One of the issues I have with Huxley's view of things is that I think it makes a massive leap from the idea of people being content to that being pathologized into being oppressed.
Part of that is that I'm not sure there's ever been a point in history in which the majority of people actively contribute to the political sphere on a regular basis. They have always been distracted by something (often mere survival). Even revolutions have usually been driven by top-down movements led by discontent elites.
Given that, I don't find the argument that a state in which most people are content and non-participant (somewhat the current state of most western nations) is worse than one in which most people are discontent and non-participant (the previous state of most western nations, and the extreme form of which is presented in 1984).
Even more fundamentally, there's a distinct air of moralism to Huxley's arguments. Anti-sex, pro-marriage, body-is-temple kind of stuff. These positions are taken as given, and given very little support, in all of his writing. I think it taints his entire premise.
If you've read Brave New World or you like psychedelics, you should really check out Island, the novel Huxley wrote after taking mescaline (PDF version is online).
Island is pro-drug (magic mushrooms), pro-sex, pro-enjoying life, sensible use of sperm banks, sensible non-coercive education, playful response to religion.
Sado-masochism is presented as child abuse or a kinky adult game, not as in BNW as a nobel response to an immoral world (BNW ends with the savage whipping himself, getting into an orgy with curious onlookers, and then hanging himself in disgust).
The people of "Brave New World" (BNW) are not truly content, they are merely happy. The BNWers are terrified of being without their soma, because without the soma, they realize their lives are empty and unfulfilling. The soma is a way to escape the reality of their lives, and avoid any self-awareness or unpleasant truths. If you were to examine their lives under almost any metric, such as Maslow's hierarchy of needs, you would see that they are not leading good lives; in Maslow's terms, they have only satisfied their physiological and safety needs.
I would not describe this state as 'content and non-participant', it is more of a self-perpetuating drug-induced ignorance.
Sure. To be clear, I'm not saying that they are happy in BNW. BNW is deliberately an exaggeration of trends that Huxley feared in his present, though. And, as can be seen in other threads (see the comic someone linked to) is taken as a meaningful depiction of the current state of affairs.
So I'm here arguing about the idea that Huxley would see the state we're in now as being representative of his dystopic ideas in principle if not in fact. And given his own commentary on his and others' work, I think he probably would.
The question then is: is the contentedness of the masses right now reflective of a 'drug/distraction-induced ignorance' of a Huxleyan style? It's often asserted, but I don't think I've seen a compelling argument. People are largely free to be discontent, and what means the state actually seems to use to work against popular discontent look more like Orwell than Huxley to me.
Huxley's anti-sex Savage in Brave New World was ridiculous in his extremism (and the World Controller wise) for a reason. Whilst his views on drugs certainly mellowed over time he was never really a committed puritan.
BNW is about infantilisation of the populace. Amazingly, nobody here seems to have talked about ownership of power/wealth - that's the difference between the sedated, patronised citizenry and the conscious, responsible one.
Part of that is that I'm not sure there's ever been a point in history in which the majority of people actively contribute to the political sphere on a regular basis. They have always been distracted by something (often mere survival). Even revolutions have usually been driven by top-down movements led by discontent elites.
Given that, I don't find the argument that a state in which most people are content and non-participant (somewhat the current state of most western nations) is worse than one in which most people are discontent and non-participant (the previous state of most western nations, and the extreme form of which is presented in 1984).
Even more fundamentally, there's a distinct air of moralism to Huxley's arguments. Anti-sex, pro-marriage, body-is-temple kind of stuff. These positions are taken as given, and given very little support, in all of his writing. I think it taints his entire premise.