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A review by tuhmeeyur
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
4.25
wow. i'll start by critiquing this book because i have a lot of praise. i had to put aside the blatant racism underlying a lot of this story as well as some sexist undertones and a possible argument for eugenics. but, quotes like "ending is better than mending" and "was and will make me ill, i take a gramme and only am" are buzzing around my brain and i can viscerally feel just how programable the human mind is. this book is sickening and creepy in its realism. so tapped in to human nature and the direction totalitarian government seems to be moving closer and closer toward. while reading 1984, already knowing i'd read this book, but not having any clue how the dystopian societies would differ, i remember (thinking specifically of sex) how our society today does the opposite of what orwell's did. where the party made sex this disgusting thing, this sterile duty performed only to produce children, i thought to myself how, actually, sex for pleasure can be liberating, or it can be another form of slavery. and i think today we lean towards the latter.
huxley did a brilliant job of showing the effects of the opposite--a world where sex for pleasure is the duty to society, people must stay placated, docile, 'happy' at all times, and that is the only goal. you can't even get married and have children if you wanted to. instead, that is what they are conditioned to see as disgusting. mother and father, husband and wife, even lover as the dirtiest words. the use of unnecessary labor and drugs to keep the people subdued is also extremely relevant with today's opioid crisis, rampant high-functioning alcoholism, the building of smoke shops on every corner, the epidemic of the side hustle and/or second job just to get by. if we have the technology, why can't we feed and house everyone? because a society of alphas will never exist peacefully. at least that is what the current controllers seem to believe.
and part of what is so haunting about this novel is that despite the imagery of a thousand identical babies, grown in a lab, being administered electrical shocks to deter them from ever reading books or admiring the beauty of a flower, despite the fact that people are disgusted by the ideas of family, friendship, love, god that are the things we hold dearest to our hearts, despite the totalitarian government hypnotizing tweens in their sleep so they participate in rampant over-consumerism, despite it all, the ending leaves you wondering if the savage really were better off in this brave new world. if art or love or truth or beauty are worth all the pain and suffering in the world, or if we should trade it all in for happiness.
huxley did a brilliant job of showing the effects of the opposite--a world where sex for pleasure is the duty to society, people must stay placated, docile, 'happy' at all times, and that is the only goal. you can't even get married and have children if you wanted to. instead, that is what they are conditioned to see as disgusting. mother and father, husband and wife, even lover as the dirtiest words. the use of unnecessary labor and drugs to keep the people subdued is also extremely relevant with today's opioid crisis, rampant high-functioning alcoholism, the building of smoke shops on every corner, the epidemic of the side hustle and/or second job just to get by. if we have the technology, why can't we feed and house everyone? because a society of alphas will never exist peacefully. at least that is what the current controllers seem to believe.
and part of what is so haunting about this novel is that despite the imagery of a thousand identical babies, grown in a lab, being administered electrical shocks to deter them from ever reading books or admiring the beauty of a flower, despite the fact that people are disgusted by the ideas of family, friendship, love, god that are the things we hold dearest to our hearts, despite the totalitarian government hypnotizing tweens in their sleep so they participate in rampant over-consumerism, despite it all, the ending leaves you wondering if the savage really were better off in this brave new world. if art or love or truth or beauty are worth all the pain and suffering in the world, or if we should trade it all in for happiness.