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/lit/ - Literature

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5960558 No.5960558 [Reply] [Original]

Do people who think BNW isn't preferable to our current world just have sheltered, privileged lives?

In other words, are the people dismissing the BNW society part of the small group who is basically already living in it? Do they just refuse to come to terms with it out of misplaced illusions of individualism?

>> No.5960649

Are you asserting that BNW IS preferable to the current world? Did you even read the book?

>> No.5960680

>>5960649
I am and yes.

Everyone lived to live in warless, clean environments with plenty of food and drink. The vast majority enjoyed their lives and jobs. Illness wasn't an issue and neither was poverty. The only complaint by a few bad apples was that they didn't feel like enough of a snowflake and that they wanted to be miserable and unique and have dramatic feelings.

I'd say that's vastly preferable to the kind of lives most people live today.

>> No.5960694

>>5960680

But is wasn't real. Soma baby, Soma.

>> No.5960708

>>5960680
I hate contentedness. Its almost always fake.

>> No.5960711

Isn't there some famous politician or philosopher who was inspired by Brave New World to reject utilitarianism? I tried to Google to find his name but I can't remember who it was.

Anyway, no, most people would not prefer BNW's world to ours, and Huxley definitely wouldn't. Most people see it as a pretty explicit satire and rejection of the kind of thinking you're doing right now, but hey to each his own. Call me when you've invented soma, I'd like to try it.

>> No.5960714

>>5960708
fucks sake anon, I cut myself

>> No.5960719

ITT OP is the last man

>> No.5960721

>>5960708
It's not fake in BNW. It's fabricated and forced, but real.

>> No.5960732

>>5960694
Soma was just the icing on the cake, people were also generally well adapted and predisposed to like their lives.

Also, drug induced feelings are no less real than feelings achieved by other stimuli.

>> No.5960734

>>5960721
so its fabricated, but not fake. even though those are practically the same thing.

>> No.5960742

>>5960734
I guess I live in a fake house then.

>> No.5960787

>>5960742
fab·ri·cate
ˈfabrəˌkāt
verb
past tense: fabricated; past participle: fabricated
invent or concoct (something), typically with deceitful intent.
"officers fabricated evidence"
synonyms: falsify, fake, counterfeit, cook

>> No.5960793

>>5960787
>invent or concoct (something), typically with deceitful intent.
those damn factories spouting lies!

>> No.5960798

>>5960734
I'm guessing you think liking cars is completely natural and that if we lived in the wilderness we would still care who wins a sport cup.

>> No.5960825

>>5960798
No. Why would you think that?

>> No.5960835

>>5960825
Because it's just as fake as any Brand New Feel in the book, just more sincerity from the people in power.

>> No.5960842

>>5960835
That explains nothing.

>> No.5960855

I became really depressed after reading BNW. Does anyone else see the connection between the hypnopaedia in the novel and catchy pop songs of today? I swear it's some jewish conspiracy.

>Gotta stay high all my life
>to forget I'm missing yoouu

>> No.5960858

>>5960711
Robert Nozick
>http://markmperry.wordpress.com/2011/03/19/brave-new-world-utilitarianism-and-inauthentic-happiness-generating-machines/

>> No.5960861

>>5960855
Yes, pop songs, not political slogans ever.

>> No.5960862

>>5960798
Perfect point friend.

I really did enjoy BNW but there are certain people who run around like headless chickens shoving it down your throat as if it applies in totality to our current day n age. It does in some aspects but it depends entirely on how you see things, world views are subjective, if you asked an advocate of eastern philosophy what he thought of a life filled with pleasure and happiness, He would tell you that the sources aren't as important assuming their not malicious.. The only problem with the distopian future in BNW is a lack of awareness, but seriously guys... its FICTION.. It is a novel, a story book intended to evoke feeling and raise awareness of a POSSIBLE outcome to a totalitarian government.. Nothing else some people need to stop treating it like the new bible

>> No.5960863

itt: no one has gotten close to tapping into OP's critical theory

every poster has just proven themselves to be one of these aforementioned bad apples who attribute meaning to suffering as a way to make their poor decisions appear as a necessary constant for the good of everyone

truth is no niggers itt would feel uncomfortable being comfortable if they had suffered in action as opposed to suffering by over-ruminating in mental illness

>> No.5960867

>>5960787
That might be a useful definition when you're talking about Chinese Rolexes, but when you're talking about mental states there is no such thing as differing levels of realness.

