/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.2422902]

Why is Brave New World considered a dystopia when it sounds like the ideal society?

[Anonymous No.2422906]

its a terrifying concept that humanity would be eradicated for the sake of comfort

[Anonymous No.2422909]

>>2422906
sounds like a pretty good reason to die

[Anonymous No.2422911]

Shitstormbrewing.jpg

[Anonymous No.2422910]

>>2422906

More like a prophecy for things to come, given the direction Western society is going.

[Anonymous No.2422914]

>>2422909

Who says they lost their Humanity? Pretty sure one of the better quotes given by the World Director was "They're men at work, but babies in leisure." Humanity is still working fine and dandy, just everyone's free to do whatever they want out of the workplace.

Seriously; technology and industry is booming while sex is free and available, drugs are not frowned upon but actively encouraged, and people are free to do whatever they please. How is that not liberty?

[Anonymous No.2422918]

>>2422914
i didnt. why are you responding to me

[Anonymous No.2422920]

>>2422914
>Doesn't know the difference between society and humanity.

Society will work just fine. Humanity won't exist because it's a detriment to keep society running smoothly and efficiently. The book is a satire on every person who has ever said, "Why don't we just do this and have a perfect society and all problems will be solved." The end of the novel has the savage and Mustapha Mond who represent the two extremes.

[Anonymous No.2422921]

>>2422918

Whoops, clicked the wrong, was meaning to refer to >>2422906

[Anonymous No.2422923]

>>2422914
>How is that not liberty?

Slaves to their desires. Enslaved by satisfying desire.

[Anonymous No.2422924]

It's not a dystopia, it's a false utopia. People embrace material comfort, like drugs, at the sacrifice of learning and enlightenment. Sex is about fun rather than spiritual closeness.

I don't think it's as entertaining a read as 1984, though. The part with the islands of enlightened people being kept out of society seemed particularly anti-climactic.

[Anonymous No.2422926]

>>2422923

The same could be said of the attitudes with many people nowadays. Society and Humanity can't live together, and it's fairly obvious Society is a fairer and more understanding thing then Humanity.

[Anonymous No.2422930]

>>2422914

The problem isn't that it's present but that people indulge in it without moderation.

Though because of the text's age, it sounds like folk warning each other against "THOSE YOUNGINS AND THEIR ROCK N' ROLL." It's my opinion we need to do stupid or "meaningless" things for catharsis, but when we over-indulge, it no longer matters.

[Anonymous No.2422931]

>>2422910

>secular people believing in "prophecies" and prophets
>forgetting Brave New World is sci-fi

Adult versions of kids who play too many video games. Adults who read books and think "IT'S REAL!"

[Anonymous No.2422932]

>>2422926

For example, the Savages were arguably raw Humanity (the whole dichotomy of the two peoples) and they lived in filth and disease, who'd exactly want to live like that? Spirituality and wisdom are pretty useless when you're dying of dysentery or starving.

[Anonymous No.2422934]

>>2422926
see
>>2422909

The entire worth of the book in context the present day is that it predicted more or less where western society is going.

>it's fairly obvious Society is a fairer and more understanding thing then Humanity.

Well, you'll be on Mond's side then.

[Anonymous No.2422939]

>>2422902
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Last_man

[Anonymous No.2422941]

>>2422932
I think Huxley successfully made an argument against both extremes, and in favour of the middle-ground.

[Jeff Mangum Died For Your Sins !rAl8Mz2mp2 No.2422942]

>>2422931
Ugh, this is one of the absolute most depressing comments i've read in a long time.

[Anonymous No.2422948]

>humanity
>learning
>enlightenment
>spiritual closeness

[Anonymous No.2422955]

>>2422902
I actually did a presentation about a similar topic in my final year in high school. It's considered a dystopia, because it presents something radically different to what we're accustomed to, and humans fear change like the fucking plague. I used the family example, where in the book the director (I think) says how in the past children had to deal with abusive parents, bad nourishment, neglect, uneven educational standards, but in their world everyone is guaranteed everything they need and no one is left out.

[Anonymous No.2422965]

[Anonymous No.2422979]

An embedded caste/class system, a command to worship consumerism, the lack of care paid towards the environment, the rejection of human curiosity and in its place the constant consumption of basic pleasures, the rejection of people who are different and the refusal to try to understand them, the fact that those in power are hypocritical in the sense they urge this behaviour/way of life but reject it themselves, the necessary gender performance. etc.

