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Utopia, Brave New World style
forbis316
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
So Brave New World by Aldous Huxley is a pretty great book.
Basically, you work, doing some unthinking, non-exhaustive job. After work, you engage in some mindless, pleasurable activity such as television (the "feelies"), sex (since people are encouraged to sleep with anybody), or drugs (soma... with no downside).
Given the option, would you trade all that this world presents, good and bad, for the utopia of Brave New World?
Wikipedia wrote:The world the novel describes is a utopia, albeit an ironic one: humanity is carefree, healthy and technologically advanced. Warfare and poverty have been eliminated and everyone is permanently happy. The irony is that all of these things have been achieved by eliminating many things that humans consider to be central to their identity — family, culture, art, literature, science, religion, and philosophy. It is also a hedonistic society, deriving pleasure from promiscuous sex and drug use, especially the use of soma, a powerful drug taken to escape pain and bad memories through hallucinatory fantasies. Additionally, stability has been achieved and is maintained via deliberately engineered and rigidly enforced social stratification.
Basically, you work, doing some unthinking, non-exhaustive job. After work, you engage in some mindless, pleasurable activity such as television (the "feelies"), sex (since people are encouraged to sleep with anybody), or drugs (soma... with no downside).
Given the option, would you trade all that this world presents, good and bad, for the utopia of Brave New World?
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Also, most of that stuff is pretty available. Just that much of it is illegal.
There's definitely something repulsive about the whole thing, but I'm not sure I'm in a place right now to logically evidence that claim. I'm kind of struggling with nihilism at the moment, and cobbling together whatever I can find to justify my revulsion with it.
But, in conclusion, nihilism/nihilistic hedonism bad; reason and intellectual pursuits good.
The only thing I could honestly say that I'd hesitate to trade away would be creative expression, like art. I love to draw. I'm sure, though, that if I had been born in a society like the one in Brave New World that I wouldn't mind that I didn't get to draw. A world free of war, disease, religion, sexual taboos, and pretty much all sources of suffering would be paradise. Most people wouldn't waste their lives just trying to live paycheck to paycheck doing a job they hate until they die of heart disease or cancer: they'd live an honestly enjoyable, happy life.
Probably the best thing about the society of Brave New World is that people aren't forced to do jobs they hate: people are genetically engineered and programmed to love their jobs. Everyone's happy. Who cares if it's not "true happiness?" Can you tell the difference between true happiness and what other kind of happiness there is?
No. It would not.
To you, it would not be a mindless job. It would be a fulfilling, challenging and rewarding job. A job which you are perfectly qualified for.
You'd have been conditioned since fertilization(technically cloning, really) not to miss those things. You would be content and proud of who you are and what you do. Calling the work mindless totally misrepresents the book.
Honestly, I think it is because I have never felt like I actually fit into society, never really been comfortable with who and where I am, that I'm pretty much incapable of seeing BNW as anything other than Utopian. Don't know... I read it when I was 12, and found a lot of it attractive. I've read it sevral times since, and that hasn't really changed much.
Sweet fancy Jesus no. I don't want to simply exist; I want to live! I want to create! None of that would be possible in this 'utopia.'
you want to. If you were an Alpha, the brightest class of people, you still would. You would still be motivated♦ to innovate and create. Which is why technology does not stagnate.
Of course, most jobs that need doing don't offer that sort of thing, so why have people who have those needs in that type of position? If your job was to sweep floors, then you wouldn't really be capable of too much more than that. Sweeping floors would be fulfilling. If your job was to monitor a machine that teases apart blastoma into individual zygotes(probably the wrong term here) then that would be fulfilling.
It is basically the communist idea, from each according to his ability, to each according to his need, turned inside out. People are created with the ability to fill a need in society and to be content doing so.
And if I went and got a labotomy I could be fulfilled sitting in a padded room. That hardly makes it something I would want to do. Also, playing the cultural relativist nonsense of 'well yeah, but if you were born in that world right now you'd feel totally differently' hardly acts as a counterpoint.
