Aldous Huxley - Brave New World - Writers Forum

talknerdytome · 02-19-2006, 12:08 PM

I've just started reading this, and I cannot make my mind up on whether I like it or not.

Has anybody else read it? What did they think?

Larsen · 02-19-2006, 01:01 PM

I basically just took it as a Luddite polemic....wouldn't say there's much in the way of artistic license here -- just Huxley getting across his ideas of society and dystopia, and so on...

Some would say it's a fair representation of our own world but I find it dubious.

Anyway, it made #5 on the top 100 books of the 20th century so it must be worth reading....

Stewart · 02-19-2006, 03:44 PM

http://www.writingforums.com/showthread.php?t=43791
http://www.writingforums.com/showthread.php?t=51057

And my review.

hirshmon · 02-19-2006, 04:09 PM

It's a great book - I really enjoyed it.
We had to read it for school last year and the teacher had us write essays arguing why this Brave New World was a dystopia. Call me a terrible human being, but I believe that it is in fact a utopia. I defended it on the basis of utilitarianism and relativism and showed how it would garner favor among absolutists and epicureans... I got a good grade, but I think my english teacher though I was evil from that day forward.

Honestly though, forget free will and creativity... I want 24-hour poontang and non-health-hazardous drug comas.

Stewart · 02-19-2006, 04:20 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by hirshmon

the teacher had us write essays arguing why this Brave New World was a dystopia. Call me a terrible human being, but I believe that it is in fact a utopia.

If it were a perfect world where we accepted our caste then you could argue that it was a utopia because everything goes to plan and life isn't hard as we are conditioned especially for it. But, whatever way you look at it, there are people who are getting ideas outwith their station so you come to realise that it is a new society that is developing, one that, wherever it is going, is not quite there yet. If it's to be a utopia where no one knows no different then it needs to iron out certain people because unless they are conforming then it will be a dystopia as they are aware of others' plight.

hirshmon · 02-19-2006, 04:43 PM

I'm not quite sure what you're saying there.....it's not the idea I understand, it's that most of what you said was blobbed together with no commas and didn't make any sense, grammatically. I mean no offense, but in all honesty, I cannot get any meaning out of what you just said.

PaPa · 02-20-2006, 08:56 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Connor Wolf

If it were a perfect world where we accepted our caste then you could argue that it was a utopia because everything goes to plan and life isn't hard as we are conditioned especially for it. But, whatever way you look at it, there are people who are getting ideas outwith their station so you come to realise that it is a new society that is developing, one that, wherever it is going, is not quite there yet. If it's to be a utopia where no one knows no different then it needs to iron out certain people because unless they are conforming then it will be a dystopia as they are aware of others' plight.

That's the real thing that makes the Brave New World seem even more like a utopia - people who aren't happy with the system aren't "ironed out", they're just sent off to an island of their choice with other dissenters or they're elevated to high office. As for John...would his fate really have been very different if you transplanted a man with an antiquated moral code and serious mental issues into our own society?

Mike C · 02-20-2006, 01:16 PM

Huxley's brave new world is only a utopia for the ruling classes, and even then only if you conform. Hirschmon, would you consider it to be so great if you were of the lower castes, bred only to clean toilets, for example?

I think it's perfectly OK to question the basis of BNW, particularly if doing so gets you a good grade, but to ignore the central tenet of the novel - that to achieve 'utopia' you have to abandon civil liberty and personal freedom in favour of conformism and slavery - is pretty mulish.

Start today - if the great godlet Bush decreed that writers were the cause of too much dissent and world peace depended on the writing of fiction being outlawed, where would you stand? In the soma queue?

Mike C · 02-20-2006, 01:18 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by hirshmon

I mean no offense, but in all honesty, I cannot get any meaning out of what you just said.

I mean no offence, hirschmon, but try reading a little slower. Or better still read Connor's excellent review of the novel.

strangedaze · 02-20-2006, 05:00 PM

everybody remain calm, or im turning this car around.

hirshmon · 02-21-2006, 04:57 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mike C

Huxley's brave new world is only a utopia for the ruling classes, and even then only if you conform. Hirschmon, would you consider it to be so great if you were of the lower castes, bred only to clean toilets, for example?

That's the beauty of the BNW! I would consider it great cleaning toilets, because in the BNW, I would have been conditioned since infancy to love every aspect of my life! Only from our own, current viewpoints do we see cleaning toilets as bad, because society has conditioned US to think it's an odious task. This is why it's hypocritical to criticize their conditioning, because we've been conditioned as well, just less overtly and more gradually. Everyone is happy in the BNW, and when they're not, they're sent somewhere where they can live how they want to. The only immensely unhappy person in the society was the person who represented our own contemporary moral guidelines (John)...if he'd been conditioned like the rest of the people in the BNW, then he would love it all the same, even if he was cleaning toilets. Unless he was one of the tiny, infinitessimal fractions of dissenters.

Secondly, there is no "c" in my username. I noticed it wasn't a typo when you spelled it like that, twice. Just for future reference.

Thirdly, I did read Connor's post...three times. Carefully. I got nothing from it.
Though his review was nicely done. I had read that before.

Mike C · 02-22-2006, 06:12 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by hirshmon

Only from our own, current viewpoints do we see cleaning toilets as bad, because society has conditioned US to think it's an odious task. This is why it's hypocritical to criticize their conditioning, because we've been conditioned as well, just less overtly and more gradually.

Then do you not see that maybe Huxley's analysis was correct? Just because we're being conditioned, doesn't make it right. And I don't see that the conditioning made them any happier about their crap jobs - they were just deprived of the intelligence to question them.

What Huxley sought to demonstrate is that a hive mentality deprives us of our humanity.

Quote:

Everyone is happy in the BNW, and when they're not, they're sent somewhere where they can live how they want to. The only immensely unhappy person in the society was the person who represented our own contemporary moral guidelines (John)...if he'd been conditioned like the rest of the people in the BNW, then he would love it all the same, even if he was cleaning toilets. Unless he was one of the tiny, infinitessimal fractions of dissenters.

Soviet Russia, anyone? Toe the line, do your job, and you fit in. If you dissent, exile if you're lucky.

Quote:

Secondly, there is no "c" in my username. I noticed it wasn't a typo when you spelled it like that, twice. Just for future reference.

Apologies.

)

hirshmon · 02-22-2006, 09:52 AM

The difference with Soviet Russia is that they controlled people through fear and violence, not through happiness and blissful ignorance. Honestly, I would prefer to live in a world with constant peace and happiness and no free will (given that I'd never experienced free will to begin with - again, the importance of this is conditioned within people nowadays) than one with warring and crime and hardships.

As for the toilets, the conditioning made them believe they were fulfilling their society and helping and doing meaningful work that no others good - they were filling a niche and the conditioning made them happy to do it. I think at one point Huxley mentioned that Gammas and Deltas were just as happy as Alphas and Betas, but maybe he didn't... I read it last year. But I do remember that everyone was high and happy and sexed up to an appealing level.

Mike C · 02-23-2006, 05:32 AM

It doesn't matter what tools you use to control people - if you take away free will you take away humanity.

Personally I find the idea of enforced stupidity (by depriving the fetus of oxygen) as a means of social control far more terrifying than a totalitarian regime.

hirshmon · 02-23-2006, 09:56 AM

Well, I guess that's where we differ.
I believe there is a difference between blissful lack of free will and violent lack of free will... I guess you don't.