[Anonymous No.2422980]

>>2422955
It's not considered a dystopia. It presents us an idea of a utopia and how devoid it is of certain qualities found in humanity. The only way for people to really function in that utopia is to be drugged.

[Anonymous No.2423170]

It was only good if you were an Alpha, or tolerable if you were a Beta. On the other hand, free drugs and sex, so notbad.jpg

[Anonymous No.2423201]

>>2422980
Huxley himself considered it a dystopia (or a "negative utopia"). What particular humanity are those people robbed of? Except the animalistic qualities that we have that cause so much misery? It's a trade-off, but what exactly are we missing except a vaguely defined "humanity"?
And how many people can only function on drugs anyway? Anti-depressants, alcohol, weed, or even coffee and chocolate? How many freely consume entertainment to boost their moods? When exactly did our "humanity" peak then?

>>2423170
From your current perspective, perhaps. You don't take into account the conditioning they were given. They were literally designed to perform certain jobs/tasks and to feel happy about doing it. It gave them a clear purpose, direction and a place to belong. Gamma and deltas didn't mind, just like a regular Joe would be afraid to suddenly take a responsible managerial job for which he's both unfit and unqualified.


>>2423170

[Anonymous No.2423330]

>>2423201

This.

We're already living in a world where people commonly medicate themselves not just to feel better, but to stay ahead of the other people who are medicating themselves just as much.

Men for most of their lives value quick and easy sex, and glorify those who are adept at acquiring it as often and easily as possible. We (at least our society) see's religion as a wholly useless affair that only holds value as something for community, same with Fordism and the Orgy Porgy.

From the moment of CONCEPTION they're conditioned to believe everyone is equal, be naturally proficient at the job they're bred for, and will stay naturally beautiful and youthful till the moment they die at the ripe old age of 65 or so. Hell, even things like death aren't seen with fear, you're taught to see it as "just another part of living."

[Anonymous No.2423335]

>>2423330

What does love, spirituality and wisdom give you that a tablet of Soma and a night to the feelies with your new girlfriend can't?

[Anonymous No.2423351]

>>2423335
The latter is life denying and depersonalised.

[Anonymous No.2424130]

Gratifying your every desire on the spot is not happiness.

[Anonymous No.2424186]

>>2423201

Nope, he just publicly said that so as to not seem like he advocated drugs, eugenics, disintegration of the family structure, etc. Look at his philosophical treatise, Island, which he claims to be the perfect utopia. Drugs are errywhere, everyone's sex lives are raging (though only through tantric sex), there is no formal family hierarchy or structure, and trance states are used for indoctrination into the island's philosophy. It's Brave New World minus authoritarian government. But even Huxely acknowledges this is infeasible -- the end of Island shows that the prospect of his libertarian utopia is impossible, but that by promoting the same values under a totalitarian regime the same effect may be achieved.

tl;dr anyone who thinks that Brave New World is a dystopia is free to their opinion, but if they claim that it was intended to be one they don't know SHIT about Huxely.

[Anonymous No.2424199]

>Taking Brave New World as an example of a world that should be rather then a world that shouldn't.

Wow, this thread is great at detecting the soulless.

[Anonymous No.2424210]

A mod should add a dystopia sticky. These threads spawn every two hours.
It's getting tiring to see babby's first book with the same ol' novels.
1984 was mediocre, I'm never trusting you again, /lit/.

[Anonymous No.2424211]

"They're men at work, but babies in leisure." -- Aldous Huxely, Brave New World

Now in private life...

"A child-like man is not a man whose development has been arrested; on the contrary, he is a man who has given himself a chance of continuing to develop long after most adults have muffled themselves in the cocoon of middle-aged habit and convention." -- Aldous Huxely

“We are all geniuses up to the age of ten.” -- Aldous Huxely

Seriously dystopiafags, are you guys even trying?

[Anonymous No.2424212]

>>2424130
Moving the goalpost. If undying ecstasy is not happiness, then why should we strive for happiness?

[Anonymous No.2424218]

because the comfort makes you unable to appreciate the enjoyment, because the only way to know what's pleasure is knowing what is not pleasant.
On the other hand, many people are totally disabled physically and mentally depriving them of their normal development.
Oh and I forgot that pleasure is not just physical

[Anonymous No.2424221]

>>2422902

>it sounds like the ideal society?

The tension between the perspective of Huxley's time and ours.

