The Intoxication of Power in George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty Four (1949) and Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World (1932)

Nineteen Eighty Four (1949) and Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World (1932) stand as two powerful works of art that emanated from a mere disorder and fragmentation. To put it differently, this work of art emanated from a world that underwent an extremely rigorous political transformations and cultural seismology. This is a world that has witnessed an overwhelming dislocation. All those upheavals brought into being a new life, that is to say, a reshuffled life. A new life brings forwards a new art. This research, accordingly, attempts to put all its focus on two modernist visionary works of art that have enhanced a completely new system of thought and perceived the past, the present, and even the future with an entirely new consciousness. In the world of Nineteen Eighty Four and Brave New World, power seems to get beyond of what is supposedly politically legitimate. This power has paved the way for the emergence of a totalitarian system; I would rather call it a totalitarian virus. This system has emerged with the ultimate purpose of deadening the spirit of individualism, rendering the classes nothing but “docile masses”. I will be accordingly analysing how power becomes intoxicating. In other words, I will attempt to give a keen picture of how power becomes no longer over things, but rather over men according to Nietzsche’s philosophical perception of “The Will to Power”.


Introduction
The first thing that may occur into our minds and would appear in a way or another entirely dangerous is how the world was really like before that power became the ultimate purpose of man? If we look deeper at every corner of the matter, we would perhaps encounter so many other philosophical questions which in turn are veiled with paradoxes and tremendously complicated clues and hints. Indeed, one main idea may embody these paradoxes is the incredibly developed modern instruments and means of deceit that have successfully after a long process of scientific and technological progression and ceaseless advancement attained a total control over the minds of the people.
In this research, I intend to dig deeper into the issue of power more particularly the political power that reached the peak of oligarchy and despotism and liquidated the so-called classes into nothing but docile masses that are either entirely controlled by fear and terror (this is the frightful atmosphere that overwhelmed the world of Nineteen Eighty Four) or by a blind pleasure and contentedness (an artificial gratification and gladness enveloping the world of Brave New World). Indeed, in the worlds of "Nineteen Eighty Four" (1949) and "Brave New World"(1932) everything started from rebellion, to put it differently, everything started from a dream "for a golden future time", a time when equality and freedom would prevail among humanity, indeed everything started from a philosophy of an appealing wisdom that shook the hearts of its hearers and drew for them a beacon of light in their Indeed enough has happened in the world that paved the way for its radical change.
That is to say, enough has happened to make the world perhaps what it appears to be today.
The industrial revolution, the ceaselessly developing sciences and technologies that followed it, the two world wars, the denotation of the atomic bomb as well as the cold war. Assuredly, each single event manifested itself as a crucial turning point in the history of humanity. All these bloody wars and revolutions that succeeded each other were awakened in a way or another by the thrill for power. As the thrill for the absolute power grew tremendously, it brought into being a whole deterministic political system; it brought a peculiar system that is entirely capable of destroying human values as well as the notion of human nature. The so-called revolutions did not really suggest an authentic solution. They rather gave birth to other forms of dictatorships.
Brave New World (1932) andNineteen Eighty Four (1949) no matter how they differ in style and content; they seem to be following a Nietzschean thread to power. For Nietzsche's philosophy is a concrete linked feature to power. We may accordingly realise that these two visionary works have much to say and therefore to convey about where power is leading humanity to. Indeed, behind the decayed and failed hopes for "a golden future time" there lies the intoxication of power. If we dig deeper into the mysteriousness of these worlds, we would find that the growing docile masses of Nineteen Eighty Four's consciousness of its entirely totalitarian system which I would call a totalitarian virus is extremely bold and apparent. This virus that holds all sorts of fear and agony appears to penetrate into the profundity of the society and deprive its people from the very essence of their humanity.
Nineteen Eighty Four would, therefore, stand as an entirely deterministic nightmare, this is a world where power after a long process of destructing the language, the falsification of history, and alteration of human nature reaches the centre that lies above everything. In a world where language is eradicated and history is erased, there is no such a thing as peace, equality and freedom. If not from the roots of these principles that the previous revolutions arose and were motivated to fight heart and soul for, upon which real basis would the party endure its system and convince its masses to ensure their fellowship? The answer to this question would run as the following: If we take for instance the slogan of the society of Brave New World. COMMUNITY means that the people must stand together and work together in order to maximise the greatest happiness for the greatest number of people and this idea and notion of community occurs through the artificially implemented word which is IDENTITY that each person represents in a way or another .If we ponder on the word identity itself, one may notice in a clear noticeable manner that this word lurk ironically in the society of Brave New World .For the society is already divided into alpha, beta, and gammas .The people are conditioned to be happy with their so-called identity so that never anyone would ever think of rebelling against: "For Gammas, Deltas and Epsilons had been to some extent conditioned to associate corporeal mass with social superiority." (Huxley,Brave New World 43). To emphasise the idea of rebellion itself does not exist any longer in the dictionary of these people because they are conditioned to be what they are before they have ever came to existence. The epsilons do not really mind being epsilons or the gammas do not really mind to be gammas and here lies We derive, correspondingly, the idea that there is absolutely no such thing in the life of humanity as the total and concrete existence of pure peace and democratic freedom. The same idea can be encapsulated in the world of Nineteen Eighty Four where "no reform or revolution has ever brought equality a millimetre nearer" (Orwell,Nineteen Eighty Four 134).The same thing can be perceived in the society of Brave New World, for no matter how the life in this society in particular seems overwhelmed with cold contentedness and artificial and mechanised happiness, the so-called peace, equality, and freedom are merely illusions.