You're basically saying "this dopamine release doesn't count you're cheating!" based on some flawed perception of authenticity.

It's the same sort of deluded approach that leads people to use the word "chemical" negatively or consider a cottage more of a real home than an apartment. Badly conceived romantic nonsense.

>> No.5960868

>>5960787
I apologize, in my language 'fabricated' is anything made by men, usually in factories. Like the people in BNW.

>> No.5960888

>>5960868
the will of man is an extension of nature you metaphysical libertarianist potion purifying gook

>> No.5960890

>>5960798
Why do you think human nature isn't nature? Apes and crows use sticks as tools, they probably value a nice stick. We use cars and value them as well.

Tool use is essential to our species and part of our 'nature' since 'human nature' is only a descriptive term for what we actually do. Saying that something a human does lies outside of his nature is absurd.

You might as well call a giraffe's neck unnatural because he's the only cunt with such a long one, while it is precisely in the nature of a giraffe to have such a long neck since long neckedness is one of the features we use to describe what giraffes tend to be like.

>> No.5960907

>>5960890
Your a tard burger

>> No.5960910
File: 4 KB, 225x225, lowqb8.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
5960910

>>5960680

>> No.5960913

>>5960862
It's also a very superflous look on that world. There could still be art and some variety of thinking, just that as foreigners they all look the same like people with chinesse folk.

>> No.5960918

>>5960910
>>5960907
>>5960913
see
>>5960863

>> No.5960924

>>5960907
Calling people tard burgers is unnatural maaan if we lived in like the wilderness do you think people would call each other tard burgers duude nature is like living in huts with spears maaan let me tell you why behaviour i don't like is unnatural dude

>> No.5960925

>>5960863
great post, I especially liked how you generalized wildly about everyone else, contributed nothing to the discussion, and repeatedly used the word nigger for no reason at all. this is why I come on 4chan

>> No.5960942

>>5960925
>generalized wildly about everyone else
generalization is not inherently wrong. there is no reason other than petty rationalization that one could enjoy not enjoying.

contribution is for divisive underage teens. i prefer to summarize and make coherent how foolish the uncritical chimps of 4chan can be.

>> No.5960943

>>5960925
He's spot on though.

The only point made against the BNW world ITT is that it is somehow "fake" which is a pretty empty criticism because people determine what they consider real and fake on a completely arbitrary preferential basis.

>> No.5960979

>>5960711
>caring about authorial intent
>107 After Ford

>> No.5961033

>>5960888
pure ideology

>> No.5961091

>>5960943
No, there's also the point that you can reject utilitarianism altogether (without bothering to subdivide utilitarianism into "real" and "fake" types). Brave New World shows pretty explicitly that a naive approach to maximizing individual pleasure creates a sterile, nearly dead society. The solution isn't to desire suffering, it's to desire life (the latter does not necessitate the former).

>>5960942
You're a shitposter with a superiority complex and you're not nearly as smart as you think you are.

>> No.5961171

This up King Nigger needs to read the birth of tragedy and wise up.. Godamn.

>> No.5961276

>>5960855

>implying she is painting being high as a good thing in her song

>> No.5961286

>>5960943

People on anti-depressants aren't naturally happy. They're fake happy. Take away the drugs and they want to kill themselves. Take away the Soma and nobody in BNW is content. IIRC one character says or thinks something along the lines of "I started to feel sad/worried/angry so I took some Soma"

>> No.5961290

>>5960855
There are certainly some songs like that. But they're more just continuing existing social expectations:
>lots of songs about being in da club
>those songs are probably funded by the clubs
>coincidence?

>> No.5961304

>>5961276
It doesn't matter though. It's a mindless catchy song that gets stuck in kids heads before they even know what it means. Same with All about that Bass and other top 40 pop songs that play on the radio. Jewish propaganda at it's purest.

>> No.5961310

>>5961304
>>>/pol/

>> No.5961321

>>5961091
How is the BNW society nearly dead? People have their jobs and friends, they have a bunch of fun entertainment and they like to get fucked up, get laid and buy stuff. That's pretty much our society, but ours isn't as well organised and leads to large parts of the world living in scarcity and conflict.

Sterile and nearly dead as opposed to what? Dirty and intensely alive ebola sufferers? Hungry street orphans? Tribes killing each other with machetes?

