It terrifies me that anyone could read that book and see a perfect world in it.
Also, if you don't see terror being used as a controlling tool in our current culture then you're missing things. Not to say that I think 1984 was better, it was just two different takes on the same premise, and both have very ominous correlations with modern society. I always liked Anthem the best in terms of distopias. It was simpler and more pure to me.
I also hear people making reference to this book a lot more now that Marijuana is becoming legal in certain states, as if Pot will be used to sedate and control the population. Ridiculous to me, but people are serious about it.
That's why Brave New World is one of the best distopian novels ever written (IMO), because it actually makes you question weather it's a distopia or a utopia, what is happiness, what is freedom, there's no clear evil. Brave New World makes you think.
I would highly recommend as Plato's Republic as a companion to Brave New World, since that is what Brave New World is based on, it's an implementation of Plato's Republic using "modern" (as Huxley imagined it) science and industry to implement and enforce.
I agree. Most dystopian books are downright shallow compared to BNW.
because it actually makes you question weather it's a distopia or a utopia
Many people forget that the original Utopia was supposed to be dystopian (which itself was a word that was coined because nobody today views utopia as a bad thing).
I would say that Brave New World is simultaneously a Dystopia and a Utopia, depending on how you look at it. Everyone is happy and there is a overall peace, which makes it a Utopia. However, the ways they achieve it can be considered a Dystopia.
Funny thing is that I was just writing about this a few hours ago for an application.
Brave New World is probably my favourite as well, but Oryx and Crake is pretty good too. Then I'd probably go Fahrenheit 451 followed by 1984 and The Giver.
It terrifies me that anyone could read that book and see a perfect world in it.
And it troubles me that anyone could read that book and fail to see a perfect world in it.
Since, well, that's the whole point of the book.
The original dystopian novel was something called Utopia, in which Thomas More depicted a perfect world, that, for someone like him, probably would've seemed quite heretical and dystopian. The very reason why we created the word "dystopia" is because we, with our modern sensibilities, view Utopia as good rather than as the bad world that More most likely would have viewed it as, and so a different word was needed to act as counterpoint.
In that sense, Brave New World is more akin to the original Utopia than it is to the more base and less sophisticated dystopias of Orwell and others. It's a dystopia that lacks evil and malice; the world is what it is purely out of good intentions.
The whole point of BNW is to present a perfect society. A well-engineered society that methodically and rationally tackles all the problems of the world. And for us to see the costs of that perfection. It's saying that happiness and freedom are not necessarily compatible, and in order to achieve happiness for all (vs. just a subset of the population), we necessarily need to sacrifice free will. And in doing so, it raises interesting philosophical questions like, "What is the value of free will? Is it an end, or merely a means to an end?" And that's why BNW stands out as the best dystopian novel ever, not just because it is a true dystopia, but because it goes deeper than some generic tale between a good guy and some mustachioed villains.
(And the more interesting thing is, in a few hundred years, would we still view the central tradeoff of BNW--happiness for freedom--as necessarily bad as we do today? Would a future civilization consider BNW to be good and utopian, just as we today consider Utopia to be... well, utopian?)
If it troubles you that I do not see a perfect world in the setting of this book, then are you saying you are willing to give up your own free will for a society that resembles it?
I value free will. It is to me the most essential part of humanity. Removing it in an effort to streamline the function of a production based society is terrifying to me. I understand what you're saying, but I guess I put a lot more value in one end of the spectrum you're creating with your analysis. It seems like one end of your spectrum is total free will and chaos, and the other is no free will and a perfectly functioning hive of mindless robot people. I struggle to see the 'perfect' in that world.
I still think Anthem is an underrated dystopian novel, as it illustrates in a clever and poetic way what a society is without individuality. Huxley's world has no care for the individual. The individual is stricken from the record, having no value or consequence. I don't think a society can exist that way... It goes against human nature. Without individual value, reward, competition, a society will stagnate and eventually decay. BNW may have been intended to make you question the values of the spectrum of free will, but questions can have answers, and I find the thought of a society devoid of choices one of the most terrifying premises ever written. I cannot understand how people can read this book and find it desirable.
