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July 2013: Aldous Huxley, Brave New World

I have read it twice. I have something of a love-hate relationship with it though, so can't promise I'll be nice about it. :D
 
I'm going to re-read it again too. Very ready for the discussion on this one. The 1984 vs. Brave New World debate is one of my favorites. Of course, there's no gurantee that the conversation will go that way, but I've got my fingers crossed...
 
So who is going to get the ball rolling on this one. I seem to have had either a total recall brain fart on this book, or else my POV has matured in the years since I read it because I most surely do not remember it being a treatise on the fine art of the carefully crafted slogan.
 
Actually given the current debate on spying and privacy vs safety this should be a very interesting discussion.

Do we give up freedom for safety? How much freedom should we give up? What happens if we discover we have given up too much? These are all relevant questions for our age.
 
The quest for a stable society taken to its ultimate expression:

The world's stable now. People are happy; they get what they want, and they never want what they can't get. They're well off; they're safe; they're never ill; they're not afraid of death; they're blissfully ignorant of passion and old age; they're plagued with no mothers or fathers; they've got no wives, or children, or lovers to feel strongly about; they're so conditioned that they practically can't help behaving as they ought to behave. And if anything should go wrong, there's soma. Which you go and chuck out of the window in the name of liberty, Mr. Savage. Liberty!
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Are you truly happy if you don't know sadness?
 
JGL said:
I'm going to re-read it again too. Very ready for the discussion on this one. The 1984 vs. Brave New World debate is one of my favorites.
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I think 1984 is a better-written story (& I have to wonder what Orwell would make of Skype/Twitter/etc.) but I think BNW's premise is pretty brilliant. Most "grim future" stories, like 1984, deal with highly fascistic societies; but BNW goes in the opposite direction. You have what seems to be a society that's totally permissive, but while people are getting what they think they want, their individual rights are being siphoned away. While the story is kind of far-fetched, that notion is creepily plausible.

That's all I've got at the moment. :/
 
Just out of curiousity what makes you think that the society in BNW is not a form fascism?

Fascism - a political philosophy, movement, or regime that exalts nation and often race above the individual and that stands for a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, severe economic and social regimentation, and forcible suppression of opposition
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In BNW you have genetically engineered social classes, with strict economic controls, a dictatorial government, which controls the entire society from birth through conditioning. There is no independent thought and any of the top tier who show independence are shipped off to the islands. Ostensibly as a punishment, but primarily to remove them to a place their quirks can either benefit society or be neutralised.
 
ChaosTheory said:
That was the wrong word, I probably should've said militaristic.
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I would've used regimented but I see what you're getting at.

The technical stuff in the hatchery I find fascinating, the society of Brave New World treat embryos with chemicals and alter bottle conditions to not only split the castes but also to tailor characteristics to specific careers. Huxley it appears even left room for the discovery of DNA, the character Henry Foster makes it clear that the hatcheries have yet to find a means by which they can speed up the growth rate of Epsilons and hints that there are possible germinal mutations that may hold the key.
 
BNW reminds me of the Matrix somewhat. The way humans/society is engineered from the bottom up to perform designated functions, and the fact that there are some 'minor errors' in the process of creating these beings that result in them being able to achieve a higher cognitive function, being able to question the status quo and trying to change society from the inside is very reminiscent of the Machines. And of course the World Controller is The Architect. Ergo, I almost expected the Savage to fly around resuscitating bullet-pierced hearts.

The central tenet of governance in the birth of some countries rely on them being authoritarian. A lot of countries in the South East Asian regions are like so to some degree, and while some achieve some form of democracy that allows them to function more or less independently (Singapore a prime example, after the incredibly strict (some say dictatorial) manner of governance by Lee Kuan Yew during its formative years), to countries preferring a more tight-fisted enforcement of obedience. Both types of countries want 'stability', just like the country in BNW.

BNW shows how it's inhabitants are kept happy and satisfied using drugs and hackneyed forms of entertainment - reminds me of reality TV. :) There are parallels to be drawn, I think, between what the book depicts and our current need to be satiated on a very superficial level, leaving us less and less time to ponder on larger issues.
 
BNW shows how it's inhabitants are kept happy and satisfied using drugs and hackneyed forms of entertainment - reminds me of reality TV. There are parallels to be drawn, I think, between what the book depicts and our current need to be satiated on a very superficial level, leaving us less and less time to ponder on larger issues.
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There was a very interesting passage in the book which did in fact touch on this. Having leisure time is in fact a fairly new phenomenon and there was a lot of resistance to reducing the working week when technology made it possible to do so because leisure time would give the working classes time to think, a thing most people thought they were ill-equipped to do. It seems mass entertainment solved the problem nicely.

BNW, however does the reverse, although it's the same reasoning behind it. Their society did not need people to work but they found that not working created problems so they have work as form of mass pacification as much as the drugs and things.
 
Meadow337 said:
BNW, however does the reverse, although it's the same reasoning behind it. Their society did not need people to work but they found that not working created problems so they have work as form of mass pacification as much as the drugs and things.
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Do you mean their society did not need people to work all the time because they did need to work.
 
yes but without going to the book and looking it up, there was a passage in which the societ is being explained to the savage and they said that they had tried not working, and that it created problems - dissatisfaction, unrest etc, so they structured things so that there was work, consumption of goods etc + the entertainment and religion - Marx religion as opiate of the masses type idea there - to keep everything in place
 
Meadow337 said:
yes but without going to the book and looking it up, there was a passage in which the societ is being explained to the savage and they said that they had tried not working, and that it created problems - dissatisfaction, unrest etc, so they structured things so that there was work, consumption of goods etc + the entertainment and religion - Marx religion as opiate of the masses type idea there - to keep everything in place
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The passage talks of the apportion of work not abolition, the society experimented with it's own population to see what the effects would be. Mustapha Mond the World Controller explains to John the Savage that there are optimum work levels for each caste and Alphas 'can be completely socialised but only on condition that you make them do Alpha work. Only an Epsilon can be expected to make Epsilon sacrifices'. In other words there's plenty of work for those that have the misfortune to be decanted into the appropriate caste.
 
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