... and since you threw in the "Brave New World" reference, I'll refer to then-required reading, "1984", which scared the **** out of me.
And it's coming true. But the irony is that to a large degree, we're doing it to ourselves voluntarily. Although Big Brother continues to grow too, always under the aegis of "patriotism" (USA PATRIOT Act), "stopping kidporn", "anti-terrorism", etc. And if you disagree, you must be a criminal, traitor, or terrorist.
"Patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel." -- Samuel Johnson, 7 April 1775.
p.s.: [soapbox] The modern-day equivalent of Soma for students is amphetamines like Adderall. It's highly illegal to traffic in these, or in methamphetamine, to the point that the long-established OTC allergy med, pseudoephedrine, is banned or controlled in some jurisdictions, and the FDA has pretty much killed the natural herb, ephedra. But amphetamines are routinely prescribed to those of age 6, who may be nothing more than simply bored with a mediocre public school system. What will someone be like at 21 after fifteen years of daily amphetamine usage -- aside from "hooked", stunted growth, etc. ? [/soapbax]
Hey, it worked for FDR. We'd still be in the Great Depression if he hadn't ignored the intel reports and allowed the bombing of Pearl Harbor, thus ending any anti-war sentiment in the US (per certain conspiracy theories -- we'll never know for sure, I suppose).