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“The nature of psychological compulsion is such that those who act under constraint remain under the impression that they are acting on their own initiative. The victim of mind-manipulation does not know that he is a victim. To him the walls of his prison are invisible, and he believes himself to be free. That he is not free is apparent only to other people. His servitude is strictly objective.��


While its illustrious counterpart, Orwell’s 1984, has entered our cultural lexicon in more significant ways �� who doesn't know about Doublethink, Newspeak, Memory Hole, or The Ministry of Truth? - Huxley’s concocted fable of a scientifically authored future for mankind remains the most clinically, rationally approached - and thus more prescient - one. In a far off future, this vision, penned down in 1931, could very well prove to be correct, making the noble attempt of his former student Orwell seem almost crude and laughable in comparison.

Indeed, in 2017 a Brave New World scenario is more near than we’d like to imagine. All the technical tools - even if still primitive - are available, all that need be added are the right circumstances and a powerful, unopposed group strong-willed enough to bring it into reality.

Yet for all its prophetic potency, at the same time this is exactly where the issue lies with Brave New World: as a work of art, it doesn’t cleave to you. It’s a novel almost solely composed of ideas. And so, judged purely as a novel, it shows itself to be rather threadbare in its construction, offering up little more than a dry summation of what are admittedly intriguing concepts, but ultimately showing an acute deficiency in its ability to evoke any deep emotion.

This, primarily, is the fault of its underdeveloped, two-dimensional characters, and a lacklustre, almost lazy plot that doesn’t necessarily invite further contemplation by the reader on the intricacies of what by all rights should be a richly textured world (or on its history for that matter). It's mind-bogglingly restricted, superficial, and (how ironic) sterile.

One wouldn't be wrong in asserting this might have been Huxley’s exact intention, so as to make the future all the more devoid of humanity and thus frightening to us, but that shouldn't serve as an excuse for tedium. All good fiction does need to have these emotional anchors in place. Here, sadly, it falls short in that regard. A historically significant work to be sure, but aesthetically lacking.

Brave New World Revisited (1958) however, Huxley’s later commentary on the viability of the future he envisioned, I found to be much more preferable. Dispensing with characterization or concern for plot, Huxley can engage at heart’s content in some intellectual freestyling: ruminating, extrapolating, pursuing various strands of thought, etc.. His comparision of the different techniques of mind manipulation (both of individuals and of crowds) employed by the authoritarian regimes of Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia were particularly insightful. I could have tolerated it being more lengthy than it is, actually.

In essence, it is both a sobering account of how malleable, and indeed easily influenced, human beings in the main really are when put in the “right�� conditions, and a manual on how to counteract the ambitions of those in possession of the vulgar will to power. A vigilant defense of freedom in all its forms, education and a deep awareness of our inherent corruptability and faults, Huxley argues, are still our best bulwarks against further encroachment by budding tyrants.

In this case prophesy, for all intents and purposes, thankfully remains a mug’s game.