Okay, I wrote an Essay about Brave New World. It's not addressed to this question, but I think it is relevant at least to some extent.
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In Aldous Huxley’s dystopian novel Brave New World, a number of concerns are raised on the Human Condition. Huxely’s novel provides a negative vision of the future, and in doing so, it raises concerns about our future society. These concerns are: the loss of the human condition, the hollow remedies to the questions raised by the human condition and the incompatibility of society and the human condition.
The human condition describes our emotions and feelings associated with our existence. It is a unique condition to humans, because we seem to be the only species on Earth that examines our own mortality, imagines the future, remembers the past, and is aware of the passage of time. This awareness of our own mortality, and the passage of time brings with it a number of questions such as, Why do we exist? What is the meaning of life? What happens when we die? These questions concern life beyond immediate and future survival, and our struggle to answer them and our ability to ask them is the human condition.
Huxley raised the major concern in his novel Brave New World, that despite being human, we would in a sense lose the human condition in the society of the future. This would be primarily due to our inability or lack of want to question life and its purpose.
I somehow fail to see why this is such a drastically bad thing. Why is so much knowledge a good thing when not only the lack of it doesn't degrade the lives of others (as is the case today with things like dogmatic belief in god-this one was even specifically pointed out in the novel with John's rejection of Lenina and other examples) but the knowledge itself makes us unhappy? It seems foolish to assume these things as objective goods that we as humans need to be happy, or indeed to assume that they will always help us be happy.
This is evident in a number of parts of Huxley’s novel. Conditioning and hypnopædia (sleep-learning), have made humanity a collective, constantly in contact with one another, thus removing the time one has to himself to think of about life, and its purpose. Additionally, the caste system in the novel prevents a large portion of the population actually thinking deeply about any issue, let alone the human condition. This is done by starving the lower caste embryos of oxygen and damaging them with alcohol. Furthermore, the drug soma and the other aspects of the society in Brave New World, provide humanity with constant happiness and conformity, this in a sense removes the need for such questions, as when one is happy and conforming to society, one doesn’t ask questions about one’s purpose and existence.
And this is a good thing! The fact that, when you're happy, you don't think about this **** is a good indication that thinking about these things drags us down. Plus, what's more depressing than knowing that you're going to die alone? Or knowing that things are going to become worse for you? From my experience, these existential questions that you claim
are the human nature doe nothing but depress. And in such a case... Why suffer through it?
Another concern raised by Huxley is the hollow remedies to the questions raised by the human condition. This is primarily where the state or the ruling party attempts to satisfy or remove the human condition by positing hollow remedies to the questions raised. This is done to enforce conformity in society. This concern is evident in various aspects of Brave New World. A good example of this is death conditioning, to remove the fear of death in people’s minds. This prevents the need for questioning of what happens after death because one of the main reasons that one asks what happens after we die, is that we are afraid of our impending mortality.
I'm missing the point here... Death conditioning is not a hollow remedy to the question, it's a real solution to the problem, as good as any other. It's saying "We know we die, and we don't care about it any more, it's part of the natural cycle of life and we get recycled". Hollow remedies? Soma may be a hollow remedy for unhappiness, but to claim that the overarching societal setup that almost completely prevents unhappiness is a hollow remedy... yeah, perhaps to the insane and manically depressed.
The last major concern raised in Huxley’s novel is that society and the human condition will become incompatible; where the societies of the future will have changed so much that they are mostly incapable of understanding the human condition, and those that do, don’t want to have the human condition present in their society. This is evident in Huxley’s novel as the dystopian society described pays no attention to the human condition, art, poetry, freedom, beauty, truth and goodness.
...All things we place value on that are not necessarily valuable in and of themselves. I don't buy into this "human condition". We have a human condition, but it's been created through our own reaction to the world around us. We value these things because our world has evolved to reward them.
John the Savage, a normal man in comparison to the rest of the society, eventually finds this disgusting and horrid. This is most easily expressed in the words of John the Savage:
“But the new ones are so stupid and horrible. Those plays where there’s nothing but helicopters flying about and you feel the people kissing.” He made a grimace. “Goats and monkeys!” Only in Othello’s words could he find an adequate vehicle for his contempt and hatred.”
