Comparison and Contrast of Brave New World and 1984 Books - Assignment Example

When one makes a study of Brave New World and 1984, one will conclude that both of these books are political satires that deal with the issues concerning the suppression of human nature in favor of one thatis based on absolute control. One would say that both of these books depict the future world as a dreary place within which to live because the means through which the hums society interacts within them is very different from what is the case today. The interaction between human beings has traditionally been the means of transmitting knowledge from one generation to another, but this is not the case because in these societies, the fact that humans are able to interact does not mean that they learn anything from one another.A common depiction of these books is based on the belief that there will be less human interaction in the future, and this is seen in Brave New World, where because of a lack of serious human relationships, such as family, the issues are traditionally discussed more deeply do not take place and instead, there develops a type of society that is socially stagnant. While in the current world, the individuals get to have a better understanding of the issues being discussedbecause of regular interaction, in Brave New World, the opposite turns out to be true because of the fact that human beings, during the future age, are not conditioned to act independently of each other. The events which are described in Brave New World, such as the establishment of a breeding program involving different castes of human beings, is not similar to those in 1984. This is because of the fact that in the latter, human beings, while being dominated by a single party whose purpose is to have absolute control of the society, has not attempted to alter humans physically (McGiveron 28). The main procedure used in gaining the absolute control and devotion among human beings is through the rewriting in history so that it is in the favor of the ruling party’s policies and objectives. Because the sources of history in the state described in 1984, known as Oceania, are either vague or scarce in content, it creates a situation where individuals get only a shallow understanding of the subject matter. In 1984, it is seen that because of the destruction of history, knowledge has become static, not being able to grow as it should. In both of these books, those people who possess knowledge or items that contain knowledge of the independent human nature of the past are completely ostracized from society or are put to death because of their perceived threat to the societal order. This makes it extremely difficult for knowledge to be transmitted and the lack of this knowledge has made the people in the societies described in the books disillusioned with life. This is especially true in Brave New World, where individuals have been conditioned by the ruling elite, to consume a drug known as soma, which is a hallucinogen used to ensure that they do not worry about their troubles. The theme of control is prevalent in both Brave New World and 1984, and this is based on the need for the ruling elite to retain their power in what they consider to be the ideal state. Apart from working towards the destruction of all knowledge that concerns the past of human beings, they also adopt diverse methods to ensure that they have absolute control over the human society so that there are no rebellions. In Brave New World, there develops a caste system where human beings are no longer born in the natural way and are instead developed in laboratories. These are altered during their development so that they can best suit the purposes of the different castes to which they are assigned, with the higher castes being developed with such characteristics as intelligence while the lower castes are purposely given less intelligence so that they can work towards serving the interests of the higher castes.Because of their synthetic development, the lower castes of the society, who form the majority of the population in Brave New World, is not equipped to deal with the issues of day to day life and they have instead become artificial. It is possible that when Aldous Huxley was writing his book, he felt that the latter was the likely scenario that would face the world if there were no sources of human history from which people could get the knowledge and wisdom that they could use to make their lives more meaningful. In addition, it is possible that he believed that the intellectual development of the human race would be brought to a standstill because intelligent thought is often found in those instruments that perpetuate human history. In 1984, on the other hand, there has developed a thought police whose purpose is to ensure that any material that individuals possess that might threaten the ruling order are apprehended and sentenced to death. The need for the party’s survival has created a situation where children in Oceania are indoctrinated with the need to spy on everyone who might possibly have any information that threatens the regime. This indoctrination is so great that these children end up also spying on and surrendering their own parents to the though police if the latter indeed have any dissenting material. In this way, children have become the means through which the government spies on its citizens and this is a sign that the normal traditional values of family loyalty have been destroyed, leaving behind a situation where there is no loyalty between individuals and families in the society.Independent thought has greatly been encouraged through the study of human history and this has ensured the development of new ideas. Because of this, the governments in both 1984 and Brave New World have ensured that this ability has been immensely diminished.These governments have come to realize that it is only through the study of old ideas that new ideas are developed and this has led to their destruction of material that may contain information that may be a threat to them. In conclusion, as seen in both books, despite the large reserves of information that can lead to the further development of the human race, the ruling elite has chosen to destroy such information, perceiving it as a threat. In both of these books, the information provided by these governmentsdo not have the qualities which the original sources of information have because most of the information gotten from the sources that are approved are often instant and shallow. These governments do not allow individuals to contemplate on the information which they read and this ensures that they do not have independent thought. The lack of independent thought due to the absence of knowledgehas come to put the human race into a dark age of intellectual stagnation, as seen in these two works.When one reads these books, one comes to the conclusion that the ability to think through the learning of the previous work of others is what has helped the advancement of the human race. The inability to think and the reliance on shallow sources of information such as the internet is likely to see the end of the world as we know it. Human beings learn about their past from books and with this knowledge, the take action to avoid the mistakes of their past. Therefore, without adequate knowledge, the human race will probably end up destroying itself because it will not have the ability to learn from its past. References McGiveron, Rafeeq O. "Huxley's Brave New World." The Explicator 57.1 (1998): 27-30. Read More