/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.6949749]

Tore through Brave New World last night. I would without a doubt join the society. I haven't read any other Huxley so I don't really know his agenda, but I don't really think the criticisms of the society are that terrifying.
>Muh family values
>muh individualism
>muh right to suffering
>muh right to knowledge
>muh great tragedy and art requires suffering

removing our bias and sentimentality, Brave new world offers a better society that isn't so unrealistic. I'd love to be properly conditioned to enjoy my existence. If it weren't for Bernard's flawed height or Hemlholtz's flawed intelligence, there would be few disruptions, and they could be dealt with.
Anon would you Join the society or not?
I can elaborate on the muhs

[Anonymous No.6949757]

family values are pointless, right to suffering is ridiculous, and the notion that great art requires suffering is stupid as well – agree with you there. but would you care to elaborate on why individualism and right to knowledge are not so important? being conditioned to enjoy life could be good, but only if I were willingly complying with the system, which inherently requires individualism and right to knowledge.

[Anonymous No.6949767]

>>6949749
Why live? Why not condition the population to self destruct in a generation or two and end all suffering for good? Of course you wouldn't have that power so why join that society rather than commit suicide? Some of us have experienced the sublime, experience beyond social conditioning, would rather die than renounce it.

[Anonymous No.6949792]

Terrorism.

The sheer pleasure of upset and death inflicted upon a domesticated populace, too absorbed in hedonism to care about anything else.

Oh yes, I would attain true bliss alright, and all the sweeter for it being at the expense of what is hateful to me.

[Anonymous No.6949793]

Well I am unironically a Catholic, so everything in the society is anathema to me.

[Anonymous No.6949807]

>>6949749
Fuck no.

[Anonymous No.6949836]

>>6949757
Nowhere in the world today is there any absolute access to knowledge. We are denied high level political knowledge, military tech, and much more for practical reasons, even though it is quite relevant to our lives. What then, is the point of keeping people higher on the spectrum of available knowledge if they are not needed/able to govern or make high level decisions? Certainly not happiness, because BNW proves happiness and stability can be made perfect by the state. Certainly not usefulness to the collective, because a select few are conditioned to be taught everything necessary. I suppose one could argue there are things to be discovered that could aid society which require knowledge that is verboten.
Individual vs the collective is opening a huge can of worms and I admit I am not well read on this subject. Nonetheless, beyond our romantic notions of the power of the individual, what is so great about individual choice? Individual choice seems to me an illusion that lets people swallow their environmental fate better. But people are liberated by their limitations and ignorance. Imagine we have been artificially put on earth by a higher power. We remain ignorant of this fact and thus do not resent the fact that we can no longer explore our previous existence. This limitation has freed us of the anxiety of our previous existence. Infinite thought experiments like this can be made. Even if this brave new world was a world we would now consider suffering (mandatory whippings and such), Ignorance of an alternative would not only make this society tolerable, but a paradise.

[Anonymous No.6949860]

>>6949767
Wew another can of worms over my head. Well I suppose the unknown stops people from blowing their brains out. Perhaps there is unimaginable suffering that awaits us. If it's inevitable why not satisfy monkey brain as long as possible. The end result is the same, and since monkey brain responds well to pleasure, why not participate in a pleasure utopia that maximizes pleasure and reduces suffering?

<-----Brain says keep living, we can die later.

[Anonymous No.6949874]

>>6949767
Why do you think humans have the capacity to suffer in the first place?

[Anonymous No.6949926]

>>6949836
Samefag, Also gonna hedge against the argument that it is "fake" happiness before I sleep. Authentic happiness is a spook, an illusion of our societal biases. Can you seriously argue that this is too "artificial". The same brain responses are being made, only now you don't have to struggle and it is incredibly reliable and frequent.
inb4 humans have always struggled

[Anonymous No.6949941]

>>6949749
I think BNW is a reflection on our current society. You just have to look at it from a different context. In BNW people were conditioned from birth to play their respective roles in society (Alpha plus, Beta minus etc.) I look at our society the same way from a socioeconomic standpoint for example: if your parents scrub shitters for a living, there's a good chance you'll scrub shitters for a living as well, If your parents were investment bankers, there's a good chance you'll be an investment banker as well.