Whether in Brave New World or in Nineteen Eighty Four both worlds have established an unquestionable totalitarian system, whether through the intensification of a dreary and dim reality or a happy and pleasurable reality, both worlds seek to reach the same end which Nietzsche in turn accentuates on: "every possible kind of limitation, one sidedness, must be imposed upon the individual" (Nietzsche, the will to power 390).The excessive longing for peace, equality, and freedom is hence no more than a dream, and even if it was realised it would never endure:  (Huxley,Brave New World 34) This idea of the emergence of the illusory liberty is being expressed even more boldly in the world of Nineteen Eighty Four: The idea of an earthly paradise in which men should live together in a state of brotherhood, without laws and without brute labour, had haunted the human imagination for thousands years (Orwell,Nineteen Eighty Four 142) To emphasise, George Orwell writes in Homage to Catalonia: The thing that attracts ordinary men to socialism and makes them willing to risk their skins for it, the 'mystique' of socialism, is the idea of equality; to the vast majority of people socialism means a classless society, or it means nothing at all (p83) Because, this idea was the ultimate purpose of their lives the success of reaching it was not something impossible to achieve, however, the problem lies on the fact of misusing it.
In other words, the problem becomes bigger as this utopian consideration of life turn to be no more than a fallacy. In this light, the revolution from which I have arose it's mysteries, is nothing more than a means from which a dictatorship is established and kept prevailing ceaselessly. To be sure, "power is not a means it is an end" (Orwell, Nineteen Eighty Four 185).Nietzsche states that power is maintained "by the fact that many generations sacrifice themselves for it" (Nietzsche, The Will to Power 390) .More peculiarly, the ruling masses actually sacrifice their human nature and decency for the sake of power, this will ultimately lead to their degradation. Furthermore, Nietzsche pictures in his book "The Will to Power" this profound instinct that does not cease from demanding. Forever Man wants more and more because "one desires freedom, so long as one does not possess power. Once one does possess it, one desires to overpower" (Nietzsche 412) In the world of "Nineteen Eighty Four", "the world where nothing is your own except the few cubic centimetres inside your skull" (Orwell,Nineteen Eighty Four 18), the world where inequality has become "the unalterable law of the human life" (Orwell, Nineteen Eighty Four 141), The masses who are narcotic with the idea of equality and freedom, they are in turn doomed to become hollow and staffed with lies instead of all what is human. The party considers the sense of humanity, decency, intellectuality and sanity as the real danger.
In the world of "Nineteen Eighty Four" the masses are formed and shaped, indeed "everyone is washed clean" (Orwell, Nineteen Eighty Four 179) deprived of any kind of intellect and critical thought. Still, they expose a certain danger over the party which is only theoretical .Because for the party they are voiceless and too ignorant to even think of standing against the party: The masses never revolt of their own accord, and they near revolt merely because they are oppressed .Indeed, so long as they are not permitted to have standards of comparison, they never even become aware that they are oppressed. The recurrent economic crises of past times were totally unnecessary and are not now permitted to happen, but other and equally large dislocations can and do happen without having political results, because there is no way in which discontent can become articulate (Orwell,Nineteen Eighty Four 144) From this quote in particular I shall raise the main difference that marks the distance in style between Nineteen Eighty Four (1949) andBrave New World (1932). For in Nineteen Eighty Four, the masses are sunk into an eternal docility, they are conditioned through a tremendous fear and agony that the party and more peculiarly Big Brother fuses on them. (by mentioning the word "violence" I mean both the concrete violence as perceived in "Nineteen Eighty Four" and the abstract violence that is perceived in "Brave New World").
These visionary masterpieces could with their simplistic yet powerful style transcend the future generations. For they succeeded effectively to live for the world of today and the world of tomorrow. These keen dystopian pictures that both writers George Orwell and Aldus Huxley each in his own manner attempted to draw in the time when they lived seems to become truer in our contemporary technological age. We are indeed conditioned by an outer power that makes us consciously or unconsciously abide by its scientific and technological creations which in turn serve to the greatest extent its political purposes. What I attempt to delineate in this research is the warnings these visionary writers attempted to employ. These writers' vision states that the war the future generations are going to go through is no longer meant to take their lives for the sake of expanding their territories and their wealth by a mere Today, BIG Brother stands hand in hand with the sciences and the numerical technologies. The Big Brother of today has a tremendous authority over the people.This peculiar authority of continuously "WATCHING" the people in all aspects of their lives, and penetrating into their private lives make their world like a prison. With a deep eye in the world of today, this prison situation is becoming more and more real. The modern surveillance network has made the world consequently shrink.