[Books] Brave New World

[MomentOfSilence]

Is it terrible that I think most of Brave New World's society doesn't seem too awful?

[Neichus]

It's been a while since I read the book, so forgive me if I forget some details but I think what was most disturbing to me was the breakdown of the pursuit of meaning in favor of hedonism. It's essentially the end result of our society's current policy toward total moral relativism, which while on the surface is appealing ends up sapping the vitality of a culture and diverting all of its energies into pleasure seeking.

[Deleted]

It's been a while since I read the book, so forgive me if I forget some details but I think what was most disturbing to me was the breakdown of the pursuit of meaning in favor of hedonism. It's essentially the end result of our society's current policy toward total moral relativism, which while on the surface is appealing ends up sapping the vitality of a culture and diverting all of its energies into pleasure seeking.

Such a sentence......on these boards.

Now I've seen everything.


Also....






...Word!

[Deleted]

Good album!

[Deleted]

It's been a while since I read the book, so forgive me if I forget some details but I think what was most disturbing to me was the breakdown of the pursuit of meaning in favor of hedonism. It's essentially the end result of our society's current policy toward total moral relativism, which while on the surface is appealing ends up sapping the vitality of a culture and diverting all of its energies into pleasure seeking.

Wow... an articulate poster in the off-topic boards? *Kneels* You have my sword...

On topic, it's a rather disturbing thought that society today is not only gravitating towards something awfully similar to the Brave New World, but is actually supporting of its ideals. It represents a complete and total meltdown of the little I believe makes human society bearable.

[Skelington]

I personally think brave new world was an awful book that spiraled downward into an annoying love story and a "savage" who doesnt fit in with the mainstream whatnot.

While i dont really oppose the thought of being happy forever with no cares(depression sucks), im not certain im willing to lose my intelligence for it. Im all for an ideal world, and believe it can work(if people put in some effort and stop saying "but we are human!"), but im not sure mass repression is the way to do it.

[Merrena]

I had so much trouble following it...I was confused the whole time I was reading it.

I also considered stopping when it started talking about torturing babies...

[gualdhar]

It's been a while since I read the book, so forgive me if I forget some details but I think what was most disturbing to me was the breakdown of the pursuit of meaning in favor of hedonism. It's essentially the end result of our society's current policy toward total moral relativism, which while on the surface is appealing ends up sapping the vitality of a culture and diverting all of its energies into pleasure seeking.

Moral and cultural relativism and government supported (even enforced) hedonism are two completely different things. Relativism allows people to make their own decisions about what a healthy lifestyle is (excluding the harm of others of course) while the the book focused on sex and drugs as one means of controlling the plebeians. The drugs and orgies can be replaced by any other means of control (sleep learning as a means to indoctrinate the young, removal of the means to form true emotional bonds, like children, etc) and the book would be just as powerful. In fact, you could argue the book supports relativism, with Bernard's exile.

[Herecius]

Good album!

My first thoughts as well.

In any case, it's been many years since I read Brave New World, and I remember finishing it and being rather upset at the cynical bleakness of it all, but then again, I was an idealist reading Brave New World, so no surprise there.

[Neichus]

Moral and cultural relativism and government supported (even enforced) hedonism are two completely different things. Relativism allows people to make their own decisions about what a healthy lifestyle is (excluding the harm of others of course) while the the book focused on sex and drugs as one means of controlling the plebeians.

Well, the point is that sex and drugs have become more than a means for control. They have become the cultural ethic for that world: the aspiration to live a life of perpetual bliss with no pain. However, there are four separate issues I'd like to address:

1) Pleasure isn't happiness. This seems like a fairly simple statement but despite being "obvious" it's also the engine that drives our culture. Buying things is fun. Being entertained is fun. Having sex is fun. Therefore if we engage in enough non-stop fun we'll live a happy life. Only problem is that pleasure and happiness aren't the same thing. Pleasure is a temporary state, one which has strong negative feedback so that the same level of pleasure repeatedly will not give the same reward. There is no critical amount of pleasure that suddenly transform into actual happiness.

2) Not all "pleasure" is the same. I ate a chili-dog for lunch, it tasted good. I read my book and learned about how parasites have shaped evolution, that was also enjoyable. These were both "pleasures" so they must basically be equal. Again, I'd challenge this. Despite having the same English word for them they are not the same process and don't have the same results. As such you can't say that every pleasurable thing, from cupcakes to calculus, are on the same footing.

3) Can you have happiness without suffering? This is a more exploratory point on my part, but my own guess is that the answer is in fact "no." This gets back to Skelington's post about trying to make everybody happy without rob them of something else. The problem is that you can't live your life from start to finish happy because in order to attain that state you have to be unhappy at some point or another. Despite being aimed at a younger audience, The Giver does a masterful job of exploring this idea.

4) Living a "good life" does not result in happiness. This is the big point that I think our society has completely lost. Across the spectrum from the conservatively religious to liberal English professor it has become accepted that the definition of the right thing to do in life is one that increases happiness (of yourself or others). However, this appears not to be the case. A good example is Mother Teresa. You'd be hard pressed to find somebody who would say she didn't live an exemplary life, but a few years back a bunch of her letters came out revealing that in fact she was extremely troubled. The suffering she interacted with every day weighed on her; she didn't go to bed every night basking in the glow of God. She was less happy for what she did. "It is better to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied; better Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied."

So when I look at Brave New World I see all these fallacies in place, and unfortunately they are ones which are also present in our society. That future society has merely brought them to their (il)logical conclusion. I think I'll close with a quote from one of my favorite songs (at 3:34): "Before we let euphoria/convince us we are free/remind us how we used to feel/before when life was real..."