[Anonymous No.2424223]

>>2422965
I hate that this thinks orwell was "predicting the future". He was commenting on the present. What was going on there was an extreme version of what was going on in his time.

[Anonymous No.2424227]

I read A Brave New World when I was little, 12 years old maybe.
I'm not going to say that I undestood it wholly, because that would be a lie.
But I never saw it as a dystopian future. It seemed pretty good to me.

[Anonymous No.2424239]

>>2423201
Basically what you're saying is that the Brave new World society is ideal because the people in it were conditioned to believe it was ideal.

[Anonymous No.2424268]

ITT: Butthurt dystopiafags who haven't read "The Doors of Perception" and "Island."

[Anonymous No.2424279]

>>2423201
>gammas and deltas didn't mind because of their conditioning

and isn't that a problem? Doesn't that take away an essential part of humanity, to be better than what we already are?

[Anonymous No.2424286]

>>2424268

This.

[Anonymous No.2424293]

>>2424279
What if humanity 100,000 years ago meant something else? What if we lose something vital and beautiful, something imperative to the "true" human condition? Does it even mater? Would you even care if you didn't know? Couldn't you still be happy in the absence of "true" humanity?

[Anonymous No.2424301]

>>2424279
This. Feeling satisfied because you're hopped up on drugs and working a shit job is fine when you're a stoner that dropped out of college, but forcing that feeling on entire working classes? I don't think so.

[Anonymous No.2424322]

>>2424293
It would be a false happiness. A man could live in a dark room for his entire life and not know the beauty of sight. He might be happy in that room, but he was deprived of something natural to him.

Obviously that's not the best analogy, but the point is obviously I wouldn't know about "the essential part of my humanity" if I was part of this scenario but looking from the outside in I would EASILY say doing something like that is unethical.

Point is I would care. A lot of people would if they knew that they've lost something like that.

[Anonymous No.2424326]

>>2424301
>Implying that happiness isn't relative to the observer and that your morality is the superior one

Giving the lives of the plebeian classes meaning is a terrible thing, right?

[Anonymous No.2424328]

>>2424322
I should have typed that better. I stumbled on my words there because I was in a hurry to type. My apologies.

[Anonymous No.2424335]

>>2424322

But no one is looking from the outside except the savage, and those problems would have been taken care eventually.

[Anonymous No.2424337]

>>2424326
It's a false meaning. It's not the god given (or science given) right of "you can improve your worth in society" it's a manufactured meaning of "everyone likes you where you are"

What I'm arguing is that the pursuit of happiness (not the attainment of) is a more natural feeling for humans than providing a manufactured happiness for humans. To me it's wrong. Obviously others have a different opinion.

[Anonymous No.2424340]

>>2424268

Well, Aldous Huxley wrote both of those books ages after BNW. Abd especially Island, whose ending chilled me endlessly, put that in context. Things H understood near his death bed, he never would've in the thirties. BNW is, how ever much I liked it, something which was not thought through. He touches parts of what he reaches in the Doors, but he doesn't go there fully. It's all vague, as some anon put it. And if that is so, we start to question why we would care?

Also, bloody pneumatic man, bloody pneumatic.

>>2424293

His point is that the life you're living now is that false happiness. And yet you argue that your life is true. Truth is a perspective and in the eye of the higher authority it can be dismissed.

CAPTCHA: JOHN SEPA

[Anonymous No.2424352]

http://faculty.smu.edu/nschwart/seminar/Fallacy.htm

You guys are all fags.

[Anonymous No.2424363]

>>2424352
/thread

[Anonymous No.2424366]

>>2424352
I really don't want to read all of that. I'm guessing it's saying that looking at the author's intention when looking at a work is bad,right? If I'm wrong my apologies there,again, I don't want to read that.

I don't like that form of analysis. You should always consider the author's intent. It's a form of context that, without it, leaves a hole in the meaning.Also it's the only truly "objective" way to measure a work's meaning,as the author is the lord of the domain.

[Anonymous No.2424524]

bump, can we get some more opinions on

>>2424326
>>2424268
>>2424211
>>2424186
>>2423335

[Anonymous No.2424565]

>>2424279

>implying we're any different.

Every society can be abysmal from the perspective of another society, and all "free will" is a logical impossibility. The only real measuring stick is, not happiness(which is a fleeting, unsustainable temporary state) but contentment and avoiding suffering.

[Wan Shi Tong No.2424590]

I liked 1984 but I didn't like this book.
Anyone else feel the same?