell’s or Huxley’s—and that’s great. I enjoy such discussions.

But we should be more mindful of what unites these two masterpieces and recognize that the state is, at best, a necessary evil. If we forget that lesson, dystopia will arrive before we know it.

This leaves me with a final, fun question for readers to consider: do people know it when they live in a dystopia? Curious what you think. (And I’ll offer my thoughts in the near future.)