It's easy to dismiss anything clean, pleasant and orderly as boring and vapid and lot of people are in the vain habit of putting down our current consumerist societies, but I've yet to hear about an enticing alternative that isn't some naive pseudo-Nietzschean romanisation of war and hardship or a utopian primitivist noble savage myth.

Generally though, I don't get the idea that people dislike the actual BNW lifestyle but the presentation. It's too honest and straight forward. We want the clean, sheltered, convenient consumerist life, but at the same time a lot of us need to believe that we are actually unique and special beings living an intensely interesting narrative full of great trails and adventure. For the observer, the difference between the life of a BNW citizen and that of someone 'living life to the fullest' by contemporary standards isn't that different. We backpack through South-East Asia telling ourselves we make epic journeys, refusing to realise we're on a self-indulgent trip through the savage reservations. Same stuff, different narrative. We're already there, but we still need to tell ourselves we aren't to accept it.

>> No.5961325

>>5960680
By chance, are you an atheist?

>> No.5961326

>>5961304

I think you need to relax

>> No.5961331

>>5961286
Soma = Starbucks, or alcohol, or any other substance?

>> No.5961336

>>5961310
>>5961326
AM I WRONG? IS THAT NOT WHAT IT IS?

>> No.5961338

>>5961286
>IIRC one character says or thinks something along the lines of "I started to feel sad/worried/angry so I took some Soma"
every single character?

>> No.5961345

>>5961325
Is being in favour of people not living in scarcity and suffering a distinctively atheist position?

>> No.5961361

>>5961345
No it's not. But that being the only criteria then maybe. The world in BNW is a fully atheist society.

>> No.5961367

>>5961286
People on food aren't naturally satiated. They're fake satiated. Take away the food and they want to kill themselves. Take away the food and nobody IRL is content. IIRC one person says or thinks something along the lines of "I started to feel hungry so I took some food".

>> No.5961373

>>5961321
>That's pretty much our society
No, that's the shallower aspects of our society. BNW is a world that is ENTIRELY shallow.

>> No.5961375

>>5961361
They may be atheist but they aren't complete irreligious with their Fordism. They have their ideology, their shared values, their rituals et cetera.

>> No.5961382

>>5961373
Which deeper aspects are they missing out on and how does this affect them negatively?

>> No.5961397

>>5961375
Then maybe religions not the problem. Yet the people in this society are essentially automatons. Never really thinking, just doing.

>> No.5961398

>>5961397
They never have a sense of purpose. Fuck it maybe it's all correct. Who cares?

>> No.5961428

>>5961397
So the problem is they're not self-aware enough to your tastes?

>> No.5961432

>>5961367
But anooon, food is found in nature so it's good! Soma and antidepressants are not, they're made by men so it's baaaad!

>> No.5961446

>>5961397
Just like most people in our society, you mean? Is being free to choose in which brand you're going to clad yourself with as you do the same as everyone else more important than general well being?

>> No.5961449

>>5961428
touche, you get me to think. You're right, people should just do what they want to do. We should all live our lives the way we want to.

>> No.5961457

>>5961432
>tfw some people actually think like this

someone should sell 100% natural organic ayurvedic sustainable fair trade hemlock tea to them

>> No.5961467

>>5961446
I've changed my stance. Like I said bellow. People should do what they want. We're all not really connected in any physical or spiritual way.

>> No.5961476

>>5961449
The thing is though, currently, everyone living like they want creates a lot of tension and conflict.

In a society like BNW, people all get to live like they want, but they've been designed and conditioned for their wants to be harmonious. Which sounds creepy to some, but is likely the only way to any form of harmony.

>> No.5961477

>>5960558
>Do people who think BNW isn't preferable to our current world just have sheltered, privileged lives?
Not all, I am sure some rich people do but I would be surprised to discover that only rich people enjoy personal liberty and social mobility.

>are the people dismissing the BNW society part of the small group who is basically already living in it?
No, tons of people oppose a hierarchically organized society of rigid roles. I would be hard pressed to call opponents of fascism a minority.

>> No.5961493

>>5961477
It's one thing to say "forcing a hierarchy on people who oppose said hierarchy is bad", but it's quite another thing to say "having a hierarchy in a society where all people want said hierarchy is bad".

You'd have to say the latter to dismiss the BNW society. Imagine a fascism where Italy is the world and every single person agrees with Mussolini. Would you still say it's bad for everyone to get what they want?