[Anonymous No.6950172]

Todays values and the values of the past are/were all silly and absurd. A society stripped of these values and designed only to work perfectly would make the obvious even more obvious though: Life is pointless.

Illusions and suffering (to a certain degree) are needed to supply distraction.

[Anonymous No.6950290]

>>6949749
Here's the thing, bias and sentimentality go towards culture and perspective. We're talking how we feel about black people or how great a particular economic policy is.

Family, individualism, suffering, and knowledge are more than just that. Yes, they're still part of perspective, but they are essential perspectives. I would rather die than lose these things since I have had them. I am a better person for having suffered. If we were to remove them, we wouldn't be human. The people in BNW aren't humans, they're flesh sacks. You could argue semantics here, but there will always be people that see a difference. Maybe not for you, for you this shit may be the best thing ever. For many people out there, this is the worst thing that could ever happen. That creates a really interesting dynamic for the book and leads to good conversation, but you've gotta realize that society can't work because of that fundamental flaw. There are many, many people don't want this, and if you force them to do it "for their own good", I can tell you that's the closest thing to "real", unbiased sin.

tl;dr fuck you I won't do what you tell me.

[Anonymous No.6950300]

>>6949749
Spoiler alert: Huxley didn't like the society in Brave New World. It's a warning, not a proposal. You want proposals and silly wish fulfillment read Ayn Rand.

[Anonymous No.6950310]

>>6949749
My problem with the society presented in Brave New world is the cynicism. Not interested in advancing science or the arts makes me ask what the point of it all is when they could just kill everyone.
There are better systems.

[Anonymous No.6950326]

>>6949836
Basically, you're argument is ignorance is bliss. That's great. I'm super happy for you. I'm perfectly happy with my distractions. I would rather have distractions than drugs.

[Anonymous No.6950341]

>>6949749
My position is that any society which is not reached by consensus but is created through manipulation is illegitimate, based on the specific definition of legitimacy I have chosen to indulge in whilst acknowledging that it is arbitrary, and based on component parts which have been spooked into me over time.

We already live in a society where we are preprogrammed to believe, live and think a certain way. The world which BNW posits is not unique in that it is closer to possible with every passing moment; it is unique because it already exists, we just refuse to see it (en masse, mind you, en masse. More than a few people, perhaps even most people, see this on an individual level) because it is at the moment facilitated by human masters and memes. My position is not that BNW itself is undesirable, but that its structures and ideas are a mere slight exaggeration of what already exists, which I already find undesirable.

[Anonymous No.6950361]

>>6950300
>Huxley didn't like the society in Brave New World. It's a warning, not a proposal.
(not OP) I knew that before I started reading BNW, and it is obvious from certain appeals to "normal" society but he completely fails to make his point.

He wanted to demonstrate utilitarianism is muh evil but in the end he sketched a society where everyone is essentially happy, even the lower classes. Of course he needs to put in a character with "our" POV to point out what we consider bad. The same with William in 1984. However if you looked at BNW through the eyes of literally any other character it would be a world full of joy and pleasure.

Maybe it's less shocking nowaday because we now consider having sex with random friends normal, I guess that was also seen as a bad thing back when he wrote it.

Anyways there's no way BNW doesn't display a utopian society.

[Anonymous No.6950368]

>>6949749
>Nietzsche's Last Man: The Book
>he wants it
jej lad

[Anonymous No.6950372]

>>6950341
>any society which is not reached by consensus but is created through manipulation is illegitimate
that's BS because the manipulation happens to babies which makes them much happier and content adults later on. Say someone implemented a device in your brain as a baby which made you never sad or depressed ever, that would be pretty awesome even though you didn't consent it.

>based on the specific definition of legitimacy I have chosen to indulge in whilst acknowledging that it is arbitrary
ahhh the good ol' I-am-right-because-I-define-a-framework-in-which-I-am-always-right

[Anonymous No.6950376]

>>6949749
Did you know:
Krypton is basically Brave New World's society?

