I just finished reading this, but I cannot figure out if it's a utopia or a dystopia

You're meant to identify with John the Savage, for whom the world is definitely a dystopia.

It was meant as a utopia, Huxley said as much. When people starting calling his orgy filled nightmare a dystopia, he had to revise. John was originally meant to be a conservative man who can't get along in the liberal, hippy centric city.

But John is described as being very attractive and desired by women. How can I identify with that?

in a soytopia, even neckbeard virgins like you are attractive compared to the feminized gigabetas of the future

Neither. The novel pre-dates those critical categories, and so it's not influenced by them. It's supposed to be a social science fiction novel, like those of Wells, that examines the potential of a particular (and to Huxley attractive) alternative society. The main character isn't meant to throw the whole thing into irony, to make you think it's a satire, but to realistically represent the limitations of such a society.

Huxley revists it many years later in an essay because of how history changed certain aspects of the novel (the totalitarian aspects of the society) and he is made uncomfortable by it. He later writes another novel, Island, that's basically the same novel but with the totalitarian aspects removed because they distracted from what interested him. He also added some new stuff about drugs.

Very good post, thanks for letting me pick your brain.

It clearly doesn't predate the categories of Utopia and dystopia. The first dystopia was Gulliver's Travels, which was written in 1726, nearly 200 years before brave New world. Utopia was written prior to that.

Additionally, most define "dystopia" as a setting in which most is effective, but one or few things is fundamentally off. Technically then, Brave New World is a dystopia, as people are happy and productive, but the human element in freedom is lost.

I mean they basically don't exist in the sense that we use them, which is derived basically from pointing at BNW and 1984.

There was stuff out there like Utopia itself, Iron Hell, We, all of Wells' work, etc, but the genre isn't around in the same way.

What was around then were basically copies of Utopia and Gulliver's Travels, which were caustic imitative satires/fantasies. (Take Erewhon.) You only really get the "speculative" and realistic quality around the time those two novels come out.

its a dystopia and not very good

[citation needed]

It’s a dystopia because of passivity and lack of progress

pleb

Get off this board

It's a literal Utopia, everyone is happy and conditioned to be happy with their work.
It is presenting this idea as Utopia actually being a dystopia though due to lack of choice or freedom.

The book was based on the actual plans of the elites for us.

Not really, its the betas and alphas who sometimes figure out the truth behind their society and end up exiled in islands.
The point of the society is that it keeps everyone happy with drugs and conditioning and the lower classes are not clever enough to ever figure out their happiness is a lie.

Its a utopia conpaired to other dystopias

brainlet

What does it mean to be free to you?

Capitalism may not be perfect, but it's the best thing we have right now.

What?

I said, Capitalism may not be perfect, but it's the best thing we have right now.

1984 is better

1984 also described a utopian society

Oh, thanks. Could you please explain how your response relates to my question?

No I cannot, nor will I.

Oh. Okay. Have a nice day, user.

The default response for "I can't be fucked to critically think about alternate systems" i.e. "My own life is comfortable enough so the status quo is okay with me".

Read more, think more, and be less narcissistic.

Thanks, you as well.

If you think BNW isn't a massive dystopia, you aren't necessarily stupid; I just vehemently disagree with you

It's closer to the opposite desu

I'm curious, what do you propose as an alternate system?
You're welcome, thank you.

Pseud
Brave New world isn't that deep

Brave New World is the most perfect dystopia yet written which is why we're having this question of debate at all.

Huxley certainly tried to portray it as a dystopia.

BNW is a pristine case of dystopia OP. The very fact you are left to question whether or not this system is meant to be desirable goes a long way in showing how insidious a political system based on pleasurable consumption can be. Put that in contrast to modern science fiction where the blatant co-optation of technological advances and crony capitalism is widely employed to make it very obvious that [cyberpunk] worlds like this are undesirable.

BNW portrays a zero-sum game society, that not only does not have any class mobility at all, is also insular to any and all disruption. It would be truly impossible for that civilization to ever develop revolutionary tech, to adequately negotiate with parties from outside, or even to adapt to abrupt local changes in their social environment (abrupt enough to spark a cascade effect). It is in this sense that this apparently perfect society must remain merely "apparent", because in reality it is a management nightmare no one would actually be happy to deal with, simply because you would have to, almost literally, overcome entropy in order to preserve its utopian features.

Huxley does an awfully good job of showing his case on this, and as others have claimed ITT, it is rather ironic and also a cautionary tale, that BNW is an utopia if you're on the lower, ignorant castes, and absolutely hellish to live in if you're one of the people responsible to think freely and take decisions on how to keep the system going.

its dystopian you coddled beta faggot

>is prostate orgasm, eye-roll ant hive existence debased or ennobled?

Huh, that might be why I can't stand Island.

I'd like to add, in response to most answers in here, that this (that world being a dystopia) has nothing at all to do with freedom to suffer vs enforced hedonism. Soma-induced and sex-induced pleasure are used as tools for control merely because they are the most efficient Huxley could think of (and probably the most efficient in fact), but change everything into people being forced into obedience in more traditional ways (like most cyberpunk dictatorships that rip off Huxley), and none of the dystopian elements are even modified (i.e society is still insular to disruption and mobility is non-existent).

Such a society being undesirable also has less to do with its Human Development Index and more to do with its viability in long term. Both BNW and traditional "obviously nasty" dystopias would realistically be absorbed/destroyed by interaction with external elements, be it nature itself or other societies with different political schemes. You can't be Cuba for too long if you want Cuba to be part of the world, likewise for North Korea, and likewise for Huxley's imagined world. The trope here is not "freedom is above all" but rather "it is impossible not to change".

it was a dystopia

this sort of deliberately shackled existence where humans are deliberately reduced to a cattle-like state of idiocy so as to be kept controlled is a corruption of technology and nature both.

ultimately, BNW shows a society which has fallen to a state of purposeless self-indulgence. why continue propagating the society at all, if this servile stasis is all that can be achieved?

ironically, it makes slaves of the superintelligent and the idiots both, and everyone in between. the savage is right in abhorring it, and there are many reasons to do so.

The very fact that it is still discussed shows that it got its message across adequately. I would contend it was a very thoughtful and we'll delivered book.

>hasn't read Wealth by Emerson
>hasn't read Power by Emerson
>hasn't read any Sowell
>Hasn't read any Smith

try again.
>t. soyboy