>> No.5961522

>>5961476
That's the whole ethical issue humans are against. Thus BNW is not the solution.

>> No.5961533

>>5961522
They just need to be made to see light. Tell anyone who does not live a privileged bourgeois life that their children will have the chance to live a good life and see how many will choose the freedom to starve and live in constant deprivation.

>> No.5961540

>>5961533
Indeed you are correct. History does is not recorded, textual, far back enough to see the greater pattern. Idk I live on this notion that time is circular.

>> No.5961541

>>5961493
You made your point specific to the notion of people in the current world dismissing or not dismissing the rigid hierarchy of the world of BNW, and there are many folks who oppose hierarchy as presented in BNW. They do not constitute a small minority who is already living in it, as you have speculated in the OP, but constitute a global majority.

>> No.5961542

>>5960918
My mistake. I can see you are trying to bait me and you feel that you are sincerely contributing a valid opinion to the deconstruction of Brave New World. I think the consensus among intelligent people would be that you missed the point and should be made to reread it. I'm trying my best not to insult you but you're making it difficult to take you seriously. At least no one can say I didn't give you the benefit of the doubt.

>> No.5961576

>>5961522
That's what's silly though.

If you're going to be born into a world where you can only get violets, would you prefer to grow up 100% certainly liking violets or would you take a 95% chance you like some other flower and end up in a situation where it's impossible to get what you want?

Being artificially determined to like what you can get seems better than being randomly/naturally determined to most likely like what you can't get. If anything allowing the latter to take place seems cruel when you can help it.

>> No.5961595

>>5961576
But I wouldn't want to be artificially constructed even if it did mean I would always be happy. I want to feel pain and all emotions. That's what makes me human.

>> No.5961598

>>5961576
Why not grow a different flower?

>> No.5961601

>>5961595
But you don't get a choice and you can't compare with the alternative. Well, you can go to a reservoir.

>> No.5961604

>>5961576
Can you make that choice for other people? Do you think you can equate the range of emotions between bliss, pleasure, pain and sorrow to violets and daffodils and the analogy will still work? How would define the difference between pleasure and true happiness?

>> No.5961615

>>5961604
That's exactly it we can't and we shouldn't. Everyone should be on there own in terms of living their life.

But then there is the problem of genetic manipulation. And what is the line between the baby's choice and what is best for the baby. I can assume that people don't want to be born with a deadly disease. But who knows maybe people want to be both ugly.

>> No.5961625

>>5961595
At what cost, though? Would you prefer a middle class first world life to BNW? You probably would.

Would you prefer an ebola ridden life of poverty and begging as an orphan to BNW? Would you prefer the life of some kid perishing in Auschwitz to BNW? Would you prefer the life of a clinically depressed schizophrenic to the life of a content BNW citizen?

Saying you prefer pain and emotions to a safe and sterile world is a statement mostly made by people who already pretty live safe and sterile lives.

>> No.5961636

>>5961625
I can't answer these questions honestly or without bias. We would need to ask someone in these situations who have read the book to get a better answer.

>> No.5961638

>>5961625
Holy dichotomy, batman.
Is it impossible to prefer a world of improved infrastructure and access to basic necessities for poors while still maintaining relative state transparency, a lack of genetic manipulation and social mobility?

Ultimately, the world I'd rather live in is a world where I am both happy and free, and perhaps most importantly, where I am free to decide what makes me happy. There are not only two options and I think you aren't being honest with yourself if you think BNW represents either a feasible alternative, or worse, the best alternative.

>> No.5961651

>>5961615
>and what is the line between the baby's choice and what is best for the baby.

That choice is made by default, though. We do, and always did, what's best for our children, and we don't let them choose because they don't have the means to until it's too late. The only difference between forcing your kid to eat their vegetables and genetically programming them is that genetic manipulation is new and therefore scary.

>> No.5961664

>>5961651
Well the world just gets more and more complicated.

>> No.5961668

>>5961638
Ducking agreed. Thank you.

>> No.5961673

>>5961636
>>5961625
As a third world country mentally ill (not schyzophrenic but sick enough to have trouble functioning) poorfag, I have always marvelled at people who did not think BNW would be a good idea. But I'm apparently sympathetic to a lot of fascist ideals so don't mind me.

>> No.5961686

>>5961673
There are many Buddhists who live in similar conditions. Yet not complain.

