The Underground Man's revelations are a prelude to the world created in Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World. He understands the ideological idealism that falls upon the liberal ideology that will eventually fail society and utopia. Yet his very understanding of the “utopian ideal” causes his exclusion from this society. His intelligence compared to the rest of the population separates him out, and his existence would be degraded to an existence much like in Notes from Underground. Though the Rousseau philosophy of freedom appalls him, Huxley turns the Underground Man into a defender of it in the “utopian society” of Brave New World.

The Underground Man understood the illogical utopian belief that encompassed the liberal ideology. He expresses his view of it through the metaphor of the crystal palace, an unattainable heaven that humanity strives for, and that often results in misguided societies like that of Brave New World. Similar to the boredom that plagues the residents in Brave New World, there is nothing to do in the crystal palace. Both books feature the “utopian ideal” a clockwork-like existence, with people passing their lives like machines, mindless slaves to their work and their own happiness. The people inside do not question the system, and emphatically enjoy its utilitarian benefits. Likewise, the Underground Man believe it is impossible “to stick out one’s tongue” at the crystal palace. Seeing the crystal palace as a utopian compromise, the Underground Man shares his view with that of Huxley, considering the “crystal palace” as a system that only works through its corruption of the individual in favor of a poisoned utopian state. The society in Brave New World results from the willingness to expel personal freedoms and emotions for communal wellbeing. Both Huxley and the Underground Man realize that intrinsically the individual takes precedence over society. The Underground Man regards it the reality of Utopia as an impossibility, a false hope created by an irrational optimism in humanity desired by the hopelessly sanguine. In contrast, Huxley envisions a future reality that society is slowly evolving towards, a society under the control of a totalitarian dictatorship that the people are unable to escape from because of their own lack of will.

But what if the society of Brave New World came about during the Underground Mans lifetime? Existence in Brave New World is a contorted brainchild of the philosophies he despised. Yet the Underground Man’s very non-cooperation within such a society would force him to fight for the views of Rousseau that he once disregarded as being “vain”. Skeptical and cynical, the Underground Man finds himself disenchanted with the Enlightenment philosophy, a movement in which Rousseau was as a key figure. When, however, utilitarianism arises and blankets society, he fails to accept ecstasy as mindless sex and unintelligent life, meaning he is not swayed by simply satisfying bodily needs to constitute happiness. Finally he is exiled for being well read and anti-social. His existence is degraded to that like in Russian society —unable to communicate with others and publicly isolated—not for his own social ineptness, but because of the social restraints placed on him. The Underground Man then must work from outside of society for the protection of civil rights denied him. He now believes that, like Rousseau, the State is a contract in which individuals surrender none of their natural rights, but rather agree to protect them. Therefore, the Underground Man’s particular doubt of the Enlightenment’s utopian views provokes his own embracing of Enlightenment philosophies of liberty.