Aldous Huxley - Brave New World - Episode 3 - The Two Dystopian Worlds Collide!

I’m Christy Shriver and we’re here to discuss books that have changed the world and have changed us.  I’m Garry Shriver and this is the How to Love lit Podcast. This is our third episode in our four part series on Aldous Huxley’s negative utopia Brave New World.  In episode 1, we met Huxley and toured London’s Central Hatchery, covering chapters 1 and 2.  In episode 2, we discussed chapters 3-5 meeting two characters from the novel.  I want to point out that they are main characters, and when they were introduced, I expected them to be heroes, but these two are definitely not heroic- Bernard Marx and Lenina Crowne.  Through the first five chapters we accompany them on an average evening, an average evening for everyone in the brave new world- not just for them- and average evening in this world consists of two things- soma-taking and sex.   Now in episode 3 we accompany these two as they cross the Atlantic to the American continent and then return in chapters 6-11.   They bring back with them a character who comes closest to being a hero, he comes closest to being us, John Savage from the reservation.  Our plan today is to explore primitive life on the reservation and the contrasts Huxley creates for us as well as watch John the Savage as he interacts with the Brave New World on his return.    Christy, before we get into that I want to revisit a few important ideas from earlier episodes. As we think about how Huxley drew these standardized humans, and their lives, it’s more and more obvious that Huxley, himself, is not advocating for life a comfortable and happy life, at least in the way he defines these terms.  Comfortable meaning no anxiety; happy meaning full of distractions and entertainment.  No, we have to read this entire book as irony- everything he is defending is the opposite of what he’s describing.  It’s what makes this book confusing to many readers. The farther we get into the chapters, the more bitter the irony- even positive words like hygienic and beautiful and happy are used by Huxley to make us question if even these are really good things at all.    One place to pay attention is when reading how the characters talk to and about each other. What we see is that there is zero sense of what we consider to be meaningful relationship.  They talk about each other and to each other as if they were merchandise, or to use Huxley’s term- meat- dead or alive.  Huxley as a student of biology and psychology really pushes the scientific boundaries and even our imaginations to the limits.  He asks how far will society, or the power structure of our world go when it comes to psychological manipulation through conditioning?  Are there ethical limits or boundaries in the messages we hear from political or commercial leadership- and Huxley does not really see that there is a difference between these two.  And not just through repetition and peer pressure but also through government/cultural sanctioned drug use and sexual behaviors.  All of this, of course always expressed as being for the common good.  Not even the world leaders in a Brave New World have nefarious motives.  There is no obvious villain, no Hitler or Stalin out there murdering innocent people.  The government is doing everything in the name of general good, and yet, we, as readers are made to question if this is really the case.     Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.