>> No.5961714

>>5961686
They are conditioned by religion and ideology to like their shit conditions and desire nothing else, so poverty is not negative. Not all mass control mechanisms and systems are necessarily technologic or biologic.

>> No.5961732

>>5961714
Yes, you need conditioning to not be a materialist cocksucker.

>> No.5961734

>>5961714
Honestly there are people who were born middle class or upper class who have given up their wealth for a religion. All opinions exists on this earth.

>> No.5961800

Is it really that hard to make non-right wing argument against BNW?

>>5960558
Riddle me this, what was the book's situation with the art?

>> No.5961868

>>5961651
The difference lies within the child's mind. Sure, you can force them to eat vegetables, but they may not want to. Genetically programming them would seem to imply a want to eat vegetables. The outcome is ultimately the same- i.e. they both eat their vegetables, but would you not agree that there is a fundamental difference between being forced to do something and having no possible desire otherwise?

>> No.5961901

>>5961800
Not at all, unless anarchism is right wing, BNW represents pretty much all problems with power and authority.

>> No.5962069

>>5960680
I agree with you. There is no natural state more welcoming than bliss. But suppressing jealousy would be really hard. Otherwise, yeah, a perfect society.

>> No.5962542

To the people all arguing for BNW, give me an argument for why a planet of constantly orgasming killbots locked in endless warfare isn't just as valid as the BNW. Everyone's happy, so what's the difference?

>> No.5962545

>>5960680
This guy's right though. At no time did Huxley say that Soma had any negative side-effects, or that the citizens were just fake-happy. I mean, even the guys who can't deal with the system (see main character) don't get eliminated. They get sent to Iceland so they can do whatever the fudge they want.

It only really works as a dystopia if you imagine yourself magically transported there from our society. Whereas if you lived there you'd actually be designed from birth to enjoy your place in society, have large amounts of leisure time, and a drug that is literally happiness on tap.

But I'm coming from the point of view that whatever ensures the maximum happiness to the maximum number of people is good. So I guess there is room to disagree...

>> No.5962555

>>5962545
>Whereas if you lived there you'd actually be designed from birth to enjoy your place in society
Let's just replace people with cockroaches with malfunctioning serotonin receptors! Wow, the perfect society!

>> No.5962691
File: 20 KB, 1012x304, buddha cunt.png [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
5962691

>>5961686
kek

>> No.5962705

>>5961638
So you think establishing 'basic necessities' for the poor is better than eradicating poverty altogether and solving violent conflicts and general scarcity altogether?

All so you can be 'free to decide what makes you happy', which you aren't even now? Whether you're determined to like chocolate ice cream by the state or nature doesn't really make a difference. it's never your choice either way. Man can do what he wills but he cannot will what he wills.

>> No.5962728

>>5961868
Surely the latter is superior for everyone.

Would you rather be born a paedophile and forced to never satisfy your urges or be punished horribly if you do, or not be born a paedophile altogether? Would you rather have that other people are born with a barely controllable urge to have sexual relations with children and are incompetently made to abstain or would you rather that they didn't have this urge in the first place?

Do you want violent psychopaths to exist and be chased down once they have a few dozen victims or don't you want psychopaths running amok in the first place?

Does conditioning infringe on hypothetical people's basic right to be free to be born as a psychopath?

What about general illness? Mental illness? Is it better to treat a disease than to prevent it? I'd say it isn't.

>> No.5962740

>>5962555
What would be wrong with it?

>> No.5962768

>>5962740
If you can't see that there's really nothing I can do to convince you, man-who-wants-to-be-cockroach. We will just have to use you as an example to refute the brave new world for anyone who is not a man-roach.

>> No.5962789

>>5962768
So you have these humanistic tendencies that you think are precious and important but you lack the capacity to put them into words and make a case for them?

>> No.5962805

>>5962789
I don't need to make a case when my opponents are literally saying that there would be nothing wrong with replacing all humans with orgasming insects.

>> No.5962832

It's a stale, boring world.

>> No.5962846

>>5962805
>orgasming insects

Look at humanity from an actual geological perspective and this precisely what we are.

>> No.5962848

>>5962832
As is your life.

>> No.5962856

>>5962848
ebin :^) That would make BNW pointless.

