I got my copy of "Brave New World" today in the mail and it came with a cool little biography of Aldous Huxley. I thought it was really interesting that Huxley was close friends with Lawrence and Auden, who were both very progressive thinkers/philosophers/authors of the early 20th century. From what I've read of Lawrence and Auden, they were both very worried about changes in society concerning technology and societal convention. Also, I believe both Lawrence and Auden were pretty provocative for their time. In the mini-bio, I read that Huxley came from a very prominent family of scientist, a profession Aldous wanted to follow, but he went blind for a few years, leaving him incapable.
So, I am going to be reading "Brave New World" with an eye open for Nature Vs. Man-made/Machine-type elements, basically blatant attacks on what was referred to as Futurism. And if Huxley follows Auden and Lawrence, I will also be looking out for explorations on tradition/social convention and absolute truth.
Mom posted this:
ReplyDeleteHave been reading BNW on my Kindle (thank you, Hon!). Pretty avante grade thinking for the year it was written. So far, I have had an almost visceral reaction to a couple of ideologies in the story. Lack of free agency makes me black,for instance. More later...
I finished BNW. I have a lot to say about it but will wait until everyone is ready to chime in. Let me just begin by saying that I was surprised by this re-readying of it. It seemed really out-of-style and even pretentious to me.
ReplyDeletemore later
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Interesting. I have a viceral reaction of a different sort. I'm not done with it yet but the early sections I struggled with the duality of totalitarian government, controlling at a biological level--yet encouraging complete lack of control in terms of promiscuity and sexual encounters. I think if anyone was engineering a society to say who you could and couldn't hang out with--color coding a caste I'm hard pressed to think it would be anything goes in terms of sex. It reads like a massive male fantasy that's pretty rife in this era of sci-fi. When I was in high school I loved it but now I find myself appreciating something like 1984 a lot more. Where the encounters were forbidden by the repressive regime instead of encouraged.
ReplyDeleteIt is interesting to take modern society's typical preference of the sexual binary (I would say that that is sex within marriage or with a partnership of two consenting adults) and flip it. So, sex is now inhuman-just something physical, not emotional. That allows the reader to understand that there are no families and no real personal connections (even platonic friendships seem oddly cold). It really adds to the idea that everything in this society is mechanical. So, even though it doesn't really make sense that a totalitarian regime would ever give free reign on sexual prowess, I do think it helps the reader understand what might happen to a society that completely strayed from the "natural" or at least what we deem as natural (ie, the idea that morality or absolute truth is subjective). So, I'm not really reading the plot points of the story to see if they make sense or are realistic. I'm reading the story as a concept or even warning. So, I actually think it was quite brilliant for Huxley to add the impersonal sexual elements.
ReplyDeleteOh, and I'm only about half way done right now. We'll see if I change my mind.
ReplyDeleteSo right after my post I read the "orgy-porgy" scene and actually laughed out loud. Because I was struggling before he really upped the volume. I get what he's doing I just struggle with the believability of it. It's difficult to image sex being an emotionless act and I don't think it's because I lack the proper hypnotherapy and appropriate neonatal chemical injections. It's actually a major theme in the book too. Emotion in this emotionless society keeps creeping through at several points, so maybe he winds up debunking this initial setup--I'm curious to see. I think my other problem is this doesn't work it's way into any other portion of the society--just the sex part. For example, if the idea is to over-saturate to remove emotion then they might have communal childcare/family settings. You come home and have a rotation with all of the kids, never spending more than a day with any one child. But they never interact with any children at all. They just all have sex with each other. It moves it from interesting idea for me to gratuitous.
ReplyDeleteSome thoughts: First, my take is that H is writing this book not as a prophecy -- but as a warning about the force of controlling societies. He seems to struggle, however. He doesn't have a very good solution. His alternative are the New Mexican tribal types that don't seem to have much of anything together either. So-- you have Fordism as one type of possibility (ultimate capitalism)-- a genetic-soma based possibility (kind of a worst-case scenario of Stalin-sytle communism-- and you have the hopelessly-religion drugged tribal people.
ReplyDeleteSo, I think he might be saying-- choose your poison. He is clearly repulsed by Watson-Pavlovian psychology that was so front-stage when he wrote this (and now must of us are pretty dismissive of behaviorism as the 'cure' to anything). But, he really doesn't believe in the ability of the human race to self-adjust, thrive, and survive.
BTW- I am not a big believer that society is moving in a linear direction-- neither getting better and better--nor getting worse and worse. Boys will be boys whether or not we are talking about Sodom-Gommorah-- Rome-- Nazi Germany-- Radical Muslim BS-- or radical Halbertinism of our day. We as a race just don't change much. The only thing that seems to change is the scale at which we can destroy others and the misery we can inflict on others. That does seem to be linear. I tend to ready history 'side-ways' (as a friend of mine says in his brilliant book. Not much evidience that advances in technology and science really make us more moral, make better choices, care about others, and all of those other attributes that seem so nobel.
