Bookworm

A "Brave" New World?

I just finished reading "Brave New World" for my British literature class, and though it was my second reading I still found myself amazed by its genius. Aldous Huxley wrote "Brave New World" in 1932; how could he have possibly imagined the future with such clarity? For those who have not read the book, it is a depressing vision of the future in which people are completely dependent upon the government and are hatched instead of born. They are all conditioned to fit in with a certain class, and then they live according to the social characteristics of the class. Instead of reading history or poetry, people go to movies called "feelies" in which they can "feel" what's happening on screen. They also take drugs whenever they feel... well, anything. Emotion is dangerous, but the most dangerous thing of all is being different.

I wasn't just amazed that Huxley imagined cloning before it had happened, but that he had a picture of society that is so simliar to ours today. We may not have "feelies", but we have movies like "Hostel" and "Snakes on a Plane" that do everything they possibly can to get the viewer's attention and distract him or her from his or her own life. Nobody wants to think when they go to the movies. Everyone drowns their sorrows in alcohol or hours of soap operas or too many Big Macs. Shakespeare may not have been forgotten, like in the book, but it's reduced as much as possible and made into movies with attractive actors so that teenagers will actually care.

The idea of marriage in "Brave New World" is scoffed at. There's just no place for it because "everybody belongs to everybody else." People are respected for how many sexual partners they have had. I find this becoming more and more relevant as well. Marriage has lost much of its value in society because people are constantly getting divorced and remarried, or marrying for money or other superficial reasons. Guys high five each other for "scoring" with good-looking girls. The book also shows children being conditioned for sexual activity at a very young age. This doesn't exactly happen in today's society, but kids are having sex at a younger age and are taught in some middle schools about safe sex so they can prevent pregnancy. The acceptable age for sexual activity is becoming younger and younger.

I have to wonder if other author's thought Huxley was crazy for writing "Brave New World" at the time. Obviously this book was ahead of its time. Did Huxley even know how close he would come to predicting the future? I wonder how much closer to the truth his prediction will be in 50 years...