>The society in A Brave New World is a dystopian science fiction fantasy world that is a far cry from any society that has ever existed.
Could you justify this further? I'm curious as to your reasons for writing off Brave New World. I just recently finished it (I've read 1984 a few times already too), and I found Brave New World to resemble life in America a lot more than 1984 did, at least based on my personal experiences and not what I hear on the news. However, before I go and write up a bunch of stuff, I am interested in hearing your view.
To be clear, I'm not "writing off" either book. I don't think either author was attempting to make literal predictions about what society will or might look like, so I don't consider it at all a failure if things are different. I just can't understand how Brave New World could be seen as more accurate than 1984. For example, if you wanted to film a 1984 movie, there is very little you would have to do other than go to some place with urban decay, throw up some Big Brother posters (perhaps placing them over the existing billboards encouraging police/soldier worship or admonishing "if you see something, say something"), put telescreen props in plain apartments, and throw in some extras in the right clothing. The actual palpable differences are quite small, because they mostly exist inside the minds of the average citizen.
For Brave New World, you would need strict population control (mandatory sterility), mass manufactured test tube babies with hatcheries and conditioning centers, working class castes that are chemically stunted, near-mandatory government issued hallucinogens, far less chaste sexual mores, etc.
Like I said, it is a science fiction fantasy world with a multitude of plot-significant fictional technologies. Even the human birthing process is far more unrealistic than the entirety of 1984. The only science fiction I recall from 1984 were artificial foods, telescreens, voice recognition, and some military equipment, all of which are quite realistic today (and were mostly so in real-world 1984).
Brave New World is an allegory. Though the literal counterparts to the more extreme story elements are obviously absent in modern day society, their analogues are certainly not. Especially if you relax your focus a little as you take a look around.
I agree. I read A Brave New World as a kid, but being relatively young (22) it wasn't that long ago (maybe 7 years ago?) and it was post 9/11. It blew my mind how closely the culture of the society in the book resembled society today (at least in the USA).
Another book that I read around the same time as A Brave New World was Fahrenheit 451. Of course, people always associate that book with censorship issues, but there were also similar themes to A Brave New World, in respect to society being distracted and not caring about important stuff etc. There were a lot of interesting predictions in the book too. Whenever I see someone walking around with headphones on blocking out the world, I am always reminded of Fahrenheit 451 (especially when it's me!).
Could you justify this further? I'm curious as to your reasons for writing off Brave New World. I just recently finished it (I've read 1984 a few times already too), and I found Brave New World to resemble life in America a lot more than 1984 did, at least based on my personal experiences and not what I hear on the news. However, before I go and write up a bunch of stuff, I am interested in hearing your view.