There are multiple problems here:
>if authority and major decisions are controlled by birth and for the few, the society is static and NOT dynamic. Problem with a static society is that environments aren't static. Societies are a lot like organisms, they need to change and adapt. A BNW/Krypton society would not see the need to grow or change, in fact, they could not even consider the idea. The culture simply wouldn't allow for it. In contrast, while an individual driven society definitely has some flaws, it's always changing. This argument doesn't bring individual biases, this is a matter of long-term survival.
>Without the individual or even strong ideologies aside from the state, structure and myth collapse over time. There is only distraction, not creation or engineering. Again, we need the society to change and build to keep going. There was a time when humans didn't care about individuality, but there's a reason that stopped.

Culture, science, and the progression of civil liberties aren't just ways to pass the time. There's a reason things move forward. A society in stasis is a society that can't last.

[Anonymous No.6950388]

>>6950376
>we need the society to change and build to keep going
except we don't. The need for a changing society is a meme that has only been around for maybe 400 years and briefly before in ancient greek/roman times

[Anonymous No.6950399]

>>6950388
Explain further. I can't really argue what you said because you only said what you thought, not why you think that.

[Anonymous No.6950417]

>>6950399
alright. Even if we ignore other human species, which have been around for millions of years, homo sapiens has been around for at least 60.000 years. That's 60.000 years of doing the same shit every day without really changing or inventing anything. Things like agriculture or handling metals are changes indeed but were accidental discoveries rather than results of a planned engineering effort.

The first who really dedicated people to engineering and science were greeks and romans, and with their technology we again go on with the same basic routine for a 1000 years, until the age of enlightenment happens and change becomes the norm.

The thing is, you really only need change if you want your population to become larger. The population of humans had been stable until agriculture boomed. Then it got higher but more or less stable again until the industrial revolution. Those are thousands of years of no change whatsoever.

[Anonymous No.6950433]

>>6949749
honestly the book never meant to describe a society which should be decomposed and examid in its details, the book is just a big, long winded way of asking if happiness is more important than freedom, or the other way around

[Anonymous No.6950449]

>>6949749
>to enjoy my existence
You would not have this concept of existence if you lived in that society. Your mind would probably be on the level of a redneck american or an abbo.

The moment any of the higher types in BNW got knowledge they went on thinking and rejecting that society.

[Anonymous No.6950462]

>>6950449
>The moment any of the higher types in BNW got knowledge they went on thinking and rejecting that society.
which they didn't, so they remained eternally happy.

[Anonymous No.6950468]

>>6950417
So let me ask, in the BNW super awesome scenario, what level of technology and population would our society be using?

I'm asking this because I doubt it would reflect the needs of a Greek or earlier homo sapien societies (a lot of those were hunter gatherer). Those are fine, and you're right, those can last hundreds or thousands or millions of years of doing the same thing over and over again.

A hunter gatherer society is barely a society though, and it doesn't need to adapt over time, because it constantly changes environments. Not rapidly or anything, but worst case scenario? Pack up and leave. Solid plan if your society is just a bunch of cavemen and you've got a shit ton of land with resources to explore and use without fear for scarcity. Things aren't like that anymore, and a modern major society can't reflect that. There's no real structure. You right though, that's dependent on population.

For everything else, it's a matter of external forces versus internal forces. Realize I'm not arguing completely against a society fighting change, that is necessary for survival as well, and indeed, it was more necessary pre-enlightenment.

So why don't we just go back to pre-enlightenment society levels of technology and population to facilitate a static society over the course of a long period of time? We could, but this implies:
>we would want to go backwards in technology yet maintain the technology necessarily implied in BNW to maintain happiness. People won't want to do that, but let's all play pretend
>Because the external forces/internal forces won't encourage that same sort of behavior. If we made a society like that, it would be inorganic. We made it out of will, not out of necessity/natural progression. External forces include natural phenomena (climate change is real), conflicting societies and cultures (the big one here), and a population of people that were conditioned to live in this environment (remember, we're going to have to dumb technology down for this)

tl;dr you're right but not in an applicable sense, completely true sense. Also the conditions that brought about those societies encouraged those non-progressive behaviors (also lack of technology and slower population growth).

