How the Rise of Geopolitics Invalidates Huxley's Fears of the Future

           Unlike fine wine, it seems, Aldous Huxley’s analysis does not improve with age. Or stay valid for that matter. His 1958 book Brave New World Revisited details how the very fantasies he described in Brave New World are materializing much faster than expected. The rise of totalitarian regimes around the world coupled with new advances in technology created an environment conducive to the tyrannical future Huxley outlined in his groundbreaking novel. While the world Huxley lived in was a very fair comparison to the future he predicted in Brave New World, the current international system does not permit the political hypotheses he puts forth in his book.

            In Brave New World Revisited, Huxley explains that one of the leading factors of the Brave New World complex is immense overpopulation. As it is, the birth rate is generally more difficult to control than the death rate, as birth control depends on the will of the people whereas death control depends on the will of the government. As our world population grows quicker than it dies out, we face incremental increases in population size. In underdeveloped countries, oversized populations place considerable strain on an already beleaguered pool of economic resources – land, labor, and capital. Thus, the government must intervene more in order to allocate these stretched out resources and provide for the welfare of their people. Huxley fears larger populations will create the need for larger governments to the extent that they become totalitarian.

            What does this mean for first world countries where economic resources are abundant? As Huxley posits, “If over-population should drive the underdeveloped countries into totalitarianism, and if these new dictatorships should ally themselves with Russia, then the military position of the United States would become less secure and the preparations for defense and retaliation would have to be intensified” (Huxley 11). Hostility and global aggression at this scale will force the US, along with the rest of the West, into totalitarianism. Perhaps staggering insight in the 1950s, this claim contains massive untruths in 2014. Of course, the blame lies not on Huxley for he could not have foreseen today’s international political landscape the way it is. But the greatest error in Brave New World Revisited is that it overestimates the scope of Russian aggression. With new industrial powers in play today and a plethora of new countries, Russian aggression would not be directed at the United States but at its closest neighbors – bordering countries.

            The dissolution of the Soviet Union occurred in the early 90s and Chinese industrialization took hold in the 70s. As autonomous states, China and former Soviet nations would be the primary obstacles to a Russian campaign of aggression. Although these countries were not barriers to Russian influence in Huxley’s time, political realities have shifted.  In fact, no other country better speaks to the current extent of Russian aggression than Ukraine, who is currently grappling for autonomy from Russia. So, long before the country could even attempt to elicit a response from the West, Russia would have to deal with its borders, allowing plenty of time for the USA and our European allies to build up defenses and resist the very wave of totalitarianism that Huxley cautions against.

            Once again, Huxley is certainly not at fault for the non-universality of his writing, for international politics is always fluctuating. While the Brave New World future itself seems more and more doubtful, the quality of the novel remains one of the best in its genre.

Works Cited

Huxley, Aldous. Brave New World Revisited. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1958. Print.