>> No.5962864

>>5962846
Geological perspective? Why would I look at it from the perspective of the thing even below insects? First you want to be an insect, now you want to be a rock? This nonsensical trivializing has to stop before you just go "we're all just a bunch of atoms anyway duuuuude 240 #YOLO". But I suppose that someone with the soul of a cockroach would be unable to appreciate anything above his instincts.

>> No.5962884

>>5962864
You make even a rock look like Einstein.

>> No.5962893

>>5962884
harrowing words, bugboy

>> No.5962897

>>5962805
You do need to make a case, you're just incapable of it. Your still implying that your point is so very obvious, but you can't say why.

The fact that you feel emotionally repelled by an idea does not make it obvious that said idea is wrong, though.

>> No.5963282

>>5960694
>real
what's the difference between taking soma to be happy as a culture and going to amusement parks/ eating out as a culture?

>> No.5963381

>>5963282
b-but anon, CHEMICALS are BAD.

>> No.5963594

>>5962897
What makes humans superior to other animals is not increased capacity for pleasure, it is a wider depth and breadth of potential experience. A BNW world removes that experience and replaces it with an existence that is not really substantially different from other animals.

Happiness has nothing to do with it. Pigs rolling in shit are happier than humans, doesn't make a world ruled by pigs preferable to this one.

>> No.5963650

What the society of BNW does is give everyone happiness in return for the Personhood and freewill, OP can have his hapiness if he wants, but seeing as hes on /lit/ in the first place it seems like he isnt ready to give up his status as a free thinking faggot.

>> No.5964547

>>5960558
No because many of the people who are living a privileged life of bliss became that way through curiosity and ambition.

>> No.5966033

>>5962705
If you are still around, please tell me how you were able to determine that man cannot will what he wills in any form.

>> No.5966054

Everyone wants to live in the Brave New World but almost noone wants to live as a Delta or Epsilon, as you would almost certainly be. Curious.

>> No.5966098

>>5964547
>actually believing that

>> No.5966130

>>5966054
I would. They're just as happy as the higher classes.

>> No.5966154

It is better to be socrates in despair than a pig contented.

>> No.5966161

>>5966154
pushpin is as good as poetry fuccnigga

>> No.5966182

>>5966054
No, because the society is structured so that everyone is content.

>> No.5966188
File: 81 KB, 520x750, 1416968841535.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
5966188

>>5966182
What if I don't want to be contented?

>> No.5966217

>>5966188
You haven't been raised in the system. You do realise you aren't some special being, right? You are a product of your upbringing. There is no free will, just a natural reaction in the brain to certain external stimuli giving the illusion that you matter.

>> No.5966236

>>5966217
Do you think that either one must be totally free, or not free at all?
Do you think that all reactions are always out of ones control. What do you even define control as, anyways?

>> No.5966246

>>5966188
you can go to edgy island like in the novel.

>> No.5966248

>>5966246
>antifascism is now edgy
I'm out

>> No.5966263

>>5960558
BNW is all about individualism, no one has any real connection to anyone, the only ones with any real sense of community are the savagea

>> No.5966311

>>5966236
There is no such thing as control, everything is pre-determined to act in a certain way in reaction to another. There are determinant biological factors that dictate the outcome of everything.

>> No.5966448

>>5966263
Is that really a bad thing? I can think, so I am an individual. Why would I want to be treated as though I were not an individual?

>> No.5967154

>>5960558
except there was poverty and illness, there was starvation, it just didn't happen to the clones.

>> No.5967167

Brave New World isn't a warning like 1984 was. Huxley wasn't trying to get people to repent by showing them the horrors that would come if they didn't change their ways. He was trying to get people to look at their own society with the same critical lens they used to look at the society of Brave New World.
He wanted people to understand how they participated in their own dehumanization.

>> No.5967178

>>5967167
>dehumanization
Could you define the certain qualities that make something a 'human'? I suppose you don't literally mean homo sapiens, but rather something not defined biologically.

>> No.5967190

>>5967178
the problem of humanization has always been humankind's central concern. the struggle for humanization is the struggle for the emancipation of labor, for the overcoming of alienation, for the affirmation of men and women. concerns for humanization lead at once to the recognition of dehumanization, not only as an ontological possibility but as a historical reality. but only the first is humanity's vocation. it is thwarted by oppression, exploitation, and injustice, and it is affirmed by the yearning of the oppressed for freedom and by their struggle to recover their lost humanity.

