A Brave New World

Wow, I finally had a chance to read "A Brave New World" by Aldous Huxley yesterday.
This is about as close to a horror novel that I want to read. I have long been a fan if Orwell and Bradbury, this book takes it oh so much farther, and is more accurate in the fact that we are living it. The narcissism and self absorption that he captures is eerily what I see in our society today, shy of making babies in tubes and no longer having families, he's really not far off. He even touches on the concept of Agenda 21 in the fact that civilized people all live right on top of each other with no desire to even visit the wild places.

Without giving the story away here is a quick synopsis for anyone who hasn't read the book. The "utopia" that Huxley creates is a sterile, bureaucratic, controlled mess. They bio engineer the populous to suit their needs by creating a caste system. Everyone is conditioned to accept their place in society by destroying their ability to think for themselves. They control everyone with drugs and sex, but punish anyone who has any kind of attachment to another human being. Nobody has any concept of humanity or sacrifice or goodness anymore because they are trained to be nothing but mindless consumers, and further conditioned to drug themselves if they begin to have any individual thought.

In general the society portrayed in this book is what serves to keep each other in line, it is horrifying to the characters for anyone to go against "his Fordship". No longer is it the spirit that leads people, it is the mass consumerism led by leaders styled after Henry Ford. They follow an absolutely disgusting worship of him, even though he is long dead in the novel,blind and all encompassing.The only real humanity that still exists is on a reservation in the American southwest, approximately around the 4 corners region. The Native Americans continue their ancient lifestyle there without the taint of modern society (though the characters in the novel feel differently about that) and the socialites can take vacations to observe the savages.

The main parallels that I see between this book and society today is the over sexualization of people, the inability or desire to care about anyone but themselves, the blind consumption, the ability to turn on those that are individuals, the fact that entertainment is all that even matters to anyone. They are conditioned from birth to have nothing to do with anything natural or beautiful, it is all about crude base desires and nothing else.

I have been wanting to read this book for so long, I am glad I did, but it creeped me out. I usually read to escape, but this was just wrong. A book copyrighted in 1932 ( at least my copy) should not be that on track Then again Huxley is one of 'them' too I guess. I am sure TPTB view us as their mindless workers making it possible for the Alpha double pluses to rule us properly.

I had to share this with someone, I doubt that anyone I know in real life has ever read this book. How many of you have, and what is your take on it.

I was getting into it a few months back (like you I waited way to long to read it), in between semesters, but it got kind of boring in the middle. The guy and the girl (forgot the names) were flying around in the air-car and screwing in the park. I had to put it on the shelf for later, but I'm going to power through the boring part as soon as I have time and finish it.

Related note, I also waited way to long to read 1984. Cant believe I didn't read that in my rebellious teenager days. But then again I probably wouldn't have appreciated it as much 15 years ago. What a mind-warp.

I too thought it was extremely eerie how relevant these old novels were, although it's not like controlling populations is anything new.

Thanks for re-kindling my interest in A Brave New World.

reply to post by ZeroReady


If this helps, it actually picks up and starts to get to the point after that.
There is a lot of describing the society that they created, but it's after the vacation to the reservation that the story comes together more.

And your welcome

reply to post by woodsmom


Funny you should post this today. I just finished reading Brave New World this morning.

It is kind of scary because it is not difficult to see the world changing in this way.

reply to post by straddlebug


So much of the attitude already exists, unfortunately. The family unit is no longer an important central part of so many people's lives. The attitude toward sex and intoxicants is pretty close to where a large portion of society sits, and the attitude of not having any control over one's own life circumstances seems to be rampant. How many times in the last year have you heard or read, " it's the 1 %'s fault". There are many variations on the theme, but people have let themselves be defeated to the point that they have allowed themselves to be imprisoned by lack of action on their part. Too many people feel that there is no way to improve their circumstances, they have been conditioned to believe it, even though there is always something to do to better your life. Volunteerism, start a small business, help a young single mom and her kids by caring about the kids. There are so many ways to improve ourselves, and it usually helps others as well. We are guilty of letting this happen. What are we going to do about it?

I am glad that I posted, synchronicity at it's finest here at ATS!
Thanks for your reply.

reply to post by woodsmom
When I was in high school in the early 80s I had this really open minded World History teacher. This teacher gave us a required reading list at the start of the school year. On this list were works of Aristotle and Plato, but also A Brave New World, 1984, and Fahrenheit 451. Back in those days I never thought the world could ever become such a place but Mr. Brown assured me that it was "coming down the pipe". Sadly he was correct'

reply to post by littled16


Hi! I was happy to see you respond

If only more of teachers had the foresight to share such works with their students, we may not have let it happen so unknowingly. More people could use to read them now as well, maybe some awareness would wake a few people up. It amazes me how openly they laid out their wishes for us to read in black and white. Although until these last few years the technology just didn't exist to pull it off. Now we have gaming systems that people willingly set up in their homes that epitomize 1984. Fahrenheit 451 and 1984 seemed to be almost warnings of where we could go, whereas Brave New World creeped me out because he paints it as such a good picture compared to the others, as good as one could.

reply to post by woodsmom
If you get a chance and haven't seen it I recommend you watch "Equilibrium". It stars Christian Bale. Your interest in A Brave New World assures me that you will really like it. It is in a lot of ways similar to A Brave New World but set in more modern times. If you use Netflix it is available in Watch Instantly and on DVD.