The people of "Brave New World" (BNW) are not truly content, they are merely happy. The BNWers are terrified of being without their soma, because without the soma, they realize their lives are empty and unfulfilling. The soma is a way to escape the reality of their lives, and avoid any self-awareness or unpleasant truths. If you were to examine their lives under almost any metric, such as Maslow's hierarchy of needs, you would see that they are not leading good lives; in Maslow's terms, they have only satisfied their physiological and safety needs.
I would not describe this state as 'content and non-participant', it is more of a self-perpetuating drug-induced ignorance.
Sure. To be clear, I'm not saying that they are happy in BNW. BNW is deliberately an exaggeration of trends that Huxley feared in his present, though. And, as can be seen in other threads (see the comic someone linked to) is taken as a meaningful depiction of the current state of affairs.
So I'm here arguing about the idea that Huxley would see the state we're in now as being representative of his dystopic ideas in principle if not in fact. And given his own commentary on his and others' work, I think he probably would.
The question then is: is the contentedness of the masses right now reflective of a 'drug/distraction-induced ignorance' of a Huxleyan style? It's often asserted, but I don't think I've seen a compelling argument. People are largely free to be discontent, and what means the state actually seems to use to work against popular discontent look more like Orwell than Huxley to me.
I would not describe this state as 'content and non-participant', it is more of a self-perpetuating drug-induced ignorance.