Big Brother or Happy Drugs: What Classic Novel Correctly Predicted the Future?

Harrison Cook
October 10, 2024 | 4 min read

For centuries, writers have envisioned the future and predicted where our human tendencies will take us. Perhaps none so memorably as Aldous Huxley and George Orwell.

You probably had to study one of those famous dystopian authors in school. But did you know they knew each other? And, more interestingly, disagreed on the future?

My edition of Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World sports a dark navy cover with raised golden dots that symbolize pills and includes additional writings in the back of the book. One interesting addition is a letter Huxley wrote to George Orwell upon receiving his gifted copy of 1984.

What you would expect to be a congratulatory letter quickly turned into a philosophical exercise in which Huxley compares Orwell’s novel to his own and tells the younger writer why Brave New World is a more accurate depiction of a depraved future.

Yikes…

It’s important context that Huxley was Orwell’s French teacher in high school. Little is known about their relationship except that Huxley didn’t hesitate to put a former student in their place.

Now that we’ve lived far past the shadowy future time that both writers imagined, I wonder … Who was right?

Big Brother vs. Soma

In Huxley’s “thank you” letter to Orwell, he writes, “The philosophy of the ruling minority in Nineteen Eighty-Four is a sadism which has been carried to its logical conclusion by going beyond sex and denying it.”

Much of the ruling philosophy of Big Brother in 1984 follows the totalitarianism displayed among the dictators Orwell observed during his time: Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin. They ruled with militarized power and eliminated anyone or anything that questioned their authority. This “watchful presence” speaks to the sadism mentioned in Huxley’s letter, so much so that Orwell’s prediction of the future included corrupted language “memed” from its original intent in order to educate a populace to trust the regime.

Some critics pose 1984 as the inverse of Brave New World. While in Orwell’s future, even your thoughts are policed by some shadowy larger force (or the illusion of one), in Huxley’s work, the population forgets that it’s being controlled and effectively polices themselves.

While in Orwell’s future, even your thoughts are policed by some shadowy larger force ... in Huxley’s work, the population forgets that it’s being controlled and effectively polices themselves.

In Brave New World, there is ample access to the recreational drug Soma, which eliminates all unhappiness. This medication tricks its citizens into false happiness while simultaneously supporting the system that needs happy-drugged people to participate in it. In this frightful world, people are grown in artificial wombs and then sent on predetermined educational paths rife with operant conditions and pleasure gratification. Here, free will is of no concern because the citizens don’t know they’re missing it.

“The perfect dictatorship would have the appearance of a democracy,” Huxley says, “but would basically be a prison without walls in which the prisoners would not even dream of escaping. It would essentially be a system of slavery where through consumption and entertainment, the slaves would love their servitudes.”

In Huxley’s story, if someone refuses Soma, they are sequestered on an island with like-minded people to await further punishment. While the main character finds solace in being alone — together — with like-minded people, he quickly realizes the monoculture of thought on the island. There is no one to dissent where it really counts.

Everyone thinks the same.

Twentieth Century Writers vs. Today

Of course, it’s impossible to say whether one of these novels was “right” and the other was “wrong.” As with everything in life, two extremes can be true at the same time.

Given the current state of the U.S. government and the world, daily headlines scream 1984 as a logical winner. You only have to look to the surveillance of our internet habits to think of “Big Brother.”

However, the older I get and the longer I spend on social media apps, the more I see the truth in Huxley’s commentary on the entertainment of the masses as presented in Brave New World. There is a dissonance on social media, oscillating between visuals of trending zoo animals and minute-by-minute updates on genocides. This inspires some of us to take action — and others to keep scrolling.

With the impending U.S. election, political disinformation is on the rise. We’re so divided on our “islands” that we can’t agree on the same physical facts. There’s a truth vacuum, a gap between what we are told and what is actually happening. So, my final answer is: we’re living Brave New World and 1984. It’s both.

You only have to look to the surveillance of our internet habits to think of “Big Brother.” However, the older I get and the longer I spend on social media apps, the more I see the truth in Huxley’s commentary on the entertainment of the masses as presented in Brave New World.

We are living during a time of heightened citizen surveillance and profound numbing. We are being watched and watching each other. We willingly download apps that monitor us. Every time someone logs on, they become a willing test subject, a fact that is lost in the fabric of the modern world.

It’s normal to not have privacy. It’s normal to receive half of the available information. It’s normal, now, to accept infrastructural cruelty every day.

To predict the future, one has to look at the past — and the present. Huxley and Orwell created the premises of their novels by opening their window.

My only lingering question is: what do you think the futurity will hold based on our present now?

Resources

Huxley, Aldous. Brave New World: With the Essay “Brave New World Revisited.” Harper Perennial Modern Classics, 2010.

