We were keeping our eye on 1984. When the year came and the prophecy didn't, thoughtful Americans sang softly in praise of themselves. The roots of liberal democracy had held. Wherever else the terror had happened, we, at least, had not been visited by Orwellian nightmares.
But we had forgotten that alongside Orwell's dark vision, there was another - slightly older, slightly less well known, equally chilling: Aldous Huxley's Brave New World. Contrary to common belief even among the educated, Huxley and Orwell did not prophesy the same thing. Orwell warns that we will be overcome by an externally imposed oppression. But in Huxley's vision, no Big Brother is required to deprive people of their autonomy, maturity and history. As he saw it, people will come to love their oppression, to adore the technologies that undo their capacities to think.
What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one. Orwell feared those who would deprive us of information. Huxley feared those who would give us so much that we would be reduced to passivity and egoism. Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from us. Huxley feared the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance. Orwell feared we would become a captive culture. Huxley feared we would become a trivial culture, preoccupied with some equivalent of the feelies, the orgy porgy, and the centrifugal bumblepuppy. As Huxley remarked in Brave New World Revisited, the civil libertarians and rationalists who are ever on the alert to oppose tyranny "failed to take into account man's almost infinite appetite for distractions." In 1984, Orwell added, people are controlled by inflicting pain. In Brave New World, they are controlled by inflicting pleasure. In short, Orwell feared that what we fear will ruin us. Huxley feared that what we desire will ruin us.
This book is about the possibility that Huxley, not Orwell, was right.
Tags: fear huxley desire 1984 george-orwell orwell brave-new-world aldous-huxley
What we feel and think and are is to a great extent determined by the state of our ductless glands and viscera.
Aldous HuxleyTags: think aldous huxley feel aldous-huxley glands viscera
Thought must be divided against itself before it can come to any knowledge of itself.
Aldous HuxleyTags: knowledge aldous huxley aldous-huxley itself
Specialized meaninglessness has come to be regarded, in certain circles, as a kind of hallmark of true science.
Aldous HuxleyTags: aldous huxley aldous-huxley
That we are not much sicker and much madder than we are is due exclusively to that most blessed and blessing of all natural graces, sleep.
Aldous HuxleyTags: aldous-huxley
The quality of moral behaviour varies in inverse ratio to the number of human beings involved.
Aldous HuxleyTags: aldous-huxley
And that," put in the Director sententiously, "that is the secret of happiness and virtue — liking what you've got to do. All conditioning aims at that: making people like their unescapable social destiny.
Aldous HuxleyTags: brave-new-world aldous-huxley
Community, Identity, Stability
Aldous HuxleyTags: brave-new-world aldous-huxley
One egg, one embryo, one adult - normality. But a bokanovskified egg will bud, will proliferate, will divide. From eight to ninety-six buds, and every bud will grow into a perfectly formed embryo, and every embryo into a full-sized adult. Making ninety-six human beings grow where one grew before. Progress.
Aldous HuxleyTags: brave-new-world aldous-huxley
He rubbed his hands. For, of course, they didn't content themselves with merely hatching out embryos: any cow could do that.
"We also predestine and condition. We decant our babies as socialized human beings, as Alphas or Epsilons, as future sewage workers or future..." He was going to say "future World Controllers", but correcting himself, said "future Directors of Hatcheries" instead.
Tags: brave-new-world aldous-huxley
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