Can you explain how imagination figures into it? I don't see the link. Sure, if they couldn't imagine an alternative, that would make escape tricky, but just

Can you explain how imagination figures into it? I don't see the link. Sure, if they couldn't imagine an alternative, that would make escape tricky, but just thinking of an alternative doesn't necessarily make it attractive or achievable. Also, looking at our history, I think we're not that good at thinking of alternatives. We've currently convinced ourselves (for instance) that democracy and capitalism are the one true way, but not too long ago there were people who quite seriously believed in communism. And there are lots of people who live(d) in monarchies, religious fundamentalist states, single-party power, or even dual-party power. What "the others" are doing feels so obviously wrong, the only reason you'd consider the alternative is because you're forced by it's actual existance to consider it - certainly not because of our intrinsic imagination. And when we do imagine alternatives (such as BNW), they don't really matter much because they aren't serious alternatives, if only because society is so large that it's almost impossible to imagine effecting such change. Also, that kind of thought doesn't come out of a vacuum - Huxley almost certainly built on the ideas of others, and "merely" crystallized it into a novel, including his own twist. So... I don't think imagination would affect the outcome, and I think the notion that we are very imaginative is deceitfully flattering, but not true. People are good at taking existing ideas and making small changes, and they're good at identifying the important bits of good ideas of others and then making them their own - so that in the end a little bit of imagination goes a long way.