/lit/ - Literature

Brave New World basically says that there's a kind of "good struggle" that characterizes humanity. I always imagine some old guy talking about how he had to walk ten miles in the snow uphill or something. Soma is happiness without the actual killing Goliath shit that you usually need to achieve the happiness. I think Huxley would say that that the ideal society is one where everyone has to build character and find happiness by struggling. But not too much. Just a manageable, character-building amount that's the same for everyone.

On not-quite-the-other-side, this guy takes the completely unsentimental stance that society can be quantitatively judged on happiness, so the BNW society's got it right. (Keep in mind the only people that had issues with it were an outsider and some dude that they literally fucked up due to a freak accident [injecting him twice]).

I know that Harris has an entire section about BNW and why it's bad, but I think it's a huge cop-out basically. He pulls some Kwisatz Haderach bullshit like "everyone knows a happy society without soma would be better!" but I think he still ends up contradicting the entire basis of "avoid suffering," which is what BNW does.

Anyway it's a really cool topic and one I don't think I'll ever be sure about. I liked this:

>>5017415

>Factory parts come to life, get brainwashed, take soma and fuck each other, and go to work in factories to sustain the production of more factory parts.

I'd argue that we already are factory parts. Where's the line? We already have public schooling and television.

BNW's got to be one of my favorite books thematically (not in terms of the actual writing).