There's a great old web comic about the differences between Orwell's and Huxley's anti-utopias and how Huxley predicted the future much better. I bet your question is related to that development.
"One would think he was going to have his throat cut," said the Controller, as the door closed. "Whereas, if he had the smallest sense, he'd understand that his punishment is really a reward. He's being sent to an island. That's to say, he's being sent to a place where he'll meet the most interesting set of men and women to be found anywhere in the world. All the people who, for one reason or another, have got too self-consciously individual to fit into community-life. All the people who aren't satisfied with orthodoxy, who've got independent ideas of their own. Every one, in a word, who's any one. I almost envy you, Mr. Watson."
Thanks! It's reassuring to consider that "Amusing Ourselves to Death" was written in the 1980s.
The comic doesn't address the ways to leave the system, however. Brave New World, as mentioned above, has its islands, and (not having read anything of 1984 beyond the Goldstein chapters: is there anything I don't already have from pop culture in the rest of the book, or are those chapters just the "fast-forward"?) it seems that Oceanic refuseniks who didn't wish to toe the party line could be ignored by joining the proletariat (which might imply material and intellectual poverty, but freedom's just another word...)