Probably, we are and do remain an enemy to that which is virtuous -- unless we we surrender our lives to Christ. But most of us don't -- and so we remain pretty much focused on survival, gain-ethic, and in-it-to-win-it.
A key question H is asking is there a 'natural' man? I think he lands on the side of saying yes there is-- but has not idea what to do with it after that. Clearly, soma and genetic Watsonian/Pavlovian engineering don't seem to be any kind of good answer.
ReplyDeleteThe major problem I think he has is the short-shrift he gives religion. I am not meaning religious organization or structure-- however, I do mean the kind of personalized revelation about self and others that can be achieved that can make a difference. I just finished writing a paper that shows that church attendance and it's attendant structure are not the key to promoting well-being. However, living a sacrifice/commitment based life that is filled a sense of forgivingness, kindness, and focus on others instead of self does seem to matter in huge quantities.
Writing: I struggled more than I thought I would with his writing style. I just found it ponderous and terribly boring. I don't know why: most people seem to think it is one of the key examples of excellent writing.
One wow-moment I thought of that real psychotropic drugs such as phenothiazine were years away from being invented. Phenothiazine represents the great experiment in psychology--i.e. the use of chemical straight-jacket instead of a physical one. From pheothiazine come such drugs as thorazine, stelazine, mellaril, and Sonazine (almost a fit for Mr. H.) These are drugs I regularly gave patients at the Utah Mental Hosp-- 1971-1973. They were invented and introduced in the 1955 and can really cool-your-jets. A dose of Thorazine IM can knock a horse to its knees in about 10 minutes. They take away your will to respond to any anxiety producing stimulus. The side-effects are not that great and include the urge and need to constantly walk-- albeit most of the patients would walk constantly in a low-key shuffle. They would also cause your tongue to swell-- long periods of use would turn a person nearly blind-- and could color their facial skin a kind of light blue.
We, as a culture, have been trying to implement much of what we see in BNW-- but in a disparate attempt to find some solution to mental disease.
Interesting that AH saw that coming.
That's about all I have for now.
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I found it interesting to put society at a nearly total scientific level, removing morality, as we know it. I didn't read this in high school, and kind of wonder at it being on the reading list back in the 60s. But then, I wasn't in Utah in the 60s, for sure. Also interesting to think of engineering society to have no pain or discomfort; that doesn't really work. Everything else in their society was so structured and engineered, yet their libido was on full throttle. Wasn't it also interesting to think of the over-programming of infants and children. When you meet someone who has nothing more than cliches in their thought processes, in our world, it is almost abhorrant.Fascinating that one thing hasn't changed in the BNW or ours: people who are 'different' are still outcasts. Fortunate that there are venues for some of those thinkers in our world. The human spirit is irrepressible and BNW could only happen in a test-tube society. But humans would not allow it to get that far, I'm thinking. All in all, I was fascinated by Huxley's scientific spin. Who suggested this book, anyway? (she said sheepishly).
ReplyDeleteAs an addition to Mom's post...(and my own two cents) one thing I find interesting about Mr. Huxley's "Utopia" is that it is founded on science, yet science is accessible and practiced by very few, specific members of the society. Science was the tool used to create "happiness", then once the recipe for happiness was achieved, any further inquiry was squashed out of the masses. The only advancements in technology are those that focus on inventions that encourage consumerism. I think Huxley was sending out a warning.
ReplyDeleteChanging the subject, I feel that our society is similar to Huxley's in that it has a bunch of cliches on the brain...think about the slogans, commercials and colloquialisms that spread through mass media, like "like", "kick it up a notch", "git 'er done", need I go on? It seems like language has been dumbed-down, and I have nothing to back this idea, but I think people read MUCH less now than they did even 20 years ago, and this seems frightening to me...which leads me to my next subject.....
I think our our modern-day "soma" (well, one of them) is media, and that it dulls the masses into submission and tells us what to think ( and buy and wear and ....). Our media is controlled by a small group of people, it keeps people sedated, and discourages independent thinking. Does this model seem familiar?
I need to finish the last couple chapters before I comment further....
