Thought Control and Government Manipulation While both dystopian states rely on the suppression of critical thought to maintain social conformity, there are significant difference in the methods they use to achieve such goals. Furthermore, citizens aren’t permitted to be alone for prolonged periods of time and are conditioned to have an aversion towards nature, as it prevents them from consuming new products and media, not dissimilar from our current consumerist society. The description of soma aligns the drug with distraction from the monotony of everyday life. Soma is alternatively described as “Euphoric, narcotic, pleasantly hallucinant” and “the solid substance of their distractions” (38). An example of such distraction is the use of the drug soma to escape reality. In Brave New World, hermeneutic injustice is applied through constant distraction from a lack of freedom. Words such as Doublethink, the belief that two contradictory terms are correct, and Sexcrime, all forms of sex for purpose of pleasure, exemplify Newspeak. In the Appendix of 1984, Orwell describes the official language as a new set of words and grammatical constructions that provide a medium of expression for the intended world view and “make all other modes of thought impossible” (312). The suppression of thought is then apparent in the citizens’ inability to contradict, as the pool of human knowledge has been shrunk to limit the range of thoughts experienced by its citizens. In the end we shall make thoughtcrime impossible, because there will be no words in which to express it” (Orwell, 67). Syme, a linguist working for the Party, states that the purpose of newspeak is to “narrow the range of thought. In 1984, Newspeak is the main application of the concept, gradually exchanging common English for colloquialisms thereby limiting any words that allow for critical thought. These experiences “are left inadequately conceptualized and so ill-understood, perhaps even by the subjects themselves” (Fricker, 6). Such people are not only limited in their ability to communicate their experiences to others, but are also more fundamentally limited in formulating a coherent interpretation of their own perceptions. Those who are particularly disadvantaged by this phenomenon are termed “hermeneutically marginalized” (Fricker, 6). With Hermeneutics being a study of interpretation, particularly the interpretation of knowledge, hermeneutic injustice is “a gap in collective interpretive resources puts someone at an unfair disadvantage when it comes to making sense of their social experiences” (Fricker, 1). In her book Epistemic Injustice, theorist Amanda Fricker outlines a concept of “hermeneutic injustice” that serves as a useful framework for the analysis of both works. Although this agenda is more overt in Orwell’s 1984, it is also a major means of population control in Huxley’s Brave New World.
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In both 1984 and Brave New World, the general public’s ability to interpret and gain insight is severely circumscribed through systematic suppression of free thought. Additionally, each state’s approach to the control of literature, the revision history and the treatment of social, familial, and sexual bonds define their respective Dystopian cultures that are reflections of totalitarian societies. The critique centres around each state’s control of the individual and suppression of nonconformist thought. The states in both texts create two different environments in an attempt to control individuals and in doing so, Orwell and Huxley respectively, critique government control. Similarly in 1984, the mechanisms of government control are portrayed through Winston Smith, “a deviant intellectual who does not conform to the ‘logic’ of power” (Ibid). The marginalization of the individual in Brave New World is contextualized through Helmholtz Watson, “a dissatisfied Alpha-Plus who wishes to experience the deep emotions and passions crushed by the system” (power of Images, 113) as well as John ‘the Savage’, a naturally conceived man who steps out of the reserve into the indoctrinated world. The dystopias differ in methods of control in response to the divergent threats their citizens present to their authority.
The possibility of this type of society coming to be is what evokes fear in the reader associated with dystopian literature. With Brave New World set just under 600 years after 1984 (Vega De Febles, 94), both George Orwell’s 1984 and Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World introduce dystopias, establishing societies that are both problematic and possible.
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