We find various fashion statements of the 80s abhorrent as well, don't we. Various people holding to the "old" theater can't stand how CGI, Violence, and mindless plotlines are gobbled up by unsophisticated people (2012, The Expendables, etc.). We/John find that society despicable because we aren't a part of it, can't adapt to its morality (Much like we find the dark ages and inquisition despicable, or the pedophilic ways of greek philosophers, or the coliseum games and slavery in rome, or any number of other things gross).
John eventually tries to escape society, and run away. For a short time he succeeds, but eventually, he is found by members of the public who laugh at his attempts to escape from a society that he finds abhorrent. This leads him to commit suicide - a great example of the incompatibility present.
Yes,
of course he won't be accepted! People keep citing things like "you wouldn't fit in there" or "Look at John!". Err... newsflash. John was not born into the system. He does not understand the system. He is a complete stranger. It's like dropping a monk from the 12th century into Amsterdam's red-light district and expecting them to deal with it! Their morality is so ridiculously different from the people of the modern age, and their technology so different, that they will hardly even begin to adapt.
In fact, this incompatibility between Huxley’s society and the human condition is stated by the world controller, Mustapha Mond, who says that religion is incompatible with Huxley’s dystopian society. He says:
“God isn’t compatible with machinery and scientific medicine and universal happiness. You must make your choice. Our civilization has chosen machinery and medicine and happiness.”
And now you're necessitating religion within the human condition? Forgive me if I'm wrong, but this is fairly ridiculous. And then you necessitate human condition, which necessitates religion by association... I'm going to guess you meant something else.
The significance of this quote, is that religion attempts to answer the questions concerning life and its purpose, and Mond has just stated that such attempts to answer such questions are incompatible with his society.
Oh. Whoops. Should've read down. And what's wrong with this?
Huxley has raised a number of concerns to do with the human condition in his novel Brave New World. Huxley has put forward such concerns through the use of allegory, his dystopian society, representing human society of the future. This novel appears to successful in voicing such concerns, becoming one of the bestselling novels of the 20th century. Furthermore, it is considered as one of Huxley’s better works of dystopian fiction. However, it appears that though such concerns have been heard, nothing has been done to prevent them from being realized at least in Huxley’s eyes, because in the essay, Brave New World Revisited he concludes that the world is becoming more like his fictional dystopia faster than he predicted.
Good! The human condition as you describe it is completely unnecessary to happiness, and, as a matter of fact, seems to hinder ones own happiness far more than help it.
Basically, the reason it's considered dsytopic is that almost everybody in the World State behaves like robots. They're no longer human. They're prisoners to their pleasures, and trying to be human probably isn't going to happen, and if even if it does, makes you incompatible with the rest of society. The World State then tries to negate our desires to question our existence; to be human, but it doesn't attempt to answer these questions, it just tries to remove those desires.
They're no longer humans? Even if they do behave like robots, if that makes 'em happy, why stop it? Questioning ones existence doesn't necessarily mean you're human, it just means you're not entirely content with your existence.
Another issue I have with the World State, is that the system is static. It can't go anywhere, there are no advancements, and nobody apart from the few people at the top can take any initiative. This means that in the event that society were to experience some form of disaster that killed these people, the masses wouldn't be able to deal with this. However, it isn't the main reason I find the concept of the World State sickening.
Just a note on the issue: I'm not sure whether the World State is a utopia or a dystopia. But I understand why people would consider it a dystopia, and why it would be considered a utopia.
Of course it would be able to. Scientific advancement may have stymied, but obviously there will be fail-safes in place. You think they wouldn't plan for something like that? Seems like a silly reason to hate things.
