thoughts on 'brave new world'?

I have just finished reading it within the last hour or so.

I think it is a good book, but I don't have any decided views on the actual themes of the story.
that is to say, I am not sure whether to agree with the main controller (whose name I forget) or to agree with john the savage.

it seems like an alright place...
you are always happy and blissfully ignorant, and those who aren't satisfied with that, get to go away and live with like minded people.

however, I do see that it is likely only alpha plus people will come to this dissatisfaction, and this, by all means, is completely against the concept of free will and whatever else.

maybe it is just because I can think of nothing better than a definite identity, a definite belonging, and a feeling of satisfaction with that.

as for the things like mothers and lovers and fathers that are nonexistent, really, in the book, those who do not have them are blissfully unaware of what they are missing. so it is almost as if it does not matter...

I am prochoice, not just in what that usually means (pro abortion) but in that we should be able to choose whatever it is we like, and not be severely limited. however, if I were completely unaware of the ability to choose, would I still be unhappy with a society in which I have no control of my fate?
according to '1984', I might be. but if I were, wouldn't I just be sent to an island and put among a society more fitting for my particular 'freethinking' lifesyle?

as you can tell, I am conflicted in my views about the 'dystopian' society that huxley has created.

of course, it does give me a great deal of fear to think of the possiblity of a society where one cannot choose any aspect of their life, that everything becomes genetics...but it is not like anyone opposes this, other than john the savage who wasn't meant to live in such a society anyway, bernard and that other fellow who's name I forget as well. Both of whom are sent to the island of their choosing to live happily ever after. and infact, the alphas, the betas, gammas, deltas, are certainly most happy with where they are. they were genetically and environmentally cultured to...but still.

I can be easily swayed by anyone with an opinion that is well supported, considering I am on neither side.
I am just hoping to hear other people's suggestions and opinions, in however manner you choose to present them to me, as long as it is not horribly mean or negative.

I don't see any important reason for negativity much of anywhere, and certainly not in a forum for discussing books. :)

I am a newcomer, so please be kind and bear with me until I learn the ropes.
also, sorry for the excessively long post. I have a lot to say and question, and hopefully this isn't something one would need to apologize for?

fire away! :)

haha, it's ok to have really long posts...i know i sometimes do, and no, you don't have to apologize, most of us probably know what you meant anyway!

anyway, you raised some interesting questions. (forgive me if i forget something, i haven't read this book for a while) ok...i understand where you came up with the idea of "if we don't know what our options are, can we really be unhappy with what we have", i had a lot of those same thoughts too. but the only reason i think bernard wanted something more was because something went wrong during the test tube phase. i don't even think that most alpha pluses even considered being unhappy with the cards they were dealt.

as for the island, i can't help but wonder if it isn't like living as a savage

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Originally Posted by SnowQueen189

haha, it's ok to have really long posts...i know i sometimes do, and no, you don't have to apologize, most of us probably know what you meant anyway!

anyway, you raised some interesting questions. (forgive me if i forget something, i haven't read this book for a while) ok...i understand where you came up with the idea of "if we don't know what our options are, can we really be unhappy with what we have", i had a lot of those same thoughts too. but the only reason i think bernard wanted something more was because something went wrong during the test tube phase. i don't even think that most alpha pluses even considered being unhappy with the cards they were dealt.

as for the island, i can't help but wonder if it isn't like living as a savage

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ahaha, good to know.

hmm..
it might be...

I think it might be more civilized than life as a savage...but its a possibility.

the main characters name is bernard, but there are so many, the girl could also be seen as a main character,

it's one of those things, would i tbe better to have then lose, or better to have never had it. if you have had it and lost it, you miss it, but you can also remember causing you to experience the good and the bad, if you have never had it, how can you know what you are missing,

sorry to deviate from your topic, just to know what my mentality is, i am against abortion only because i think that everything, no matter how small for a reason and is just a small piece of your life.

ok, sorry for the abrubt ending of my last post, i had to leave in a hurry (let's say i wasn't supposed to be on the computer...), but as i was saying, i got the impression that when people were sent to live on the island, the former government stopped caring about what they did and said because they were no longer a threat to the rest of the modern society. The only thing I think would be the same is that people wouldn't willingly become parents because even if they were a rebal idealist, they were still so programmed to think that families were vulgar and disgusting...

Personally, I thought the ideas and themes in the book were great, but the writing in the novel was messy and horrible. Not a book I'd go back and reread.

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Originally Posted by SnowQueen189

but the only reason i think bernard wanted something more was because something went wrong during the test tube phase.

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I disagree. Did you not notice all the times that he knew exactly how many times and when certain phrases were repeated to people with the hypnopaedia technique? He was a psychologist, and I am pretty sure that that is why he wanted more. Because he understood that there was a reason that people were being manipulated to not want more.

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Originally Posted by MBVyay

I disagree. Did you not notice all the times that he knew exactly how many times and when certain phrases were repeated to people with the hypnopaedia technique? He was a psychologist, and I am pretty sure that that is why he wanted more. Because he understood that there was a reason that people were being manipulated to not want more.

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I think yall are both right. There's got to be more than Bernard for a psychologist,right? This is a world-wide society. All the other predestined psychologists love their jobs and lives. The fact that Bernard had a defect in his chemical-conditioning coupled with his position both are reasonable explanations for hs differences.

This might be a little bit off topic, but I think it has some relevance to this discussion. How close is modern society to the one in Brave New World? At first, it would seem that both societies are totally different. The exteriors of both societies are quite dissimilar. The future society is technologically more advanced, and people live what would seem to be completely different lives. However, modern society has many of the underpinnings of those found in Brave New World. The use of soma can be compared to the use of anti-depressant drugs today. Some are leading more licentious sexual lives. There are more parallels, but I just can't think of them off the top of my head right now. It seems that the brave new world is not so far off from today.

