An Introduction to Aldous Huxley's Mind
In 1932, Aldous Huxley imagined the future of mankind as a place where humans are reproduced in test tubes by the thousands because “family” has become obsolete. A place where people of different social classes are incubated differently, with lower classes being exposed to less oxygen in order to limit their physical and intellectual development, which is why Alpha Bernard Marx is an outcast due to his short height. He imagined a World State that didn’t cover the whole world, that was led by ten people who considered those who weren’t under their control “savages”. Huxley also imagined a world where promiscuity was encouraged because “everyone belongs to everyone else”, which is exactly what ordinary worker, Lenina Crowne does.
So eventually Aldous Huxley made this fantasy into a reality and wrote a book, which he called Brave New World.
Thinking Of...
“ -For particulars, as everyone knows, make for virtue and happiness; generalities are intellectually necessary evils. Not philosophers but fretsawyers and stamp collectors compose the backbone of society.- ” (Huxley,4)
After reading and reading this quote over and over again, I was able to understand that this is what Brave New World’s society is based on. I figured that this society is not successful because of all the scientists, doctors, and all the educated people that have an idea of what individuality and freedom are, but rather all of the people that make up the lower social classes and that are not able to think for themselves. I’m guessing that the government controls their minds and actions so that they don’t have anything against the system, or so that they are on the government’s side. This reminds me of all of the great civilizations that were able to control the majority of their population, that were mainly uneducated and poor, so that they didn’t go against the government.
“ -After all, everyone belongs to everyone else.- ” (Huxley, 43)
I didn’t understand the meaning behind this quote until I reread it a couple of times. I thought that belonging to someone else gave people in Brave New World a sense of, false, community that they could not have in other circumstances, but then I realized that I was wrong. I actually felt deeply saddened by the fact that, while belonging to everyone, you don’t belong to anyone at all. I was heartbroken when I realized that these people don’t have a sense of “family” or “home”, and that working is the only thing that they have known or will ever know. In this case, coworkers are the closest thing that they can have to a family, which is why I hope that they can have each other’s backs.
"Just know you’re not alone"
Next Up...
So far, the book has been more unexpected than what I thought it would be. It has been much more different than what I expected, but I kind of like it. Since I have just started reading the book, I don’t really have any reasonable predictions to make about story, but I hope that some things happen in one place or another in the book. I hope that Bernard can learn to love himself just the way he is, and that he doesn’t let what other people think or say about him define who he is. I have also been thinking about how, in other dystopian novels that I have previously read, a revolution or need for change always happens, but I am not sure yet who can protagonize these actions in Brave New World.
