On re-reading “Brave New World”(gossmanster.substack.com)
gossmanster.substack.com
On re-reading “Brave New World”
https://gossmanster.substack.com/p/brave-new-world
7 comments
Yeah no sorry, anyone who reads BNW outside the lens of the cold war endgame knows that Huxley's angle was never any -ism but human consumption in general, and harmful extremes of that consumption informing literally every other aspect of our lives.
I read it the opposite way: that Huxley was using consumption as one example of how modern society substitutes happiness for purpose (religion). Other examples being safety, sexual freedom, and drug use.
I remember reading it as something like that, how everything was about consumerism and happiness replacing religion and morals. In fact religion and morals ended up looking like some strange creature that no one could understand in the end and became like some lost civilization to poke at behind glass or some sort of zoo. I recall the ending the most striking as I'd say the character went to the extremes of religion in contrast to his culture, like a crazy monk going off to try and whip himself into shape to feel something that no longer existed in his culture therefore becoming their next form of mindless entertainment. Though I never took a class on this I think it would likely have been interesting. I know this book was written in opposite of 1984 but I feel it's messaging wasn't as clear. 1984 had two ending, this book, I'm not sure but it feels sort more hopeful in some weird way to me at least that was how I remember.
I'm curious about that last part, harmful extremes of consumption informing every other aspect of our lives, if you'd like to expand on that.
I don't think I ever read it for school, so it couldn't have been pitched as having anything to do with the Cold War. It struck me as a reductio ad absurdum of tendencies in American society.
Absolutely. But he skewers GB Shaw very explicitly, which certainly points to a satire on socialism too.
BNW was written in 1931, so to me it's obvious that it is less about any -ism and more about exploring* a society in which every pre-WWI virtue becomes a vice (and vice versa). If it's a satire of anything, it's of Edwardian society (through the looking glass).
Did you notice the (prescient) shout-out to Logan's Run?
* to this day I fail to see the dys- in what my high school teacher claimed was a dystopia (apart from the utter lack of high school english teachers in the BNW, that is)
Did you notice the (prescient) shout-out to Logan's Run?
* to this day I fail to see the dys- in what my high school teacher claimed was a dystopia (apart from the utter lack of high school english teachers in the BNW, that is)