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Originally Posted by Picard89

This might be a little bit off topic, but I think it has some relevance to this discussion. How close is modern society to the one in Brave New World?

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We were having this discussion not long ago. Here. You might get a couple of suggestions from it.

Similarities, sure. Are we headed in the same direction? I don't think so, any more than we're headed towards 1984.

Our drugs are nowhere near as good as soma.

I think I think differently to you. To me, I could happily settle into a life of purely hedionistic pleasure.

As long as I'm an Alpha, of course.

:D

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Originally Posted by Dublo7

Personally, I thought the ideas and themes in the book were great, but the writing in the novel was messy and horrible. Not a book I'd go back and reread.

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messy? horible? i thought the book was fabulously well written. the complex ideas were clear, and the conflict between freedom and 'happiness' was very prevailent and intriguing. anyway-

i think that bernard's unhappiness stems purely from the problems with his conditioning. the society he inhabits is one that gives people a purely hedonistic and enjoyable life. that bernard does not feel so, shows that his mind has developed in an unforseen way.
the timbre of the book points towards a fairly ambivalent reading of the text. the 'brave new world' is neither terrible nor perfect; it merely has very obvious and strong pros and cons, which the reader is led to observe. the final conclusion of steven's (?) (the savage) feet swaying like a compass needle further highlight the feeling of being 'lost'. he is unable to come to terms with a culture that has no culture. a place where the basic human drives are supressed with chemicals and indoctrination.

the debate about Brave New World and 1984 is a very rich one. the two books obviously have much in common, but come at the problem of a dictatorship from very different perspectives. one is technology and the other is violence and poverty. it is clear that orwell had a much better grasp on the social aspects of fascism, stemming from his time in the spanish civil war and his adventures in his other autobiographical works (notably 'down and out'). i know nothing of huxley, but i suspect that Brave new world was influenced by the science fiction genre that was very popular at the time, and was even spreading to film.

as a final thought, someone once said to me that england, 'had spent so much time avoiding 1984 that we had become the brave new world without realising'. i think this may be true as our technology is getting close to the stage of embryo manipulation, and our morals regarding it are very divided, probably leaning more towards pro-genetics...

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Originally Posted by Dublo7

Personally, I thought the ideas and themes in the book were great, but the writing in the novel was messy and horrible. Not a book I'd go back and reread.

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I don't understand how you can call one of the greatest minds of the 20th century's writing "messy and horrible".

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Originally Posted by Ahkilleus

I don't understand how you can call one of the greatest minds of the 20th century's writing "messy and horrible".

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He's an Aussie - not one of your intellectual countries....

But since he posted that 3years ago, I doubt he'll be back.

:D

I enjoyed the writing style, especially the multiple instances of dialogue at the same time :).

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Originally Posted by Dublo7

Personally, I thought the ideas and themes in the book were great, but the writing in the novel was messy and horrible. Not a book I'd go back and reread.

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are you for real? It's amazingly written; the combined irony, wit and tragedy it evokes is in a different league to any other book I have read.

For me, I wouldnt mind escaping to that 'utopia' for a few weeks; no pain, no old age, no grief for the death of loved ones, sex is on tap and if things become a little stressful I could just take a few grammes of soma and off I go into a blissful existence with no hangover after it. However, I would nopt trade my present life for this no matter how hard it can be. To not have the ability to love or think is abhorrent. A world where children indulge in 'erotic play' and where someone dies in the presence of a dozen chocolate eating twins each with the same face is repugnant.

For me, the greatest image Huxley created was that of Helmhotz Watson, the great mind of the society (bar Mond) who shows signs of hope and a desire for something greater, cannot help but laugh hysterically at the thought of Juliet (romeo and juliet) choosing one man over the other and of a dead body lying there and not recovering the phospherous.

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Originally Posted by Oli

To not have the ability to love or think is abhorrent.

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But if you'd never known either, you wouldn't miss them.

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Originally Posted by The Atheist

But if you'd never known either, you wouldn't miss them.

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Not neccessarily, Bernard is able to think for himself due to being an outcast and probably incomplete conditioning; able to go against hypnopaedic teachings as he refuses to compulsively take soma, wants to contemplate nature and also wants Lenina to himself.

Mond is also aware of these concepts from his exchange with the Savage.

maybe i worded it wrong, hypothetically I could not go from my present existence into civilisation like the Savage does

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Originally Posted by Oli

... probably incomplete conditioning...

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Bingo.

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Originally Posted by Oli

Mond is also aware of these concepts from his exchange with the Savage.

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Sure, but understanding wouldn't be possible. It would be like one of us trying to figure how an elephant feels.

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Originally Posted by Oli

maybe i worded it wrong, hypothetically I could not go from my present existence into civilisation like the Savage does

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I could, but the drugs, women, feelies and everything about the lifestyle appeal to my sensual side.

:D

The quote "ignorance is bliss" never sat well with me. I'd rather be aware and deal with it then to be incapacitated and drooling on my feet all day. I prefer the life of John the Savage as it provides the freedom for self improvement and self fulfilment. It all comes down to what one considers to be living. For me the new world is not living. It gives what everybody strives to achieve but it is the striving itself that makes it living.

Hi guys,

Ehi don t be so aggressive :)
When i red the first chapter of the book i thought "**** book" too, but now that i red it a lot of times i can understand how much is wonderful

I like so much huxley's style that faces serious problems in a witty and easy way. But i must admit, i prefer george orwell's dystopias because i love dramatic and heavy novel more than witty ones.