false 5129 147 "Community, Identity, Stability" is the motto of Aldous Huxley's utopian World State. "The world's stable now. People are happy; they get what they want, and they never want what they can't get. They're well off; they're safe; they're never ill; they're not afraid of death; they're blissfully ignorant of passion and old age; they're plagued with no mothers or fathers; they've got no wives, or children or lovers to feel strongly about; they're so conditioned that they practically can't help behaving as they ought to behave. And if anything should go wrong, there's soma." Soma is a drug engineered to eliminate side effects of sickness, while promoting submission. The revelation of Huxley's world, how it is created and how it functions leads to powerful messages about the purpose of humanity, the pursuit of happiness, the role of suffering and the need for individual human dignity and freedom. It also illustrates Huxley's theory that the masses are more easily mollified by the power of pleasure than the threat of force. Huxley wrote, in a letter to George Orwell dated 21 October, 1949 about the differences between "Brave New World" and "Nineteen Eighty-Four": "Within the next generation I believe that the world's rulers will discover that infant conditioning and narco-hypnosis are more efficient, as instruments of government, than clubs and prisons, and that the lust for power can be just as completely satisfied by suggesting people into loving their servitude as by flogging and kicking them into obedience." 3204877 book 1932 Brave New World total:113396|5:35546|4:41133|3:26452|2:7208|1:3061| 113396 439080 143093 3272 0 40 false false Wed Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2003 Fri Feb 29 12:51:21 -0800 2008 Fri Feb 29 13:22:38 -0800 2008 more...]]> 5 13 false false Fri Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 1999 Wed Jul 04 10:28:36 -0700 2007 Wed Jul 04 10:40:11 -0700 2007 more...]]> 5 11 false false Sat May 17 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Tue May 06 01:26:11 -0700 2008 Fri Aug 07 00:33:54 -0700 2009 more...]]> 5 5 false false Fri Feb 01 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Fri Feb 08 22:24:26 -0800 2008 Thu Feb 14 09:11:11 -0800 2008 more...]]> 2 5 false false Sat May 24 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Thu Apr 17 17:08:39 -0700 2008 Sat May 24 18:40:14 -0700 2008 more...]]> 5 6 false false Sun Dec 23 09:05:06 -0800 2007 Sat Jan 05 05:57:01 -0800 2008 more...]]> 4 6 false false Wed Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 1975 Sun Jun 29 09:04:36 -0700 2008 Wed Sep 17 18:00:06 -0700 2008 3 2 5 false false Mon Jan 28 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Mon Feb 18 04:22:17 -0800 2008 Mon Feb 18 05:41:37 -0800 2008 more...]]> 0 5 false false Sat Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2005 Sat Apr 14 09:55:33 -0700 2007 Sat Dec 06 18:35:23 -0800 2008 more...]]> 4 3 false false Tue Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 1974 Thu Dec 11 04:01:13 -0800 2008 Sun Feb 22 17:18:43 -0800 2009 Les Particules Elémentaires, which I just finished. One of the characters argues that Huxley originally intended his world as a utopia rather than a dystopia, and then changed his mind and tried to convince everyone it was meant iron...more...]]> 5 2 false false Sat Nov 08 12:46:47 -0800 2008 Fri Jul 03 18:03:16 -0700 2009 Do you need to re-read this, as I do? It has been too many years and I'm sure I'll respond differently than previously. Especially after listening to the excellent In Our Time podcast discussing the book. (Available on the BBC website here, but unfortunately only in a streaming format, not downloada...more...]]> 4 2 false true Fri May 16 20:08:16 -0700 2008 Sun May 18 02:35:50 -0700 2008 Product of its times: initial protagonist is "Bernard Marx" (though he turns out not to be the "hero"); the action takes place in...more...]]> 4 2 false true Mon Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2007 Fri Feb 29 13:14:11 -0800 2008 Fri Feb 29 13:14:11 -0800 2008 Summary:
Brave New World is set in a futuristic Utopian society. The people in this world are ensured contentment through an intricate combination of biological conditioning, years of brainwashing, free love, and a drug called soma that has no side effects. Families have been eliminated and...more...]]> 4 3 false false Sun Jul 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Thu Aug 02 15:56:54 -0700 2007 Mon Aug 06 15:08:48 -0700 2007
I'm finding myself drawn to dystopian novels lately. Not really sure why. I think it's partly because Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale had such an effect on me when I was in college, and I'm constantly looking for something that disquiets my ...more...]]> 4 2 false false Tue May 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Thu May 17 07:56:44 -0700 2007 Thu May 17 08:19:51 -0700 2007 more...]]> 4 4 false false Thu Mar 01 00:00:00 -0800 2007 Mon Feb 19 18:34:36 -0800 2007 Sat Mar 10 19:25:46 -0800 2007 more...]]> 4 2 false false Thu Jun 21 06:49:27 -0700 2007 Tue Jul 10 11:45:56 -0700 2007 The language is incredible, the ingenuity, creativity and philosophy are tremendous. I read in just a few days, didn't want to put it down.

But in the end: The flocking and making of the feely of Savage didn't seem...more...]]> 5 2 false false Sun Jul 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Sun Jul 08 14:31:28 -0700 2007 Sun Jul 08 14:45:02 -0700 2007 more...]]> 4 4 false false Wed Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 1986 Wed Apr 15 12:17:33 -0700 2009 Wed Apr 15 12:32:07 -0700 2009
Huxley's radical notion is difficult to grasp, but as simple as Postman's title: it's not wa...more...]]> 3 1 false false Fri Mar 20 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Mon Mar 30 06:06:49 -0700 2009 Tue Mar 31 07:01:29 -0700 2009 more...]]> http://www.goodreads.com/book_link/follow/8?book_id=3273565