I liked the book “Brave New World” by Aldous Huxley, but it was not a favorite of mine. I liked the creativity demonstrated by Mr. Huxley and at the same time resent how his “predictions” are coming to life.
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I liked the book “Brave New World” by Aldous Huxley, but it was not a favorite of mine. I liked the creativity demonstrated by Mr. Huxley and at the same time resent how his “predictions” are coming to life.
January 13, 2010 at 4:52 am |
Okay, I wouldn’t go so far as to say I loved the book, but I did enjoy it. Twisted, I know, but I did.
Maybe it’s about perspective? As a middle-aged woman raised in the Seventies, I might see something different than a younger reader. There was a time when I didn’t have to remember anything but my telephone number and my DL#: Angeles 1-2878 and N0124441 (California). Now? I have to remember a different number to shop in the grocery store, to get money from the bank, to rent a movie, to buy gas…. I am drowning in numbers! I have to show three types of ID to withdraw cash from my bank account and I can’t rent a room or a car without a two forms of ID and 300% insurance.
When are they going to use our fingerprints?? Back in the Seventies, we believed that would be possible by now. But it’s not — that’s because that would be an acknowledgment of our innate individualism. Think about it: we don’t NEED all those IDs and forms of proof — it’s all in our fingerprints. But the government doesn’t want us to feel like individuals…. If we did, we might start doing whatever we WANT to do instead of what is good for the government: for us to work, work, work, and contribute to the overall support of the government and the status quo.
On the outside, Huxley manages to create a pretty comprehensive view of the loss of human individuality, along with the loss of personal rights (starting as early as the egg fertilization process). Everyone in BNW was exactly the same — no fingerprints mentioned! But he also presented a very interesting view of work as daily activity that keeps us worker bees busy and out of the way.
Yes, it was an exaggeration and not “believable” but it still allowed me to make sense of the frustration I often feel when I deal with customer service calls to the giants of industry. Think about the people who wok in discount stores — first, they can barely do their jobs (consider Kelly’s Wal-Mart People images) and yet they DO… even when it’s demeaning and barely pays for groceries. I think about the class of people in BNW who are specifically created to do the grunt work — they are programmed to be satisfied with their lives (think Wal-Mart employees and who continue to do it because they don’t have a chance of doing anything else). But Wal-Mart couldn’t exist without them.
Then there is the fury I feel when I am treated like a criminal every time I walk into a store or a bank. We all are potential thieves? This is crowd control and when we shop in those stores we are no longer individuals – just a huge population of buyers who represent $$ to the store and nothing more.
The argument for the TSA checks at the airport are because you MIGHT be a terrorist, but the fact is that it is just one more way to keep us managed, controlled, and limited. And we allow it — they can probe anywhere they want and we MUST comply or we cannot travel. Don’t even mention your unhappiness with the process or you are likely to be arrested. Just remember: one ounce containers of lotion, perfume, or toothpaste ONLY. Now what’s the difference between one and two ounces? None – it’s about controlling us and teaching us to comply with authority. We are just minutes away from the Brave New World, but we missed the signs.
These are the patterns I have watched over the last 5 decades which only now, now that I have grandchildren, have become very worrisome to me. If the world has changed this much in my lifetime, what will it be for them, for their children? Do you think the time will come when euthanasia is practiced to prevent people from being a bother or expense? We do it to dogs, cows, horses…. Why not people? Do you think there will come a time when people will be told that they can’t have children because they are too old-not intelligent enough-bad genes-damaged emotionally-diseased-etc.?
Every time I hear people say that we as a society lack self-discipline, morals, ethics, etc., I wonder what the “they” plan to do about that? Isn’t that what Huxley suggests in Brave New World? When they behaved irresponsibly (according to the Ford management’s definition), they installed controls, right? Isn’t that happening today? The individuals are unimportant – it’s only the mass populations that are of value – the millions of people who will pay $175 for a new TV even though they don’t need one (but this one is HDTV or bigger or flat). Mindless consumerism. Huxley covered that, too.
So, that’s why I liked the book – it confirmed my worst fears about where we are – and I think that, even if it’s in the little things, it begins to add up to BNW 2010. And it makes me more determined to be an individual! That’s our only choice — if we don’t, we will have no one to blame but ourselves when we lose the last of our rights to be individuals.
Don’t mind me. I am just blabbering!
January 14, 2010 at 5:20 pm |
Huxley was amazingly right on in his predictions for where the world was going. How about all those scent machines huh? Felt like the world I live in. The people I know wash their clothes in scented laundry soap, with special stuff that keeps releasing scent throughout the day, they wear scented deodorant, scented hair products, scented lotion and often a perfume they like. They febreze their homes, they scent their cars. For me this is sensory overload.
Brave New World – what is that saying, happiness is not having what you want but wanting what you have? Huxley tapped that. “The secret of happiness is liking what you’ve got to do – make people like their inescapable destiny”. And so they were raised and treated in their bottle-wombs. Treated with vitamins and minerals to fortify them for their future or stunted with chemicals to prepare them for a life of labor. And after decanting (gotta love his manipulation of words) years of conditioning to further instill a love of what would be their destiny. Our world mirrors this. Our heredity is different, our conditioning is different. Are all men equally capable of raising themselves up by their bootstraps and making their way in the world? – I think not Cheri. Huxley said, “intellectual imminence carries with it corresponding moral responsibility”. So are those of us who have pulled ourselves up now more responsible for those around us. I personally think so.
I also found his ideas on relationships to be very revealing. He chose to remove any emotional attachments – “everyone belongs to everyone else” because, and he was correct here -we really only fight for what we love. And they loved no one.
Their lives are made emotionally easy. Stability at the cost of free choice, impulses arrested “for our own good”. Any of this sound familiar? And yet, he is right. I think we just need to embrace that part -that to have freedom of choice means we will be unhappy at times. Huxley says that people were ready to have their lives controlled…”even their appetites controlled – anything for a quiet life”.
And thinking – four letter word that. But neither does our world today like thinkers. We are odd or wierd or at very best “a character” if we don’t think like everyone else. Have an original thought and likely it will be offensive to most people around you. “no offense is so heinous as unorthodoxy of behaviour”.
I thought it was interesting that everything was so classified,so easily identifiable. This class wears this color etc. Those of you who know me know that my sons have long hair. As in, really long. It is braided in two simple braids – indian style. I am constantly amazed at people’s consternation at their difficulty to immediately classify my children…as if they could ever be summed up by such a little title as “boy”.
And so if we don’t fit in what then? The sentence “and feeling himself an outsider, he behaved as one” really caught my attention. Is this my destiny after my heredity and conditioning???
I know I have probably talked to long and hard, but let me close with this. I liked Huxley’s thoughts on humans in relation to God. The Bible says “It does not belong to man to direct his own step”. Huxley says “We are not our own any more than what we posses is our own. We did not make ourselves, we cannot be supreme over ourselves. We are not our own masters. We are God’s property.” He talks about false realities and absolute truths. “People believe in God because they have been conditioned to believe in God.”
John Savage said “But I don’t want comfort. I want God, I want poetry, I want real danger, I want freedom, I want goodness.I want sin.”
And I say to each of you, my voice is high and clear “I claim the right to be unhappy”.
January 15, 2010 at 1:20 am |
Right on, Sister! I am with you — I reserve my right to be unhappy, too! And I loved your use of John Savage’s words: “But I don’t want comfort. I want God, I want poetry, I want real danger, I want freedom, I want goodness.I want sin.”
Is there poetry without unhappiness?