Yeah.
See.
Didn't work in the book either.
I have an instinct to resist. It's part of my nature, not my nurture. I'd end up hanging out with the flagellists if anything, but they'd probably piss me off eventually too.
Now, that said, they sure as hell wouldn't use clones of me for their little world for that exact reason.
It is like most dystopias except with repression being mostly done before birth. While you could argue that the people would be happy, you can say the same thing about the main character at the end of 1984 and any number of any dystopias. Generally, people regard a life consisting of nothing but pleasure as bad and ultimately empty despite how happy the people would be.
You belong at Ayn Rand Conventions.
Hell, most religions offer that as a carrot.
How, is it any more empty that what we do now?
Most people want to make an actual difference in the lives of others.
The whole question essentially boils down to this:
If you could be put into a trance-like state where you will be very happy until you die but would have almost no impact on the world, would you be willing to go into that state?
Conclusion: A lot of people are happy with pleasure, plain and simple. Some other people have a fetish for authenticity.
Of course, those people in BNW do contribute to society(making an actual diffrence in the lives of others) and they have varying degrees of impact on the world.
The desire for most people to leave a lasting impact on the world, causes them to suffer and motivates them to inflict suffering on others(see: Ganges Kahn, Julius Cesar, Stalin and John Savage).
And? People are willing to suffer in order to get what they want. There is nothing unusual about that, and I see no reason that it is necessarily a bad thing.
If you're happy, then why would you care about advancement? If the world's already a perfect place in the eyes of most everyone in society, what would you need to advance to make it better?
What? No it wasn't, not really.
And on that note, as the shadowy leader of a worldwide utopian state, Mond was pretty much better than O'Brien in every way. I'd like to say the same applies to their respective novels - BNW outclasses 1984 in every respect save maybe for argumentative rhetoric.
Odd thing is... they make the lower castes intentionally, all they'd have to do is phase them out and not make more dim people. That argument does not really work. Plot holes are problems with writhing, not with the idea dealt with by said writing.
Suffering is bad?
Once again, this boils down to whether happiness should be the ultimate goal of society.
And what if I lived in the Firefly universe as the King of New London and wore a shiny hat?
Alternate poast:
With that said, I think it's natural for people to fetishize their own lifestyle. For the reader, in our culture which prizes self determination and individual expression, a world of monotonous security is horrifying. But have some perspective; a citizen from that society would be equally appalled to find himself in our world of uncertainty and frequent suffering.
And that's actually what BNW posits. See, reader, how horrible this utopia is for you. Compelling, but an argument from emotion will be.
The people who are sent to the islands tend to be mutations from their birth, breeding and engineering, so they're outcasts from their society right off the bat. They never did belong. The reader is given the impression that exile was the best possible outcome for both Marx and Helmholtz (though Marx does object a bit, it's likely because he was a wishy-washy sniveler from the start). I'm not sure where you're getting the whole negative aspect from - especially considering what happens to Marx and Helmholtz in comparison to John.
When the whole point of society is to be a productive part of it, and not to stand out, then not being a part of it can only be a negative. Just because exile is the best possible outcome doesn't necessarily mean that it's a positive thing either. You could go crazy and die while being treated as a monkey in a zoo (John) or go live by yourself, away from the comforts and companionship you've known all your life. Great choices.
Being a productive part of society isn't much of a positive if you are, in the very nature of your being, a mutant of that society and all if represents. I don't recall Marx or Helmholtz having much in the way of comforts or companionship - especially Marx, the resentful little swot.
I see the point you're making, and it's a valid one, just not in the context of Brave New World.
I really don't see how it's not in context for BNW. But I don't really want to go around in circles about it either.
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I do have a problem with the implication in BNW that these things are diametrically opposed to artistic creation or other meaningful pursuits.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
I don't know where I'd stand on this debate.. I'm so confused and stuck dealing with depression currently.. I don't know if mind/mood-altering drugs and a fake sense of belonging (but one none-the-less-- something I currently lack in my life) is a good thing or bad.