>> No.5967207

>>5967190
Okay. I'd still like you to define what makes something a human, and now (in)justice and freedom as well.

>> No.5967297

>>5963282
You don't achieve Being.

>> No.5967308

>>5967297
What do you mean by 'Being' and why is it capitalised?

>> No.5967328

>>5967207
He wasn't talking about any qualities.

>> No.5967332

>>5967308
True authencity. Also you are new if you haven't seen being with a capital letter thrown around here.

>> No.5967333

>>5967328
When he said 'dehumanised' he never defined what was being lost along with the title of 'human', so I would like to know what it means to be a 'human'.

>> No.5967336

Hegel said "What the English call ‘comfort’ is something inexhaustible and illimitable. (Others can discover to you that what you take to be) comfort at any stage is discomfort, and these discoveries never come to an end. Hence the need for greater comfort does not exactly arise within you directly; it is suggested to you by those who hope to make a profit from its creation."

BNW could be many societies, it's simply a matter of engineering people to enjoy the right things. BNW's high-sexuality, for instance, has as much to do with society recently emphasizing sex as the pleasure to end all pleasures and the one me must worship. Sex was always a damn fine thing, but it wasn't worshiped like it is today as the prime thing to be about, sexual worship was it's one of many things. You could socially engineer people to build their lives around collecting stamps if you pushed hard and long enough, every fucking thing would be about stamps.

>> No.5967337

>>5967332
I'm not particularly new. I've seen people capitalise letters, seemingly at random, but I've never known why. It seems like a Jaden Smith type thing to do.

>> No.5967338

>>5967333
>he never defined

Have you even read the book?

>> No.5967343

>>5967338
Brave New World? Of course, but I don't remember a specific definition being defined.

>> No.5967346

>>5967343
On what prescription are you?

>> No.5967374

>>5967346
I beg your pardon?

>> No.5967616

>>5960558
>ITT: neophobic people trying to justify their bullshit

>> No.5967897

>>5966248
>not wanting to be contented is anti-fasdcism now

kek. but really they, they have islands for the people who don't like the system and "want to be miserable" and such.

>> No.5967938
File: 663 KB, 570x4550, Orwell vs Huxley.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
5967938

>> No.5967990

>>5962545
In some ways you're right, especially the fact that people who don't gel with the system are allowed to go off and live their lives. But the genetic predetermination and the endless brainwashing make the citizens less of willing participants and more of preprogrammed robots, slaves to their own minds.

Also, there's something to be said for pain and suffering as part of a larger ideal of complete happiness/satisfaction. One of the most important moments in the book, in my opinion, is when Bernard parks his flying car over a stormy sea. The pleasure he finds in that chaos and tumult is extremely important as it epitomizes the missing piece of the "pleasure" puzzle. In other words, the soma slaves cannot achieve true actualization of self through constant pleasure, and are therefore intrinsically incomplete.

>> No.5968005

>>5967938
Also this is soooooo fucking spot on. I'm curious to see how these newer generations completely immersed in technology end up handling adulthood and society. Has anyone read the book that this text is from?

>> No.5968121

>>5968005
Nope. I've got it on the wishlist but haven't added it to my reader yet; they took this comic off the website because the publisher asked them to, and that suggests to me that the comic may have aptly summarized the book and that my time will be better spent elsewhere.

>> No.5968185

>>5960558
>Muh satisfaction.

Really, all these BNW threads show mostly just how observant Huxley was in his satire.

>> No.5968195

>>5968005
I spent my childhood immersed in genre fiction.

I'm not sure there's much difference between doing that and playing vidya/watching fluff TV all the time, and, well

I did not handle adulthood and society well at all, and was about seven years more inexperienced than my peers until I made an effort--which took several years--to socialize myself and educate myself in normalcy.

Not proud. Just had to learn to be a gear that fit, lest I become a hikki.

>> No.5968209

List of people who say BNW is a utopia:

>trolls
>teenagers
>fundamentalist atheists
>self-loathers
>the lonely
>retards

>> No.5968249

>>5968209
So why isn't it a utopia when everyone gets what they want and everyone is content?

>> No.5968357

>>5968249
If BNW doesn't disturb and unsettle you, and make you think that something fundamental is being violated, you are literally psychopathic.

