“Im claiming the right to be unhappy”( John, Brave New World, pp.268). Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World and Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s The Gulag Archipelago describe societies that rely on permanent lies to maintain order and control populations. In The Gulag Archipelago, Solzhenitsyn describes what he calls “the permanent lie, ” a falsehood so ingrained in society that it remains unquestioned. This permanent lie is the only way to live within this society and the only way to exist. In both The Gulag Archipelago and Brave New World, citizens who speak against societal norms are exiled to islands (Brave New World) or prisons/ camps (The Gulag Archipelago).  

In Brave New World, the “permanent lie” takes the form of the state’s control over citizens’ emotions and desires. How ideas such as happiness, relationships, and religion have changed create this permanent lie. Citizens are encouraged to reject the idea of parents and marriage and take Soma when they have negative feelings. The character of John acts as the clash of traditional values against the values of the World State. The opposition between John and Mond emphasizes the drastic shift from traditional values to the World State values. Mond shows John his collection of banned religious writings and argues that in a prosperous youthful society, there are no losses and, therefore, no need for religion. In contrast, John thinks that those in the world state are degraded due to a lack of refaithMond then likens Soma to “Christianity without tears” as it takes away the sting if something bad happens. Soma represents the lies of this society. When people feel disillusioned with the teachings and functions of the World State, they take Soma and receive instant gratification. The citizens of World State are likened to infants as they cannot deal with complex thoughts or emotions due to their conditionings. They refuse to encounter concepts deeper than their daily tasks and sexual desires. The World State is responsible for this lifestyle as children are conditioned through experiments similar to Pavlocs and sleep teaching. They also have no time to truly consider their state of life. The restrictions imposed on the members of the World State (i.e. limiting their academic abilities and teaching them only to desire specific things) strips them of their humanity. Exile is true freedom. For those that do not agree with the systems and sexual practices of the World State, for example, Helmholtz and Bernard, exile will allow them to live as they, please. 

In The Gulag Archipelago, the “permanent lie” is the Soviet government’s insistence that its actions are in the people’s best interests. The government maintains that all its policies, including mass arrests and executions, are necessary for the good of the state. The lie is perpetuated by the government’s control over the media and the spread of propaganda, making it difficult for citizens to discern the truth. Prison, in a way, is an escape from this permanent lie. Despite wrongful imprisonments, Solzhenitsyn notes that prison could become an introspective experience where one recognizes their weaknesses and can empathize with others. Solzhenitsyn mentions that no one controls your thoughts, thus giving you liberties not provided in daily life. However, it is nearly impossible to maintain a sense of humanity within camps. People are beaten and starved until they become envious and aggressive shells of humans. Solzhenitsyn explains that camps, unlike prisons, do not help people to reconcile their internal struggles and reform into better people. However, in camps, the environment is much more competitive, and everyone is pitted against each other. Solzhenitsyn mentions that Zeks were conducting interrogations of themselves and recruiting stool pigeons to denounce themselves. The sense of community was completely dissolved.  

In Brave New World, citizens are unaware of the truth; they are conditioned to accept the state’s narrative as reality. In The Gulag Archipelago, citizens are aware that the government is lying to them. However, they feel powerless to challenge it, “The aggregate fear led to the correct consciousness of one’s own insignificance and the lack of any kind of rights” (The Gulag Archipelago, pp. 634). Solzhenitsyn describes how citizens “had lost the habit of looking critically at things” and how the “permanent lie” had become “an integral part of the spiritual atmosphere” (The Gulag Archipelago, pp. 649). Unlike in Brave New World, where the citizens are conditioned since birth to believe in the government’s system, in Soviet Russia, citizens know about the permanent lie but do not resist in fear of standing up or being seen as a traitor themselves. Everything that was best and honest was trampled in Soviet Russian society. 

Both works illustrate how the “permanent lie” enables governments to maintain power by controlling the narrative of reality. The government can control outward behavior and manipulate emotions by scaring people into submission. In Brave New World, citizens are taught to believe that their desires for connection and intimacy are perverse and that the state’s mandate to create stability and efficiency is for the best. In The Gulag Archipelago, citizens are taught to believe that the government’s actions are always justified, no matter how brutal, and that the state’s enemies are a constant threat to the nation’s security. These lies create a sense of fear and mistrust among citizens, which makes them easier to control. We can see how the government uses fear to manipulate us in our current society. For example, the fear of Covid-19 made it so we would all listen to the government as we assumed they knew best. If people questioned the government/ powerful corporations’ narratives, they were publicly scorned and censored. Furthermore, forms of fake news indicate how easily false information can be produced and promoted. Dr. Mccullough is a prime example of someone who stood up against a popular narrative and received lots of backlash and censorship. Throughout this course, we have experienced false narratives firsthand in our group projects and the topics we explore.