Brave New Meanderings

In Brave New World, Huxley presents a possible utopian/dystopian future in which humans are cloned into different classes of people. These various classes are not only genetically conditioned to fulfil their role within society – they are also psychologically conditioned to feel that their position in society makes them happy. In short, the people living in Brave New World are kept constantly happy while consuming products.

I was filled with dread while reading this book. It trickled in off the page, through my eyes. It collected in pools in my brain before flowing down to my gut. This book represents my gut feeling about society as it is at the moment.

Just after I started reading the book, I put the following post on my facebook page:



My friends seem to like the society in Brave New World! And actually, what’s not to like? Everyone, and I mean everyone in this society is happy. There is very little civil unrest, people do not celebrate the death of a politician (there aren’t even any politicians!), there are no wars nor is there a possibility of a war. Life seems pretty good. Eternal happiness of the spotless mind.

Except I find something very disturbing in this idea. Sure everybody is happy, but that doesn’t stop the fact that some are exploited for the happiness of others. I’m reminded of a satirical cartoon which mocks facebook.


 I don’t want this blog post to be all preachy and conspiracy theory-ish. I want to just share some parallels between the society within Brave New World and our own. But that doesn’t mean my views are correct – I might be constructing meaning out of noise or giving too much significance to random patterns, claiming that there is an overall structure.

I have written about talent shows before and my friends know that I avoid these. My previous post focussed on how talent shows look for talent in the wrong place. It is a pointless thing to say that talent is “all in the voice.” Whoever told Morrissey, Dave Grohl or Noel Gallagher that they had a conventionally “nice” voice? By picking talent based on voice alone, music is so horribly homogenised it has made all pop music sound the same.

Talent shows are a large part of our cultural identity – #BGT, #BritainsGotTalent and #TheVoiceUK are all trending on twitter as I write this. “But people enjoy it, what’s the problem?” The problem I have is that when people unquestioningly enjoy any art form, the producers realise they no longer have to be original and get lazy with what they make. I see this as the destruction of real creativity. There are real musical artists out there. However, due to their experimental nature, these musicians are not universally liked. This is bad news for record companies who want the maximum listenership, so they mash ideas together, attempting to get ‘the best of all’ but succeeding in removing the passion and ingenuity of the artists who first dreamt up new sounds.

In other areas too, it seems we are provided with media of inadequate creative content. Hollywood movies seem to be packed with special effects but not much story, Oxford Street shops pull greater numbers of people in than cultural hotspots such as art galleries or museums (which are mostly free by the way!). The following story is anecdotal so can be ignored. On a recent trip to central London, I thought I’d spy what was so great about M&Ms World near Leicester Square. It turns out it is just a massive sweet shop, selling colourful, round sugar packets. And it is always busy. The crowds stressed me out. Instead I travelled just round the corner to the National Portrait Gallery. Guess what? Peace and quiet! It was, by M&M standards, empty. A cultural hotspot empty, while a garish, sweet shop was filled to bursting!

I’m not saying that society already is like that in Brave New World – a key difference is that we do still have culture, something which has been destroyed in Brave New World. However, it seems people are happy eating throw away food before going to the cinema to see a throw away film; while driving home they play throw away music. Maybe we should start investing a bit more time and effort into both creating and consuming entertainment. If we start to ignore certain cultural objects they will disappear and will be gone forever. Either that or just ignore this post: throw it away…
Location: London, UK

Comments

et in arcadia ego said…
It's interesting that you would chose to go after the cultural parallel between the modern world and the book. I think the books greatest success in terms of "futurology" is the fact that it correctly guessed that entertainment would veer massively towards things that required large amounts of expenditure and were best experienced as a large group (being alone is frowned upon).

In the context of the book though, more "high brow" culture is removed because it would cause dissent and doesn't require large amounts of productivity to produce, Bernard and Mustapha argue about the merits of the masses knowing Shakespeare, for example.
In the contemporary case, however, i think you would have to be particularly paranoid that similar forces are on hand to produce the TV shows we know and "love".

Using Right To Reply as the black annon box in the facebook post, I would just like to point out that I don't think that Brave new world is the best way to run a society. I think it has a lot of appeal to people who would think of themselves as alpha double plusses because they would invariably feel like they've come out on top. I think it also appeals to scientists as well because the whole society seems methodical. I think they're missing the point though because as you see in Mustsapha's monologue at the end true scientific thought is also wiped out because of the societies fear of change.

In conclusion I guess it's good to just leave with a reported Huxley quote from a long time after the initial publication where he stated that he wasn't sure anymore if the book was intended a blueprint, an allegory or a warning.
14 April 2013 at 13:26
Andy Roast said…
Thanks for you reply. Yes, I did want to write about how our entertainment system increasingly involves spending more money and being entertained as part of a large group - I didn't have space to write this.

I think I missed the point I was trying to make with the post. I was trying to argue the negatives as well as the positives for the society in Brave New World. I agree with you that the society in Brave New World appeals to those who believe they would be Alpha-Double-Pluses, but actually wouldn't it also appeal to Deltas and Epsilons? These people are conditioned to be happy with their position in society - without the will to climb the ladder, there is no unhappiness.

But is this unjust? We would argue "Yes" because we see open access as a good thing, but what if you have grown up never wanting to be "higher than your station"?

That said, I also agree that it is not the best way to run a society - it is unjust. I think I should go away and properly conclude what I think of all of this before writing another post :)
24 April 2013 at 09:48
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