“1984 V. Brave New World.” Letters of Note, 5 Jan. 2021, lettersofnote.com/2012/03/06/1984-v-brave-new-world/.

Orwell, George. Nineteen Eighty-Four.Penguin Classics, 2021.

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I’ve spent years writing while secretly fearing that a single misplaced word would expose me — not just as a bad writer, but as a fraud.

My background is originally in photography, and I see it there, too. A photographer I know recently posted a before-and-after comparison of their editing from 2018 versus now, asking if we also saw changes in our own work over the years.

Naturally, we should. If our work is the same, years apart, have we really grown as artists?

So why is that the growing, the process of it, the daily grind of it, is so painful?

So why is that the growing, the process of it, the daily grind of it, is so painful?

The Haunting

Hitting “publish” on an essay or a blog always stirs up insecurity — the overthinking, the over-editing. The fear that someone will call me out for not being a real writer.

I initially hesitated to make writing part of my freelance work. My background is in photography and design. Writing was something I gravitated toward, but I had no degree to validate it. No official stamp of approval.

Like many writers, I started with zero confidence in my voice — agonizing over edits, drowning in research, second-guessing every word.

I even created a shield for myself: ghostwriting.

I even created a shield for myself: ghostwriting.

If my words weren’t my own, they couldn’t be wrong. Ghostwriting meant safety — no risk, no vulnerability, just words without ownership.

I still remember the feeling of scrolling to the bottom of an article I had written and seeing someone else’s name, their face beside words that had once been mine.

The truth is, I always wanted to write. As a kid, I imagined it. Yet, I found myself handing over my work, letting someone else own it.

I told myself it didn’t matter. It was work. Getting paid to write should be enough.

But here’s the thing: I wasn’t just playing it safe — I was slowly erasing myself. Word by word. Edit by edit. And finally, in the by-line.

I wasn’t just playing it safe — I was slowly erasing myself. Word by word. Edit by edit. And finally, in the by-line.

The Disappearing Act

This was true when I was writing under my own name, too. The more I worried about getting it right, the less I sounded like me.

I worried. I worried about how long an essay was (“people will be bored”), finding endless examples as proof of my research (“no way my own opinion is valid on its own”), the title I gave a piece (“it has to be a hook”), or editing out personal touches (“better to be safe than be seen”).

I built a guardrail around my writing, adjusting, tweaking, over-correcting. Advice meant to help only locked me in. It created a sentence rewritten to sound smarter, an opinion softened to sound safer, a paragraph reshaped to sound acceptable.

I built a guardrail around my writing, adjusting, tweaking, over-correcting.

But playing it safe makes the work dull. Writing loses its edge.

It took deliberate effort to break this habit. I’m not perfect, but here’s what I know after a year of intentionally letting my writing sound like me:

My work is clearer. It moves with my own rhythm. It’s less shaped by external influence, by fear, by the constant need to smooth it into something more polished, more likable.

But playing it safe makes the work dull. Writing loses its edge.

The Resurrection

The drive for acceptance is a slippery slope — one we don’t always realize we’re sliding down. It’s present in the small choices that pull us away from artistic integrity: checking how others did it first, tweaking our work to fit a mold, hesitating before saying what we actually mean.

And let’s be honest — this isn’t just about writing. It bleeds into everything.

It’s there when we stay silent in the face of wrongdoing, when we hold back our true way of being, when we choose work that feels “respectable,” whatever that means. It’s in every “yes” we say when we really want to say “no.”

If your self-expression is rooted in a need for acceptance, are you creating for yourself — or for others? Does your work help you explore your thoughts, your life? Does it add depth, energy, and meaning?

My work is clearer. It moves with my own rhythm. It’s less shaped by external influence, by fear, by the constant need to smooth it into something more polished, more likable.

I get it. We’re social creatures. Isolation isn’t the answer. Ignoring societal norms won’t make us better writers. Often, the most meaningful work is born from responding to or resisting those norms.

But knowing yourself well enough to recognize when acceptance is shaping your work brings clarity.

Am I doing this to be part of a community, to build connections, to learn and grow?

Or am I doing this to meet someone else’s expectations, dulling my voice just to fit in?

The Revival

Here’s what I know as I look back at my writing: I’m grateful for the years spent learning, for the times I sought acceptance with curiosity. But I’m in a different phase now.

I know who I am, and those who connect with my work reflect that back at me — in the messages they send, in the conversations we share.

I know who I am, and those who connect with my work reflect that back at me — in the messages they send, in the conversations we share.

It’s our differences that drive growth. I want to nurture these connections, to be challenged by difference, to keep writing in a way that feels like me. The me who isn’t afraid to show what I think and care about.

So, I ask you, as I ask myself now:

If no one was watching, if no one could judge, what would you write?

If no one was watching, if no one could judge, what would you write?

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