Brave New World

[Lunar_Lander]

Hi everybody,

as I had to read Aldous Huxley's Brave New World in my English Advanced Course, I wanted to ask you: Do you know the book and how is your opinion on it?

Even on the first pages, I was shocked by the prospect of creating humans and defining their gender and caste, to create "dumb" people for low-class work and geniuses for high-class work. I was also shocked by the fact, that "lower-class" people are trained with Pavlovian methods to like and dislike the things the "high-class" people want them to.

Also that the "higher-class" people don't think about that (with the exception of Bernard Marx) but just take drugs (soma) and have, err, you know what with each other .

And I have to say that I found the end really sad but I don't want to give it away for the people who don't know the novel yet. But I reccomend to read it.

But I don't have objections agains genetics as such, as far it is used for developing cures for Alzheimer's for example. But not for creating humans to work for you.

Cheers,
Lunar_Lander

 

[Belisarius]

I think it's one of the most prophetic texts of the 20th century, more so even than the more famous 1984 by Orwell.

The regulation of work by Fordian methods - correct
The conversion of materialism into a pseudoreligion - correct (see Scientology)
The attempt to determine people's level in society by numeric testing - correct
The manipulation of genetics to create "designer babies" - correct
Pavlovian conditioning of all members of society except the elite - correct (see TV advertising)

So far we in Western societies haven't got to the totalitarian stage, but if we don't keep alert, we might (see China).

Paradoxically, the more socially egalatarian we become, the more genetics will determine our fate. Politically equal rights for all mean there is no class privileged above others. Individuals are selected for high-status by their merits. And so...

"The definition of the perfect meritocracy, ironically, is a society in which people's achievements depend on their genes because their environments are equal... In the past, poor nutrition resulted in many children not reaching their genetic height as adults. Today, with better childhood nutrition, more of the differences in height between individuals are due to genes...The same cannot yet be sdaid of intelligence, because environmental variables - such as school quality, family habits, or wealth - may be growing more unequal in some societies rather than more equal.. But it is none the less a paradox - in egalitarian societies, genes matter more."

Matt Ridley, Genome, p85 (US edition)

 

[Andy44]

BNW is one of the 3 Great Dystopian novels of the 20th century, the other two being Orwell's 1984, and Zemyatin's We, great books all.

BNW is indeed a scary place to live, but I think I would rather live there than in Orwell's world. The reality is that we see elements of all these novels in the world around us. Since Belisarius already laid out some of the elements in BNW that are coming true, I'll cover some of the Orwellian ones:

Constant government monitoring - correct
Use of war and fear to control own populace - correct
Distortion of English language to change the framework of thought - correct (perhaps true for other languages as well?)
Elevation of control and order over human rights and dignity - correct (but what else is new...)

Zemyatin is a little more fantastic, of course, in fact the world reminds me of logan's Run or Aeon Flux. Even still, the horrible thing done to people to finally destroy their initiative is not out of the question.


-----Posted Added-----


BTW, LunarLander, BNW was written in the 1930s. You should seek out Huxley's essay book Brave New World Revisited which he wrote in the 1960s. He goes back and discusses how many elements of his novel came true, and talks at length about figures like Stalin and Hitler. Really good reading.

 

[Urwumpe]

Distortion of English language to change the framework of thought - correct (perhaps true for other languages as well?)

Also true for German... the German government does go great lengths for example to make sure, that they don't call the deployment of the German Army in Afghanistan a combat mission. Soldiers don't die while serving their duty for the country - they die in the worst case in terrible acts of terror (Which makes it sound like they are just randomly targeted and serve no purpose there).

Though it is still one of the most harmless cases how to rape a language...

 

[Belisarius]

BTW, LunarLander, BNW was written in the 1930s. You should seek out Huxley's essay book Brave New World Revisited which he wrote in the 1960s. He goes back and discusses how many elements of his novel came true, and talks at length about figures like Stalin and Hitler. Really good reading.

Thanks for the heads-up. Will check that ASAP.

 

[Lunar_Lander]

@Andy44: Our English teacher mentioned this briefly but now I think I should definately read it, thanks for the hint!

What I asked myself this morning (while brushing my teeth): Why do the members of the third gender (the freemartins) look female? Why are there not sterile men and women, but only sterile women? Is this a hint on the suppression of women, Huxley made there?

 

[Hielor]

Why do the members of the third gender (the freemartins) look female? Why are there not sterile men and women, but only sterile women? Is this a hint on the suppression of women, Huxley made there?

Physically: if you remove the sex organs, you will more closely resemble a female than a male.

Chemically: Testosterone plays a very large part in people appearing what we consider "male." Otherwise "normal" males who have a testosterone deficiency will appear decidedly more "feminine" to an observer.