I thought this was supposed to take place in a dystopia

I thought this was supposed to take place in a dystopia

it basically takes place right now

Everything sounded pretty good if you were part of the elite, they even had tropical islands for those who preferred another lifestyle

But even the Epsilons were happy. Everyone working for everyone.

And no one was even aware they were a slave, because they were amused to the point of distraction. Just like now.

Holy... I want more

It's not necessarily a dystopia at all. It becomes a dystopia if you both reject it and have the mindset it's wrong.

It's hard to call it a dystopia because almost everyone in the book is completely happy with their world, even though we look at it with a certain sense of horror.

So...maybe our world is the real dystopia.

"But we had forgotten that alongside Orwell's dark vision, there was another - slightly older, slightly less well known, equally chilling: Aldous Huxley's Brave New World. Contrary to common belief even among the educated, Huxley and Orwell did not prophesy the same thing. Orwell warns that we will be overcome by an externally imposed oppression. But in Huxley's vision, no Big Brother is required to deprive people of their autonomy, maturity and history. As he saw it, people will come to love their oppression, to adore the technologies that undo their capacities to think.

What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one. Orwell feared those who would deprive us of information. Huxley feared those who would give us so much that we would be reduced to passivity and egoism. Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from us. Huxley feared the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance. Orwell feared we would become a captive culture. Huxley feared we would become a trivial culture, preoccupied with some equivalent of the feelies, the orgy porgy, and the centrifugal bumblepuppy. As Huxley remarked in Brave New World Revisited, the civil libertarians and rationalists who are ever on the alert to oppose tyranny "failed to take into account man's almost infinite appetite for distractions." In 1984, Orwell added, people are controlled by inflicting pain. In Brave New World, they are controlled by inflicting pleasure. In short, Orwell feared that what we fear will ruin us. Huxley feared that what we desire will ruin us."

Never looked at it from that perspective

Fuck off commie

Who here /Bernard/

ohlookitsthisthreadagain.tiff

BNW is capitalist

...

>everything is either communist or capitalist

lmao what 9th grade sociology classroom did I just walk into

Orwell's Pit of Despair
Huxley's Pit of Bliss

>record high rates of depression
>in brave new world everyone is happy
we aren't there yet, comrade

i've read the difference between an adult and an adolescent is whether they think BNW was a dystonia or utopia

The adult realizing it is a utopia, and the adolescent thinking it's a dystopia, because they have not yet entered the real world and haven't yet realized that the world envisioned in BNW is ideal compared to what they are about to face.

The real difference between an adult and an adolescent lies in whether one considers this piece of shit book for armchair political philosophers to be good or not.

After this, there is no turning back. You take the blue pill—the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill—you stay in Wonderland, and I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes.

>9th grade sociology classroom
You know you can just say sociology classroom and it has the same effect?

I'll have the green pill.

Huxley thought he was writing a dystopia, too. I mean, they indoctrinate people to not fear death ffs. And this is supposed to be a bad thing. Fuck John, he was a faggot.

And huxley knew the book was shit or else he wouldn't have written the return to bnw essay

They aren't happy though. That's like the whole point of the book. They have to pop pills at the feelies to numb their rl feels because the government knows that feels are the natural enemy of the status quo (their power). Goddamn you're so numb you don't even know it.

An adult embraces responsibility and hardship. A child flees from it. No great deed comes from comfort.

>An adult embraces responsibility and hardship
An adult acknowledges the stupidity of this statement and tries to make their lives as enjoyable as they can before their short lives end, coming to the ultimate realization that it was all for nothing.

I think it is the wrong debate to have on whether it is a dystopia or an utopia. I think both this and 1984 have a different level of interpretation on the grounds of choice, fear, pleasure, control in a more broad sense. I think it's not really the matter to ask if the scenario of BNW was good or bad, but if it was a chosen one or not and if that should bother us or not. Is being happy like that different or similar in what ways to an ordinary happiness we may know today? Is it really what we want? Or is it also important how we get to happiness, perhaps even more so than achieving it? What is the cost of it?

>*Tips fedora*
So how's the suicide research going? Pick a spot and favorite rope yet?

You're fucking retarded and don't know how to read if you seriously think any the people in BWN were miserable. Even the protagonist who hated it was given an island to be happy on.

>omg stop talking about uncomfortable things i *pops soma* don't like it.... :))))))))
"Adult" "utopia", everyone

Yeah and how'd that work out for our protagonist? I suggest you cross reference your reading of BNW with some of it's Veeky Forums inspirations. Some Shakespeare, Voltaire etc. I'm sure that popping soma and masturbating was "the best of all possible worlds"

Why would I kill myself? That seems like the least pleasurable act.

Just wait until life throws you an unavoidable catastrophe then see how you feel.

Who is this "life" guy and why is heem such a jerk.

Huxley's vision seems more similar to how we're living now it seems

A gramme is better than a damn

People unironically pushing the lifestyle of impudent strumpets
>The current state of Veeky Forums

I'm getting kinda tired of people saying this book is more like our current situation than 1984. Did you guys not read any other dystopias (did you even read both of them?)

We?
Farenheit 451?
The Handmaid's tale?

But yeah, I guess if you take a step back and squint really hard, fit's uncanny. I mean, we don't grow people in tubes, have a strict caste system predicated on peoples' physiological superiority, or endorse a weird mishmash of socialism and industrialism, but other than those minor quibbles, it's spot on! Oh, and we don't have world peace.

People were conditioned to be happy, they had no choice, this was the single biggest theme of the book. Did you even read it?

