O Brave New World...

So I read Brave New World by Aldous Huxley. Been on a dystopian kick lately, reading 1984 and watching the movie and V for Vendetta. Not sure why but I enjoy these stories, perhaps cause it would be interesting on some level to be in them, even for a short period (in reality, with perhaps the exception of Brave New World, I don't think I would want to be in any of the others I mentioned and ill explain why.)

Brave New World differs in that for the most part, people are completely and utterly brain washed and happy. V for Vendetta, people have generally resigned themselves to the current situation, feeling theres no way to change it yet its not bad enough to change it yet (V somewhat fixes this). 1984, people are brainwashed a bit different than Brave New World in that its half brainwashed to think that its as good as it can get and half for fear that if they questioned it, they will be found out, tortured, sent to room 101 and killed.

Brave New World is a little different, partly because you are brainwashed from the time you are an infant and even before as embryos. Its generally presented that people don't question anything because they have been brainwashed not to and that they are happy with the drug soma and happiness is paramount to just about anything. Many times in the story its shown that Lenina and even Bernard (who does go against the status quo) still have things so ingrained that they recoil in horror.

One of the interesting and certainly ethical issues brought up in Brave New World is the idea of people no longer having babies but the state. The different castes that are presented (Alpha, Beta, Delta, Gamma, Epsilon in that order) are picked at basically conception. The higher ones get one sperm to an egg, whereas a process thats used to copy the lower ones are used to have one egg pumping out something like 8 - 90 some odd people from the same egg, and several thousand from the same "mother". They also stunt growth as well as using aspects from Pavlov's experients to condition people to hate flowers and books.

On the same idea, people are quite free with sex. There is no marriage and basically everyone is polyamorous, being able to have anyone for sex and companionship. In fact its encouraged (or at least, frowned upon if someone is found to just be with one particular person). Girls are not allowed in general to get pregnant, being conditioned to keep track of their cycles and be on birth control forever (in fact, many are born sterile).

Enough recounting the book (you can read it). The main thing I wanted to comment on was the two interesting concepts that I don't see as much of a problem with, those being the polyamorous nature and the soma drug thats used to take holidays. The issue of both of these is perhaps moderation would be a good choice. Many rely on the drug 24/7 so that they don't have to experience anything bad. If anything that might be stressful comes up, its conditioned to take some to make you happy, and depending on how much you take you end up taking a "holiday" which is basically a LSD like experience. In general, I would not have a problem (and don't for the current drugs that are out there) if people used it as a recreation type thing.

I personally have never had any drugs (save for caffeine and alcohol) which I don't think qualify quite in this context. However, and this position has changed recently, I as a general rule don't have issues with people taking drugs on two conditions. That its done in moderation (unlike in the book) and responsibly and two, the main/side effects do not cause real harm to the person. Number two is the reason that I still have major problems with most drugs that are used, as with in general the exception of weed, most drugs (cocaine, meth and heroine just to name a few big ones) do real harm to the person taking them. The other issue is the crime associated, though if they were legal that would go away for the most part (though it would really have to be globally legal, otherwise theres still money and money is what causes most of the issues).

One the polyamorous stuff, I don't have a real issue with this. However, this is also based on the idea of moderation and choice. It would (and is) a choice. In the book, it really isn't. You are weird, and outcast and almost on the level of insane if you want to have a monogamous relationship in the Brave New World. It would be interesting if polyamorous behavior was a little more prevalant in today's society, however religion I think causes some of that to not exist currently.

Not sure why, but when I start to write something like this I envision a couple of paragraphs and instead it turns out to be much longer. I wish books were like this in High School, as the books that we were forced to read sucked, were boring and meant jack shit to me. If I had read books like Dune, 1984, Brave New World, Paradise Lost and Neuromancer just to name a few, English would have been far more fun. Instead, most of the books were boring, uninteresting and meaningless. Moby Dick is the closest book that I read that was ok, and even that I found in general boring (im sure some would disagree).

I on a side note thing im going to order a bunch of books when I get paid next, as I was able to read Brave New World, which is about 250 pages in about 3 hours, which means that I can generally clear a novel a weekend. Theres several books that I have been meaning to read, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (the book that Blade Runner is based on), Snow Crash, Ender's Game, H.P. Lovecrafts stuff especially the Cthulhu and perhaps some more that ill have to look into. And yes, this is what happens when you have no social life. In Brave New World, I would certainly but the outcast as there are times, if not most times, that I prefer to be alone (or alone and perhaps talking to people in chat online, as I can multitask far more doing that than I can while in person or on the phone).

Enough of me, time for Super Bowl.