I should also mention that it has been a long time (about 7 years) since I read BNW. Perhaps I owe it another look.
If it troubles you that I do not see a perfect world in the setting of this book, then are you saying you are willing to give up your own free will for a society that resembles it?
No, because perfection is in the eye of the beholder. As I stated later in the post, such a society would not be my cup of tea. It's a "perfect" world because it's perfect in the eyes of its inhabitants and in the eyes of those who engineered such a world. The fact that it's perfect from their point of view and almost certainly imperfect from our point of view is the whole point--it's to let us see the cost of this perfection. If both we and the people in the book viewed the society as imperfect, then this would just be a cookie-cutter dystopia of how the future is messed-up. If both we and the people in the book viewed the society as perfect, then it would be another future utopian fantasy where all our problems magically disappear under the rug.
You don't have to agree with their society to appreciate it (and arguably, it'll be hard to appreciate it if you did), but you do need to let go of your preconceptions and be able to put yourself into their perspective and understand how and why it could potentially be viewed as perfect and utopian in order to fully grasp the point of the book.
I can see how one could legitimately see it as a perfect society (it does, after all, fix all of our problems). If free will is merely a vehicle by which we seek happiness and satisfaction, then what if we can achieve that happiness and satisfaction in another way? And what exactly is true happiness and satisfaction? At the end of the day, it's all just signals and chemical processes in the brain. If it's all the same at the neurological level, is "true" happiness really better than "fake" happiness, or is that merely what we have been raised to believe? Now, as someone who was born into and raised in our free-will-loving society and as someone who very much likes his free will, I wouldn't want to give it up. But I do ask myself, is that because free will is inherently, a priori better, or is that merely because that concept is what's familiar and comfortable for me? I don't know the answer, and a big part of me hopes that it's the former, but I love that BNW made me ask myself that question in the first place.
It terrifies me that anyone could read that book and see a perfect world in it.
Suffering from sever depression and anxiety, I viewed the world as perfect :( . I don't really mind if it's all conditioned happiness and lacking of real human emotion. It just all sound so comforting. I'll probably re-read it when I'm feeling better and change my opinion, but right now it's a utopia to me instead of dystopia.
Anyone who says that needs to stop and list how many TV shows they make a point of watching every week or how many sports teams they actively follow. Those are what's being used to sedate and control the population, waiting for the next game or series to show up that helps you sit down, shut up, and listen. Burn your energy and emotions on cheering on your team, not trying to make the world a better place.
And politics has been bannered in this same way. There's no need to really educate yourself on the issues, you just pick a team and root for them. (Democrats or Republicans, Conservatives or Liberals)
You make it sound like someone is plotting some kind of plan to control the world with television networks. That isn't what is happening. No one is trying to rule the world here, people are just trying to achieve their own goals. Sports have been part of human society for as long as their has been society, and now with technology you can have far more grand games, that people want to follow. People are out there to produce something entertaining to make money, other people are looking to entertain themselves, advertisers are out there to sell products, they all do as they will and the result is modern television. Movies. Hell, I'd argue book series fit into this fairly well as well, save that they are usually more personal and not based on advertising. Besides, who wants to keep people from making the world a better place? Politicians in general try very hard to get their audience to pay attention to them and support their policies (often through targeting smaller groups that care more about specific issues.)
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u/[deleted] Dec 07 '14
It terrifies me that anyone could read that book and see a perfect world in it.
Also, if you don't see terror being used as a controlling tool in our current culture then you're missing things. Not to say that I think 1984 was better, it was just two different takes on the same premise, and both have very ominous correlations with modern society. I always liked Anthem the best in terms of distopias. It was simpler and more pure to me.
I also hear people making reference to this book a lot more now that Marijuana is becoming legal in certain states, as if Pot will be used to sedate and control the population. Ridiculous to me, but people are serious about it.