Your quoting me on something I didn't even mention. I stated everyone was happy or at the very least had the means to happy. The dilemma is whether this is a good world or not. In most publications the book even starts with a quote questioning whether or not a utopia is truly desirable.
To think the people in BWN aren't happy is to force false ideas onto the book and ignoring the true issue it tries to address, ie is happiness really the only quality of a perfect world.
Try to be less condescending if you don't even understand the book.

Huxley also wrote book called Introduction to perennialism, so it could be book about world without metaphysics and critique of modernism.

>We
shit, badly written and not at all relevant to today, only known because it was the first dystopian novel
>Fahrenheit 451
Not relevant to today, information is widely available. The true problem is misinformation.
>Handmaids tale
never heard of it

As for people saying BNW is more relevant than 1984, neither are absolutely relevant, only in parts.

Have you read LoveStar? I just finished it yesterday, and while it's not nearly as gruesome as most dystopian novels, I found it chilling because it's a stone's throw (and a little magical realism) away from real life.

If you're into dystopian fiction at all, it's worth a read.

inb4
>Your

Well that's certainly one way of looking at it.

>Dystopic fiction

>Basing your entire reading of a book off of a publisher's pithy forward
It's not even worth my time having this conversation with you

The entire work supports, pseud.
Name one truly miserable character in the entire BNW universe.
>inb4 bernard

>Caveats his own argument
Kys. This is why I'm not taking the exorbitantly long time it would require to explain this to you.

>he thinks Bernard's misery was the fault of the system and not an exceptional fault
>he doesn't realise Bernard was used by the author to show how the system is so perfect at creating happiness that only a failure who willingly becomes miserable is capable of this, thus further highlighting the main point of the book that freedom creates misery
The system made everybody happy, that's all there is to it

I'm gonna check it out, thanks!

ORWELL BTFO! Should have taken more mescalin like this handsome mofo!

>The superficial interpretation continues.

Yesssss pls enjoy

said by the one who claimed it was a dystopian novel, but if it wasn't you thanks for the (You)s

Orwell was a journalist and Huxley was a scholar. These points can pretty much be seen in all of their works, ie stuff like Down and Out in Paris and London vs The Genius and the Goddess, it would be difficult imagining each author writing the other's work

It only wasn't a utopia for people who fetishized Shakespeare and the Anglo tradition (Huxley and the savage who was a stand in for him)
The world didn't reject those who didn't conform, it's explicitly stated that social sciences still exist in the form of testing alternative societies by those who rejected the predestination system, most people enjoyed it (because they were conditioned too of course) but it's not like there weren't alternatives or the stagnation that comes with a lot of fictional '-topias'

Welcome brother

>seems
As if there were no driving forces.

if I go down this path, what will be the end result?

>ywn have some hand picked Epsilons as your personal body servants...

>hurrrr

durrrr

fpbp

The point is that John was too Veeky Forums to enjoy the hollow facsimile of happiness that the "Utopia" engendered. Those people were not actually happy, they were constantly pushing away their innate humanity with soma. I ask you, why would a happy person need a drug to make them FEEL happy? The book is supposed to make you question the nature of true happiness. If you think happiness is as simple as the absence of pain then you are immature because SATISFACTION cannot be achieved without struggle. And satisfaction is the root of happiness, not pleasure.

While this definitely is true, people seem to forget that the proles in 1984 were also distracted by pleasures such as gambling, porn and sports to prevent them from realizing their true power and starting a revolution. Also the most interesting thing about 1984 in my opinion are the linguistic bits about Newspeak.

Cyberpunk had the most predictive dystopias, not this "muh state" Red Scare bullshit. Governments will become more and more ineffective against corporate interests, labour will be increasingly devalued leading to massive unemployment, job insecurity and social nihilism. This is what we are living.

Strife is what makes life worth living, OP. That's why millennials are contriving oppression and are generally unhappy.

I'm saying that yes, if the main system of genetic and social engineering and constant soma/porgy rituals was the only way people could live then you'd be right, but it ain't
'subcultures' existed for people who couldn't conform - among the world builders, the sociological alternatavists, and on the reservations

Those who wanted to pursue satisfaction rather than pleasure were still free to

Yeah but the vast majority of "society" reduced humans to passionless chattel livestock in the pursuit of a Utopia. The QUESTION of the book is "is this Utopia?" If you're an intellectual of any merit the answer is a resounding "No"

t-t.....hicc

Fahrenheit 451 reads like anything but a credible dystopia desu. Decent but memed super hard.

>Don't genetically grow people
On our way test tube babies and selected traits are available if you have cash
>Strict caste system
Social mobility world wide has stagnated even in America
>Weird Mish mash of socialism and industrialism
This is exactly what we have it's called syndicalism. See: auto and bank bail outs

>Implying Infinite Jest isn't just a better and more modernly applicable BNW

A manchild LARPING as someone who claims to have knowledge of some higher truth.

define higher truth

it'd feel so good to punch her really hard in the thigh

what happened to school? i didn't have sociology in the 9th grade lmao you faggots are so fucked

Why share those malicious thoughts. That's a very cruel act.

>Handmaids tale
>never heard of it
you serious?

>everything is eugenically controlled
>malfunctions such as people who desire freedom from constantly abusing your dopamine levels and staying barely pubescent and eternally horny are put into special colonies
>no child birth
>this is OP's utopia

an hero OP, pls

>lmao what 9th grade sociology classroom did I just walk into

Veeky Forums

Maybe it's good let me look it up...
>canadian novel
>female author
>misogyny is main theme
nevermind

It's a Utopia dystopia