Brave New World Revisited

“In 1931, when Brave New World was being written, I was convinced that there was still plenty of time.” 

The first sentence of the book signals that Huxley’s novel, written twenty-seven years earlier, will be the fixed reference point for this collection of essays. Huxley will draw his reflections both from the novel and from the current world. Huxley speaks of his changed perspective since writing the novel; he is now convinced that the future he predicted is arriving sooner than he expected. Thus, the concerns he raised in the novel are more urgent now than ever. 

“Ours was a nightmare of too little order; theirs, in the seventh century A.F., of too much.” 

Huxley is comparing the social situation during the Great Depression, the era in which he wrote Brave New World, with the world as it is presently shaping up during the Cold War. He expresses his conviction that over-organization is ruining the modern world, just as it did in the novel. 

“Permanent crisis justifies permanent control of everybody and everything by the agencies of the central government.” 

Huxley is arguing that overpopulation will drive the world to an economic and political crisis, which will in turn lead to a world communist dictatorship. According to Huxley, these kinds of crises create the ideal environment for dictators to seize power and centralize authority in themselves.