I'm pretty tired (been working a lot), so I hope this reads coherently. I am just going to focus on two topics, considering there are so many things covered in this novel. First off, I did really like this book. Probably not one I will re-read anytime soon, but one I am glad I finally had the opportunity to read. I think it is very well written and attempts to cover very difficult topics in very creative ways. I did have a problem with the ending. I guess everything makes more sense to me when thinking about BNW as more of a warning than an answer. So, Here goes my analysis:
ReplyDeleteCommentary on Religion: First of all, I’m not sure exactly what Huxley is saying about religion. It seems like he might be saying the effects of religion can be like an assembly line; just pumping out identical clones that act like machines, or if he is saying something like the world has replaced religion and God with capitalism and industry. So, here are some things I noticed, maybe ya’ll can make more sense out of them than I can. First off, we are introduced to an establishment that has completely taken over the power of creating lives. This is typically thought of as God’s duty, obviously. Also, I noticed “Ford” is often replaced for God and they cross a "t" (like the model T) on their chests instead of a "cross" like Catholics. Ford invented the assembly line and during this time period there was a lot of skepticism about machinery/industry/technology (with artists, especially the people Huxley was hanging around), but also a lot of people seemed to be blindly following the influx of technology as if it were automatically societal progress. So, it seems like maybe Huxley sees unified assembly line style society (the world state) in parallel to modern day religion. Like, the idea that everyone is to work together for a common goal (maybe even a commentary about Communism) and that your own personal desires/uniqueness are seen as straying from something that might produce greater good for the whole. It seems like Huxley’s use of a mechanical society causes many of the characters to feel isolated and misplaced, also feelings some in extremely religious environments experience. For example, John is isolated from the savages. Linda couldn’t go back to the world state because she got pregnant. Thomas couldn’t even talk about Linda being left behind without worrying about getting too personal. Henry is singled out for being too smart. And Bernard feels inferior because he is too small. All are affected by the nature of the world state. There is so much emphasis on being “one” that any kind of individualism is seen as wrong. I also couldn’t help but think of Karl Marx’s comment on religion being the opiate of the masses in reference to the somas. For example, at the end, without the somas, many of the Deltas fight and riot, but as soon as they are fed somas, once again, they begin to love each other-I can imagine someone trying to make the case that it is better for these people to be drugged and happy than to be unhappy and “awake.” Perhaps this is another of Huxley’s commentaries on religion and its possible effects. Once again, not necessarily my personal thoughts on organized religion, but what I think Huxley may have been saying.
Commentary on Humanity: The world state has taken complete control of almost anything natural, and the natural things they have left (sex, for example) for society hold a completely different meaning for this future society than they do for most of us today. So, Huxley sort of outlines these characters in this society of complete control that don’t fit the mold. Something like, no matter how mechanical a society gets, human nature will prevail. This goes back to what dad was saying about history not necessarily being linear. I remember reading the phrase “Those poor pre-moderns” in one of the chapters. How often do we say that to ourselves because generations before us didn’t have some creature comfort we now take for granted? Well, I think Huxley is aware that because humans will always be humans, human nature will prevail (for better or for worse). Maybe Huxley was thinking that everyone was taking the huge industrial influx in as a great advancement.
ReplyDeleteSo, there you go. Just a couple of thoughts. Sorry to Mom for choosing a controversial book.
I just wrote a really long comment that did load-- drat and damn.
ReplyDeletethe basic idea of my rant was that religion is not the only 'soma' we have in our society. Everyone seems to want to find somekind of way to self-medicate (watching tV, video games, reading, endless and mindless running, etc). While organized religion does that special capability to be a particularly strong opiate, it also has the power enrich the soul. I would be happy to have this conversation with anyone--but probably not in the blog. Bottom line-- most humans, I believe, have very addictive tendencies. Like Dylan says, "you got to serve somebody". I have watched pretty functioning ration people (such as myself) spend endless hours trying to escape into video games, sexual addictions, gambling, and the like-- hard to find someone who doesn't have some kind of 'soma' problem.
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ReplyDeleteYeah, I was even thinking about the Prozac problem of today. But don't you think Huxley was trying to target religion specifically? I felt it was pretty heavy handed with the "Thank Ford" stuff.
ReplyDeleteI am sure he was-- we all try not to think of our own soma-pills as not being soma. I do think religion becomes such an easy target for many people to bash... while happily doing the very same kinds of ritualized membership based addiction of their own choosing. In fact, he is also slamming the consumerism element modern society with just as much clout as he is religion. He is gluing them together with the Ford/religion merge in his writing.
ReplyDeleteYeah, I agree with that. The soma thing seemed to be a commentary on the happiness we think we have, while in reality we are just lying to ourselves. I have to use the cliche of The Matrix when the main character is asked to take a pill to forget reality. Later, a character is eating a steak and says something like I know this steak is fake, but I can trick myself into believing it tastes as good as I want. Sometimes I think we use our personal somas to tuck reality under the rug so we can be "happy." I have also been reading so interesting theory by Nietzsche where he makes the case that everything is actually "fake." Basically, everything in our lives is some form of Huxley's somas. All this is at least an interesting exercise in critical thinking, for me. In fact, I think that is where BNW really succeeds as a great read; it forces one to really think about the way they live and decide whether their life is full of somas and even focus on some of the possible effects their way of living has on other people-ie, the extreme feelings of isolation from the characters that don't fit in.
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