Brave New World and Brave New World Revisited
book 162: Brave New World and Brave New World Revisited by Aldous Huxley
This book contains the novel Brave New World and the collection of essays Brave New World Revisited, which was written about 30 years after the former.
Brave New World was originally published in 1932 and is a dystopian novel. The idea is that the "civilized" world has conquered humanity's problems by engineering humans both physically and psychologically to work together in pre-ordained roles. All children are "decanted" from bottles rather than born from a human mother, after genetic screening and selection and further modification depending on pre-selected class by chemicals and biological hormones. Classes are further diversified from one another while developing more unity within by a type of hypnosis or subliminal messaging, generally occuring and regimented times and quantities during sleep throughout their lives. The genetic and psychological conditioning give a baseline of acceptible behavior which is further encouraged by reward systems of free and ample distractions, like "feelies" (movies enhanced by multiple sensory inputs), interactive games, and encouragement of promiscuity (and subsequent downplay and discouragement of binding and deep relationships). Finally, if in spite of all of this, someone is feeling out of sorts, there is the daily allotment of soma, a drug that takes away all bad thoughts and feelings without risk of negative side effects. There are not arguments against this kind of society because the people within the society have been engineered not to want anything but this society. With no social distress, there is no need for "higher" thought or outlets such as arts and literature and religion. History is erased or modified to fit the needs of the society. There are "uncivilized" pockets or islands. If a member of one of the highest classes, ie. an alpha, cannot adapt to life in society (alphas must be left with a touch of free thought since they are the rulers of society and have to be able to react if something unforseen occurs), they can be banished to live with other misfits like themselves on an island. The other "savage" places would be the equivalent of Indian reservations, where practices continued to evolve along a more natural path. Huxley uses the experimental introduction of a "savage" from one of these reservations into "civilization" a la Brave New World to show what could be lost and gained by such a society. It took me a long time to figure out if Huxley was writing a book about a world as he would want it or about a world he feared was on the horizon. After reading his essays, the latter is most assuredly true, but I honestly kept thinking that the civilization shown in Brave New World is not that bad. Not compared to living as I do as a member of the "underclass" of the United States. I kept thinking that if they could do it perfectly, not ever let me know that I was being controlled, having a life where you were perpetually useful, healthy, content, and entertained wouldn't be so bad at all.
Brave New World Revisited are essays written in the 1960's, looking back at what has come to pass, what missed the mark, and what is yet to come. The chapters cover subjects such as over-population and depletion of resources as a cause for the rise of freedom restricting government systems, propaganda...positive and negative...as means of controlling ideas and manipulating behaviors (including topics such as Hitler, advertisment, and religion), and chemical dependency and use as a mellowing agent for the masses (personally I think soma was an opioid narcotic...do you think people would more readily line up for work if part of their pay was a tab or two of hydrocodone?). Several of Huxley's ideas hit pretty close to the bullseye, and I agree with him. If you are going to have a successful long-term repressive regime, doing it through a reward system (drugs, entertainment, and sex) will elicit a greater response and have a longer effect than through bully tactics, like in 1984 or some of the modern dictatorships, which gained controlled but lost it again with the backlash of animosity from the repressed and those who supported them. Brave New World could end free thought indefinitely.
This book contains the novel Brave New World and the collection of essays Brave New World Revisited, which was written about 30 years after the former.
Brave New World was originally published in 1932 and is a dystopian novel. The idea is that the "civilized" world has conquered humanity's problems by engineering humans both physically and psychologically to work together in pre-ordained roles. All children are "decanted" from bottles rather than born from a human mother, after genetic screening and selection and further modification depending on pre-selected class by chemicals and biological hormones. Classes are further diversified from one another while developing more unity within by a type of hypnosis or subliminal messaging, generally occuring and regimented times and quantities during sleep throughout their lives. The genetic and psychological conditioning give a baseline of acceptible behavior which is further encouraged by reward systems of free and ample distractions, like "feelies" (movies enhanced by multiple sensory inputs), interactive games, and encouragement of promiscuity (and subsequent downplay and discouragement of binding and deep relationships). Finally, if in spite of all of this, someone is feeling out of sorts, there is the daily allotment of soma, a drug that takes away all bad thoughts and feelings without risk of negative side effects. There are not arguments against this kind of society because the people within the society have been engineered not to want anything but this society. With no social distress, there is no need for "higher" thought or outlets such as arts and literature and religion. History is erased or modified to fit the needs of the society. There are "uncivilized" pockets or islands. If a member of one of the highest classes, ie. an alpha, cannot adapt to life in society (alphas must be left with a touch of free thought since they are the rulers of society and have to be able to react if something unforseen occurs), they can be banished to live with other misfits like themselves on an island. The other "savage" places would be the equivalent of Indian reservations, where practices continued to evolve along a more natural path. Huxley uses the experimental introduction of a "savage" from one of these reservations into "civilization" a la Brave New World to show what could be lost and gained by such a society. It took me a long time to figure out if Huxley was writing a book about a world as he would want it or about a world he feared was on the horizon. After reading his essays, the latter is most assuredly true, but I honestly kept thinking that the civilization shown in Brave New World is not that bad. Not compared to living as I do as a member of the "underclass" of the United States. I kept thinking that if they could do it perfectly, not ever let me know that I was being controlled, having a life where you were perpetually useful, healthy, content, and entertained wouldn't be so bad at all.
Brave New World Revisited are essays written in the 1960's, looking back at what has come to pass, what missed the mark, and what is yet to come. The chapters cover subjects such as over-population and depletion of resources as a cause for the rise of freedom restricting government systems, propaganda...positive and negative...as means of controlling ideas and manipulating behaviors (including topics such as Hitler, advertisment, and religion), and chemical dependency and use as a mellowing agent for the masses (personally I think soma was an opioid narcotic...do you think people would more readily line up for work if part of their pay was a tab or two of hydrocodone?). Several of Huxley's ideas hit pretty close to the bullseye, and I agree with him. If you are going to have a successful long-term repressive regime, doing it through a reward system (drugs, entertainment, and sex) will elicit a greater response and have a longer effect than through bully tactics, like in 1984 or some of the modern dictatorships, which gained controlled but lost it again with the backlash of animosity from the repressed and those who supported them. Brave New World could end free thought indefinitely.