It's been tried, but it's terribly inefficient. You can only actually "learn" (that is, remember something presented) during alpha wave stimulation, which only occurs during a waking state, or extremely close to coming out of a sleeping state. You'd basically have to force the person artificially to remain in a barely-awake state. It'd be easier just to learn the traditional way. Besides if you did that, you'd not be getting the proper rest a person requires during sleep, so you still have to add in sleep time. You'd be spending most of your life in bed, lol.
Fair enough. Sucks.
This was a good PG topic, actually, but there's several reasons:
Saw the topic. There's a lot in there I disagree with but we'll save that for another day, this is already a big fat post.
Firstly Happy and Content aren't the same thing. The world that is describe seems to me one of pure contentment. Which is actually what I personally strive for, but never achieve, lol. To be content is to want for nothing. But because life is unfair, I will always "need" something out of it. But rather than complain about it, I just do my best to make it through the day.
I don't understand. Isn't there an inexorable link between absolutely contentment and happiness? Can't you assume that?
To be Happy at all times, I think would cause a heart attack, or something else medically bad. Happy as an emotion tends to indicate elevated levels of certain chemicals in the brain which are not necessarily a good thing to have ALL the time, you need to "come down" from the high of being happy or you will probably stroke out, lol. Besides, happy is a relative condition. If you're always happy, then each passing moment means you're as happy as the last, and yet your resistance is building also, so you have to escalate this sensation to a progressively higher amount. Since things can't possible keep getting "better" because they're already "perfect" it stands to reason that the happiness increase necessary couldn't occur, heck even after a day of being happy all day long. This screams paradox at any rate.
This is a good argument, point for succumbio. But why don't we of the 21st century have this problem? Because we're sad every once in a while? That's what VPS (where you are subjected to pure passion, emotion, anger, sadness, etc. as a kind of therapy to shake it out of your system) or whatever it was called was for-to get this overload out, to make the happiness relatively wonderful again. At least, I'd imagine.
Nothing, actually. There's plenty of delusional people in the world. People who delude themselves into thinking they're "special" or "loved" or "liked" or "insert_whatever" ... that's life. Humans are intellectual creatures, it's not a surprise we use our imaginations to ingratiate ourselves.
There ya go.
Well, we're conditioned, but not brainwashed. We still have much more choice than we would in Huxley's world. And saying creativity and scientific advancement aren't necessary to survival isn't valid, because many things in Huxley's world aren't necessary to survive or be happy. For example, the savage reserves. Or lights. Or homes. Or clothes. Or 99% of the food and drink they consume. Or almost anything. Almost anything could be conditioned to be hated by humans, but they are kept in the world anyway. Why?
They aren't necessary, but they make being happy easier, and they do not in
any shape or form threaten said happiness. Whereas creativity and scientific advancement, should they point in the wrong direction, can and will threaten said happiness. Creativity isn't necessarily bad, but only if you use it in the wrong way. All these extra fringes are there for whatever reason, but there's no reason to remove them.
Good point. But I still don't think that's a reason to take away someone's right to make virtually any choices.
You're right 'bout that. The reason for that is that they're simply happier that way. If a human is better off and happier when you remove their choices, then why not do it? (Not to be confused with a situation like in "The Reader" where removing the person's choice would put them in a better position, but not make them more happy.)
True, but you lose any literature with negative/ominous themes. You lose Silent Spring. You lose Dante's Inferno. And more. But, of course, you're barely allowed to write any literary works at all in the new society, so that's yet another freedom robbed of humans.
I still wonder to myself "So what?" You have all of this depressive literature charged with social conflict... which you trade away in order not to have social conflict and not to be unhappy.
If you've never suffocated, you'll never know the worth of air, of breathing.
If you've never used a mathematical problem to save your life, you'll never know the worth of math. This is bogus-you can very well understand how valuable oxygen is to us without almost dying, just open up a biology textbook or hold your breath for a few minutes.
Whatever makes you happy in the world. Or rather,
your own happiness. That's reason to live. You don't need death hanging over your shoulder to appreciate that there is wonder in the world or to feel content or happy about yourself and other things.
EDIT: Also, it
is a REALLY good book.
School is also a problem. Gimme a day or two and I'll be back to answer all this stuff.