>> No.5968365

>>5968357
lel again with this 'BNW is totally wrong but i can't explain it but if you don't agree ur a creep'

>> No.5968368

>>5968357

oh good show
logic being violated in the most obscene ways, jolly good

>> No.5968382
File: 22 KB, 421x422, dfgdfg.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
5968382

>>5968368
>thinks the meaning of life can be derived from logic

>> No.5968391

>>5968382

See you after school bro.

>> No.5968393

>>5968365
How do you explain to someone that 2 + 2 = 4?

>> No.5968746

>>5968393
Your knee jerk emotional reactions aren't math, lad.

>> No.5968790

>>5968746
We simply value different things. You value contentedness and comfort over everything else, and we who dislike the BNW do not put those other things over things like freedom, depth, struggle, whatever. There's no facts we can rationally prove here, we will just have to think that the other side is a bunch of fuckwits, which you totally are by the way.

>> No.5969233

>>5967207
my point (and sorry I took off yesterday but I had things to do) was that there isn't a quality of being human, but a process of humanization which comes through the resistance of oppression and exploitation.
Dehumanization is that which negates this struggle.

>> No.5969240

>>5968249
because people need discontent in order to pursue fulfillment. Brave New World is a society populated by the Last Men, those who think they have achieved happiness and those have nothing left to struggle towards.

>> No.5970393

>>5968393
bnw isn't tautologically dystopic you fucking retard.
>>5968790
soma baby, soma.
soma lets you experience all of life.

>> No.5970407

>>5968393
By using apples as example, use apples.

>> No.5970449

>>5966311
Nice red herring, /sci/.

>> No.5970453
File: 41 KB, 562x437, 001.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
5970453

>>5970393
>thinks mathematics is tautological

>> No.5970808

>>5969240
>people need discontent in order to pursue fulfillment.
Can you demonstrate how that is true?

>> No.5971202

>>5968790

>implying freedom is something you experience.
>implying true freedom of agency isn't something only the elite can actual exercise.

>> No.5971230

>>5967337

To create emphasis in a format that does not allow underlining or highlighting.

>> No.5971234

>>5967990

>implying actualization of self matters at all when part of the larger meta organism that is a society that will stand the test of time.

>> No.5971270

>>5969240
>because people need discontent in order to pursue fulfillment.
yes, because without discontent people would be content, and therefore fulfilled.

>> No.5971705

>>5970808
People have to recognize their own errors in judgement to find truth. Assuming ignorance, or the the mistaken possession of knowledge, is analogous to discontent, and knowledge, or truth, is analogous to fulfillment.

>> No.5971715

>>5971705
But science, the only means of finding truth, flourishes in BNW.

>> No.5971755

>>5971715
Does it flourish? Or has it reached a point of stability in which science functions only as a means to perpetuate BNW's social structure? Is science in BNW progressing or has the nature of that society eliminated the need for improvements and refinements to science?

>> No.5971763

>>5971715
science is the observation of the natural world, not the theory behind it

>> No.5971780

There's a part of me that wants to say it's bad because it's somehow not real happiness or because happiness is not important, but I can't help but agree that it would be preferable. I'm fairly sure that, if most of us were given a few days in a fully-immersive virtual reality simulation that induced total, constant euphoria, and then asked whether we'd like to return to the real world, most would say no.

Specifically as to whether it's "real happiness", it's as real as what you've experienced in your life. Substance-induced euphoria or delusional euphoria feel exactly the same as euphoria brought about by personal achievement or whatever else, because they *are* exactly the same.

>> No.5972781

>>5971755
Pretty sure science is stagnating in BNW world, at least hard sciences, math, etc. Engineering new games/feelies/etc. is still a thing, at least for alphas and maybe betas who still are conditioned to like mentally challenging tasks. But in the world, science is obviously progressed much further than even the modern world, with rocketships for near instantaneous travel, some sort of clean energy for all of it to work, and enough natural resources that they must actively make sure to consume as much as possible to keep society running. Also genetics and likely chemistry (soma) is far more advanced.

So even if there is no "discontentment" in terms of unhappiness or pain, people still have enough drive create new things, which gives them personal fulfillment in addition to orgy-porgies and feelies and whatever else. Anyone who desires more, can willingly go to Iceland or elsewhere (presumably their are other areas for dissidents) or even probably to a savage reservation. Since the island is populated by people like Watson, perhaps science has advanced on those islands far beyond the society of BNW

>> No.5974577
File: 162 KB, 992x1787, 1415409161610.png [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
5974577

>>5960863