[Anonymous No.6950473]

>>6950372
Oh, you're totally right, my position is founded in abject horse shit. So is the OP's, though. He's positing that this society is some kind of obviously acceptable thing, as well as being attainable and not too unrealistic. But even within the book's confines, the system is imperfect and allows for people who cannot work within its confines various outs.

My position is not that everyone ought to think as I do, but that I do not think that the structure is suitable to me based on illogical, personal constructs that are wholly my own. Happily, there is an out for that within the world the book has laid out.

The real lesson of Brave New World is that one ought to let go of savior notions and instead find a system in which one can not only survive, but thrive. The Savage refused to do this, as he saw somehow the lives the people in the BNW led to be on some fundamental level wrong. It's not that I disagree with the Savage, it's that my personal position does not rely on the others being 'uplifted' or converted to my personal narrative - which as you rightly pointed out, is founded in pretty much just sheer sentimentality.

There is nothing wrong with the society in the Brave New World, I just would abstain from it to be elsewhere - an option that they more than amply supply to those in need of it.

[Anonymous No.6950484]

>>6949793
read stirner

[Anonymous No.6950501]

Basically, everybody that would want to live in BNW would choose the blue pill.

[Anonymous No.6950502]

>>6950501
sort of but with an actually enjoyable blue pill life

[Anonymous No.6950522]

>>6950361
>Anyways there's no way BNW doesn't display a utopian society.
Except for literally anybody that rejects it. BNW is definitely an "eye of the beholder" kind of book, but I think that's ultimately a better choice than a more straightforward story like 1984. Leads to actual discussion.

>>6950502
I'm just imagining that scene of Cypher eating a steak and saying "ignorance is bliss" as every pro-BNW argument.

So informs me that the pro-BNW argument is basically a dissatisfaction with suffering and individuality with the current society. I mean, duh, but usually it's framed as "wouldn't it be nice if nobody ever suffered?" and the more I think about it the question you guys are asking is "wouldn't it be nice if I didn't suffer?" It's disguised as selfless, but it's rejection and oppression. Then the argument becomes, "So what? We can still do that and it would be better for everyone."

The "so what" is the selfish part of the entire argument. You're making that choice for everyone else. On the basis of your feelings.

I'm also anti-utilitarian, so I'll admit my bias. Suffering hurts so good.

[Anonymous No.6950528]

>>6950522
>You're making that choice for everyone else
that is true, but it kind of only works if everyone is in on it

[Anonymous No.6950549]

>>6950528
Why force a man to live a nightmare so you could live your dream? Why force him to accept his nightmare from birth?

[Anonymous No.6950872]

>>6950462
>the main fucking character

[Anonymous No.6951483]

>>6950522
OP here back from the dead. Although BNW is the extreme denial of individuality, you can't really argue we have perfect freedom in our current environment. we are just some degree more free than BNW so it seems ghastly in comparison. I want to return to the thought experiments. Imagine humans have been able to fly until some regime decided it was too dangerous. All flyers were killed and children were raised ignorant and had their wings genetically removed. All evidence made impossible to discover. Are these children being oppressed, stripped of an ability they are ignorant of. Aren't we denied so much just by being born? Every decision I make is cutting off so many possibilities I am not aware of, I am forced to make decisions without knowledge I may find valuable. I ask you what good is my freedom illusion when I am making decisions dependent on my environment. When I can be happy that I have the freedom to drink coca-cola or water, to live in a tent or mansion, but I can't choose my government, I can't become president of Namibia, I can't suck Obama's dick, I can't have a diet of entirely Tiger meat, I can't choose where I'm born or how smart I will be. We put ourselves at ease with these limitations knowing there is nobody to blame. We Can't achieve perfect Freedom, there is no such thing. These desires seem ridiculous because society considers them so and reality makes it very difficult to do these things. we are only content with the freedom we are aware that we have, and our desires are dictated by our environment. None of us could enter BNW with the biases and conditioning we already have, but for the untainted future generations, it would be paradise. It seems unjust because the BNW can be directly blamed for the conditioning, but you latch onto individuality in which you roll the dice in our "free" society and are duped into believing it was muh freedom that caused me to be a sports watching guy who loves craft beer and sailing. You still are conditioned to remove you from whatever romantic original disposition humans possess that you find valuable, only it is inconsistent and differs based on many factors (marketing, socioeconomics, culture). If you discovered that humans originally had wings that were removed by a dictator you would become angry, but you would never ever discover that so who cares? Just because you can't accurately blame your conditioning on a single factor doesn't mean you're imperfect consciousness and freedoms are more authentic, you are liberated by the possibilities that you are unaware have been shut down. And just because we can mitigate the effects of obvious marketing and unwanted influence through knowledge and improving our consciousness, doesn't mean we are ever free of it or ever could be. You say " at least I'm not Jamal who is hopelessly ignorant in the ghetto Falling for dumb rap marketing" but you are only slightly more free than Jamal through your intellect.

