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going on a 'soma' holiday
Former Member
Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
anyone here read Brave New World by Aldous Huxley?
if so what did you think? :chin:
i also read 1984 by George Orwell... interesting ideas...at least this story wasn't just like a long discription...
if so what did you think? :chin:
i also read 1984 by George Orwell... interesting ideas...at least this story wasn't just like a long discription...
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I think the most interesting idea in BNW is Mustapha Mond's affirmation that given the choice, mankind would choose happiness over freedom. Good book but not as good as 1984 which in turn isn't as good as We.
that is an interesting point to make about mustapha mond.
soma sounds like an interesting drug, but i'm not sure it would do the world a whole lot of good if something like that were to come into effect!
How about some Cake?
nah, just wanted a general discussion.
However, of that genre, i have to say i prefer 'A Handmaid's Tale' or 'Oryx and Crake' by Margaret Atwood. Both def. worth a read.
haha too true
I'll look into the other books mentioned here, ta.
In my own opinion, I reckon BNW is way removed from what we experience today. It's more class-based commentary on life, which I don't think exists in exactly the same mould today. Also, the desire to return to the 'basic world' and the 'savage gentleman' doesn't really have any modern day parallels.
1984 is far more applicable to today (even though it was based on a Cold Wa/USSR fear). Survilance, mind-control, over-bearing government, lies and deceit from the government, pacification of the masses through common entertainment. I could go on.
I think it more relevant today as, it present this issue of drugs (soma) used ot keep us happy nad docile - anti-depressants instead of resolving the REAL issue of why this is happening.
As for classed based - not relevant today? HA! Yeah, RIGHT. Tell that to the working class. There are loads of upper-class "elites" instead of the average joe. It's more prevelant than ever tbqh. The rich, the middle class, the poor. They are apparent divides - can't you see them? I see them everywhere. As for those folk that don't work and don't try to get a job - well, I'd burn them but lets not go there.
Also - as for the genetic engeniering - designer babies are being touted as an option now. The ability to "choose" your baby is not far off - if it gets allowed (I hope not, personally, apart from preventing mental problems and mutations and abnormalities) - and this will lead to even more division - those than can afford the "perfect child" and those that can't.
We shouldn't do these sort of things - anti depressants shouldn't be necessary - the real issues causing this should be addressed - and as for choosing your childs attributes - no. Not at all. I think this is elitist and wrong - the child should only have intervention to prevent mental illnesses nad other such things.
Really, BNW is the commentary on capitalist society and 1984 on communism. And we all know how bad Facism is.
Anyway. I'll present a better argument when not drunk , I dareasy.
:thumb:
Orwell was a visionary...
I know they exist, but that's not the same way in which they exist in BNW. It's all genetically engineering, social controlled, and deliberately manufactured. The class divides in 1984 are far more realistic, with the elite and the proleteriat.
The 'designer baby' is miles away, really miles. I mean, we can't even get a sheep cloned properly before it pops its clogs years early.
I didn't know this. I thought it was all about society in general.
Decent arguments so far. I've never really had a chance to discuss BNW or 1984 critically as I read them after I finished my English Literature level 1 at uni.
And yup Mok, Orwell was a visionary. It was pretty scary watching V for Vendetta and seeing a bunch of the things he describes being played out in 'real life'.
Hmm, not really.
As I said in my original post, 1984 is essentially a rip off of 'We' by Evgenii Zamyatin (who in turn was influenced by HG Wells) which had written 20 years before. Don't get me wrong, 1984 is a good book but as far as originality goes, it's not that original. 'We' is the original (and best in my opinion) dystopian novel.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/We-Penguin-Twentieth-Century-Classics/dp/0140185852/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/026-0772640-8154046?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1179562766&sr=8-1
we're still moving in that direction though, aren't we?
they have to inject themselves with something so they feel nothing, they are watched, monitored, almost in a gestapo type way but futuristic... etc
But I would hope you can see the difference between how they are used now and in the book - asnd how they were used indeed, in the USSR? Cigs and Vodka was often used as an incentive to do things in the USSR - whilst the warned you of the bad side affects of using those very substances!
I disagree - in 1984 it was far more like the USSR - one at top, one at bottom. And they don't mix. Those with power, those without. We are in, very much, a tired system at the minute - and only a few of the millions that try ever make it up a tier, to say, Middle Class or Upper Class. It's diffiucult. Often people just end up in debt instead.
Cloning is far, far, different that designer babies, and an easier thing too. I expect it to be a reality in my lifetime. Sooner than say, when I am 70. Cloning, I never expect to see succusfully. Adjusting/replacing/removing genes instead of replicating them is a simpler matter from what I have researched. To clone, one has to undo years of decay from the living subject to be cloned. One is working on fresh DNA with little decay on a feotus.
No - the tiered system is the staple of a right wing capitalist conservative society. The tiers are a feature of society, some people are just born to be lower in this than others. That is conservative belief - you are born to be somewhere in these levels. BNW takes it to one extreme where it could end up.
I read them purley out of interesting whilst doing my politics course, so often chatted about them. I enjoyed them both. Good commentaries.
As Thunderstruck said, it was an old idea, but a good one. Dystopias have, it seems, always held interest for humans. I want to live in the one from Fifth Element though tbh. I'd love one of them flying taxi cars!
Also, I have little doubt in my mind unless we do something sharpish, we are doomed to live in one in the future. Not mine, or my childrens, but some time after. We need to change society, or it'll be too late.