I first read Brave New World when I was still in high school. To sum the novel up in one sentence, it is a story about a Utopian Dystopia where the citizens take drugs all day and have intercourse all day. It is quite shocking how relevant the novel still seems today.
I think about all the horrid types of media that American have consumed in the last few years. The Jersey Shore, Teen Mom 2, and Here Comes Honey Boo Boo are the worst examples that come to mind. In the novel, soma was a drug that filled the user with the sensation of happiness and kind of dulled other sensations. In other words, it kept the citizens sedated. I'm not sure if Jersey Shore still airs on MTV. I think I've only ever seen maybe five minutes of it but from what I remember, there were no real characters. It was just full of the most insufferable personalities that could coexist with each other. No one even had a real name. I guess there was Snookie, The Situation, and Paulie D. I'm pretty sure that half of the episodes was centered about drama about everyone hooking up with a different person that someone else wanted to hook up with.
Which brings me to the second thing about Brave New World. There was rampant promiscuity in the civilization. This was partially due to the fact that humans were mass produced but these sorts of behaviors were encouraged. There were just masses of people getting together in piles to have intercourse. This makes me think about the phone application Tinder. It is known as a dating app but everyone knows it just as an app to hook up. I can only imagine how different infections will spread that way.
Brave New World was written in 1931. I'd recommend reading it if you haven't already. I am quite surprised how well Aldous Huxley portrayed where he saw the world going.
For decades people have envisioned 1984 as our dystopian future, but that is more the Soviet manufacturing model. Like you, I re-read BNW a few years ago as an adult, and I realized that Huxley nailed it.
ReplyDeleteOur society has shifted from the manufacturing base to the consumer base, which means all that new leisure time must be filled somehow. Pervasive media, promiscuity, easy access to drugs, unspoken xenophobia, loss of general civility, etc......Huxley nailed it. Add in Orwell's surveillance state (including devices in your own home dispatching info the the NSA), and you have 21st century America, minus the personal helicopters.