[Anonymous No.6951506]

>>6949749
Congratulations, you misinterpreted the whole point of the book

[Anonymous No.6951541]

>>6949749
this life already exists. pic related.

[Anonymous No.6951546]

>>6950290
But if BNW was the status quo, trying to liberate them with a neo liberal society would probably be awful for them. Aren't we all just easily molded clay? The fat woman in the book wanted so desperately to return to society.

[Anonymous No.6951547]

Brave New World is basically a utopia for fedora-wearing virgins, but not anyone else
http://mitrailleuse.net/2015/05/10/the-slave-morality-of-sexual-liberation/

[Anonymous No.6951554]

>>6951547
quite the opposite: fedoratards are austically afraid of narcotics and free sex

[Anonymous No.6951567]

>>6951554
that isn't true, they want a very sexually liberated society because an increase supply of readily available sex would mean that there's an increased chance of some falling their way.

Why do you think they are always white knighting?

male Hillary fans are always low-T sycophants

[Anonymous No.6951573]

This retardation. Again...

Brave New World is about man's subservience to technology. If man is a happy house pet, and that is the pinnacle of human society, so be it. But I hate these terrible misinterpretations about asceticism.

[Anonymous No.6951584]

yup I thought exactly the same thing, the worst thing that happened in their society is that a day-laborer got overly emotional and killed himself. BNW had a very beautiful society.

[Anonymous No.6951596]

>>6951547
>http://mitrailleuse.net/2015/05/10/the-slave-morality-of-sexual-liberation/

Ad homs and saying that sex wouldn't be as good if it were frequent. you know what, we should eat only plain rice and on holidays we have big feasts of lavish foods, that way we can appreciate the big feasts more. Lelios. Mfw

[Anonymous No.6951617]

>>6951573
What is the pinnacle? What is the point of progress? Seems to be trying to remove suffering.

[Anonymous No.6951627]

>>6951596
no, it's just that worrying about sex being readily available is a preoccupation of doughy virgins. To the 'aristocrat' it's not something they have to worry about at all.

[Anonymous No.6951632]

>>6951567
>they want a very sexually liberated society because an increase supply of readily available sex would mean that there's an increased chance of some falling their way.
That doesn't help them because they are still ugly and unattractive. See /r9k/.

[Anonymous No.6951637]

>>6951632
they think the valve just hasn't been opened enough. And /r9k/ is a special case of reversal where they hate sluts, very peculiar indeed.

[Anonymous No.6951645]

>>6951637
No they think the valve has been opened too much as in a more monogamous world they wouldn't have to compete with "Chads".

[Anonymous No.6951652]

>>6951645
That's just r9k, though. They aren't SJW white knights who think they are crusaders against "the war on women." They are something entirely different.

[Anonymous No.6951658]

>>6951547

poked around on this site and i like what i see. what else do you read online?

[Anonymous No.6951666]

>>6951627
It's just that, worrying about eating things more pleasurable than plain rice is a preoccupation of doughy gluttons desperate for flavor. To the enlightened monk it's not difficult to abstain.

[Anonymous No.6951677]

>>6951666
sounds like you're a bit thirsty m8

[Anonymous No.6951686]

>>6951652
The >tfw no gf sentiment isn't unique to r9k and the "SJW/feminist males only do it because they want sex" is a old meme that I have never seen play out but it doesn't have to thanks to the power of idealism.

http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/08/31/radicalizing-the-romanceless/ is a better picture of how things actually work.