Book of the Week

Brave New World - and how we're not as close to it as you might think

Caleb Webster

Aldous Huxley's 1932 novel Brave New World received critical acclaim for its alternative view of the future where humanity's greatest problems came from having everything they wanted as opposed to the harsh and war-torn world of Orwell's 1984, published in 1949.

Huxley’s vision of the future is not horrific on first glance. The people are sedated happily with drugs such as ‘Soma’, and spend their lives recreationally by visiting the ‘feelies’ and enjoying recreational sex. Everyone is happy but this only comes from the genetic engineering that sorts them into castes – specifically designing them to fulfil a purpose and enjoy doing it.
On a deeper level than ‘everyone is happy’, this is disturbing as it takes away the free will that humanity has and replaces it with lack of originality and exclusion for those who are different from the norm. Medical and social advancements make the likelihood of distracting the people from their troubles with a drug ever more likely, even if it is very far off.

The feelies the characters enjoy experiencing, films which not only incorporate sight but also other senses such as touch, are also slowly seeming more likely as virtual reality technology develops. In the modern day there is also increasingly more sexual openness and acceptance and less repression than there has been in the past. Finally, people are placated with electronic devices and the internet, making some worry that books will die out as entertainment. We cannot tell whether this worry is misplaced or not but it does reflect similar views to those which inspired Huxley to write Brave New World.

Despite these similarities we are still far from living in Huxley’s nightmare, and may never reach that stage at all. Modern readers often only look at the similarities to today and not the context in which the book was written. The characters are seen unzipping from outfits frequently, which seems unremarkable to a modern audience yet at the time was shocking to contemporary readers because zips were seen as amoral for allowing people to get out of their clothes with great ease. Despite its accurate predictions of a future where pleasure comes first it is still an old, and in some ways outdated book. Maybe it isn’t meant for audiences today in the same way that it was meant to the original readers.

One of the most memorable aspects of the book are the savage reservations where those who are excluded from the society live in squalor and abuse from the ‘civilised’ people who come from the city to watch them. Judging from the way we’re developing at the moment I see this part of the book as entirely unrealistic as a potential future. In the last five years alone people have become much more accepting of LGBT rights and lifestyle and this trend does not look like it’s going to change any time soon.

Over the past century the same pattern has happened with women and people of other races and religions. Nowadays while racism, sexism and intolerance still exist there have been very few times when the general public have been more tolerant and understanding than now. In the 1930s it may have been a concern that segregation and distrust would lead to exclusion but in a modern world I don’t see Huxley’s vision as coming into fruition any time soon.