Over time, Aldous Huxley’s idea of a dystopia where people are happy but ignorant has been copied so often in film and literature that I didn’t pay particular attention to Brave New World (1932) when I first read it. The reason for doing so this time was Neil Postman’s interesting comparison with George Orwell’s counterpart [b:1984|56196795|1984|George Orwell|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1612999498l/56196795.SY75.jpg|153313] (1949). In his 1985 essay [b:Amusing Ourselves to Death|74034|Amusing Ourselves to Death Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business|Neil Postman|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1568871230l/74034.SY75.jpg|2337731], Postman argues that television has favored Huxley’s version of a dystopia as the more plausible scenario. Anno 2024, his argument no longer entirely convinces me, but it did provide me an excellent reason to reread both novels.

For me, Brave New World is all about ideas and less about story. The title is a reference to Shakespeare’s [b:The Tempest|26192823|The Tempest|William Shakespeare|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1445791361l/26192823.SY75.jpg|1359590]: Huxley presents a utopian world of peace and comfort in which people have no reason to complain – as long as they go with the flow. People are no longer ‘born’ but ‘decanted’ from artificial wombs. Order is maintained by a social hierarchy of casts (according to which everyone is satisfied with their role) and a drug (‘soma’) against inconveniences. The inevitable disruption occurs when protagonists Bernard and Lenina go on holiday to a Savage Reserve and find Linda, a human like them who stayed at the reserve years ago to give birth (!) to her son, John. When mother and son are being brought ‘back’ to society, John struggles to reconcile his Shakespearean view of humanity with this brave new world.

Huxley managed to create a society with values that contradict his own. (I do not say ‘ours’ as the author did not succeed in shaking off his era: the zeitgeist of the 1930s is ever-present and if anything, his idea of the future is still very analogue.) At times, I found it chilling to read his alphas’ and betas’ thoughts on civilisation; even (or perhaps: especially) in an oppressed world, appearances triumph over authenticity and liberty. If Huxley had left out the ridiculous Ford worship, it would have been even more compelling.