Brave New World (Huxley)

I first read Brave New World in middle school, while on a dystopian reading spree, among books like 1984 and Fahrenheit 451. However, it's important to try to reread a book after some time, said Mortimer Adler, if 'you have a sneaking suspicion that there is more there than you got.' That's why I'm rereading Brave New World--because I knew in my heart of hearts that I hadn't gotten everything I could have from it.

I was right. I hadn't even come close to understanding Brave New World. All I had were sneaking suspicions that Brave New World was the capitalist dystopia mirror to Orwell's totalitarian, communist 1984 (though something I find really odd is that many of the characters--Bernard Marx and Lenina Crowe, for instance--are named after prominent communists. Perhaps I'm missing something?). This isn't necessarily wrong, but Brave New World goes so much farther from a simple consideration of how capitalism can go wrong. It questions--seriously, not satirically--our values of individualism, stability, beauty, and happiness.

"‹The critical point of Brave New World, the part that I want to really examine, is just before the ending, when Mustapha Mond, the World Controller, debates with John Savage about the merits and costs of the hedonistic setting of the book. Essentially, the debate comes down to this: Mustapha Mond’s system has sacrificed high art and passion for social stability and general welfare. John Savage mourns the absence of high art and passion in civilization; he mourns the death of things he regards as virtues, such as liberty, individualism, and heroism. He mourns that everything in civilization is too cheap and easy to obtain; he desires strife and misery to prove himself “manly.”

Now, of course, the vital question is: After reading this book, which side to I believe?

My initial reaction was that the Brave New World, rather than being a dystopian book, depicts a utopia. What I love about Brave New World is that unlike many other dystopian books, which are generally harshly and blatantly critical towards the worlds they portray (think Hunger Games), it offers a fair examination of the merits and demerits of the society. In this world, nobody experiences tragedy. No one is ever sad (unless through a mistake in the system, such as in Bernard), since if anyone ever gets the inkling of sadness, they take soma, making them blissful. The cost of this is high art and passion—no one can feel the incredible happiness of overcoming misery or of rabid, unconditional love. However, considering the benefit, is this too high a cost to pay? Think about all the genocides and incredibly horrible things that humans do to each other—rape, murder, etc. Should these horrors be preserved just so that we can make beautiful art about it?

However, as I think about it, as horrible as it sounds, perhaps there is worth in such catastrophes. Consider Hemholtz, the incredibly perfect Alpha Plus who is too smart for his own happiness. He feels unfulfilled in life, despite having everything material he could ever want; he desires something powerful and intense to write about, but in such a society where social stability is the prime virtue, he cannot find anything intense to write about. However, when presented with writing that has such intense themes, in particular, Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet,” he is unable to understand the violent, irrational feelings of love between the two characters, due to the world he has been raised in, which values brief, hedonistic relationships over long-term commitments. He eventually elects to be exiled to a remote tropical island so that he can write about the most intense thing he can think of: terrible weather.

Without struggle, we are infants. If we are sheltered from all harm, we can never grow; we may grow in knowledge, but we cannot grow in wisdom. As Adler himself says, the books that challenge you are the books that truly expand your understanding. I really can’t conclude that we should have evil in our lives—it just goes against my conscience—but I also feel like there is a certain virtue in struggle and misery.