Just finished reading this and almost loved it but I honestly feel like I misread the ending a little bit and missed...

Just finished reading this and almost loved it but I honestly feel like I misread the ending a little bit and missed some messages here and there, so let's have a discussion.

1. Why is this considered dystopian? The setting sounds pretty rad to me all around. Was it just because it was written at a time when things like no religion, marriage, or standard families were seen as scary?

2. The ending section when John is talking to Mond was great but I am not 100% familiar with most of Shakespeare's works so I feel like I missed a lot during this sequence, can anyone somewhat elaborate? I understand most of it but in the end it just felt "preachy," as if we were supposed to empathize with the Savage in some way but I only felt like John was a complete dipshit.

3. Does John kill Lenina? I couldn't quite understand what happened when all the people started gathering around him and he saw her get out of the helicopter. I interpreted it as he just tried to get at her but the crowd was too thick and he was stopped while she ran behind the helicopter, then the soma was sprayed and he woke up the next morning and I am not sure what he feels so ashamed of, I misread this whole situation and everywhere I look doesn't really have a clear explanation either.

Really enjoyed the book but the whole ending portion seemed abrupt and I didn't like the weird tone shift. I guess the reader is supposed to be appalled by the society Huxley portrayed but all I feel is envy because that shit sounds cool as fuck.

>reading shit r/books books

>all I feel is envy because that shit sounds cool as fuck
well yes, that's how the people of the BNW would feel too
that's the point of the novel

It's on the Veeky Forums wiki, just making my way through the dystopian recommendations. Read 1984 years ago and really enjoyed it. Just finished Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep and picked this up immediately after.

>reading the sticky
Rookie mistake

So did you read the novel or not? Just want to discuss it.

1. The world as a whole isn't a dystopia, there are many nice aspects to it. The ultimate reason BNW is a dystopia is that humanity has no future, no goals, no aspirations. Humanity if we can call it that at this point has stagnated. People are birthed and shaped into a role in which they will never escape or even wish to escape. If they do become disgruntled they are silenced by soma. If that doesn't work then they are deported to one of many glorified penal colonies. The reservation is merely a sideshow that creates an "other" for members of the world state to mock and feel a sense of superiority. Instead of bolstering the individual through technology humanity chose to forever subjugate the individual to The World State, the twisted shadow of a united humanity. Humanity could have become gods and explored the reaches of space forever, instead they chose myopia.

2. It's been a long time since I've read BNW so I can't exactly quote portions of this conversation. It boils down essentially to John's assertion that humanity needs dreams, pain, struggle, conflict, and moderation in order to truly live. Having every possible need, want, and desire immediately at hand, leaving absolutely nothing to be desired and taking away the will of the individual essentially short-circuits and destroys humanities future.

3. No, John does not kill Lenina. He rages on her and beats her with a whip. After the orgyporgy he wakes up to find, to his disgust, that he'd given in to his baser instincts and done some of that dank soma and fucked Lenina's brains out.

Shut the fuck up, seriously.
People need to start somewhere. Your vague allusion to superiority only makes you look like a prick. If that was your intent then bravo.

but there is innovation. They are perfecting birthing technology. They will probably continue improving soma and making better "vacations". They are making more efficient what already works.

>1. Humanity could have become gods and explored the reaches of space forever, instead they chose myopia.

I feel like this is just the next logical step for this society, it just hasn't been long enough for it to happen. They still focus on technological progress (personal air vehicles, super fast public travel, etc). I see them looking to space not as a personal goal for all of mankind, maybe as just another tourist spot/attraction for Alphas to visit. It would provide much more work for the lower classes and invite more innovation for the breeding facilities.

>2. Having every possible need, want, and desire immediately at hand, leaving absolutely nothing to be desired and taking away the will of the individual essentially short-circuits and destroys humanities future.

This is exactly why I couldn't relate/empathize with John. Society as a whole had already gone far beyond what was originally envisioned and I don't see something like that stagnating. There are always controllers like Mond that know the truth and they are the ones pushing the research/science forward when they feel it is right for society as a whole. They know what the old world was like and still have those hopes and dreams, since they are in such high positions they are the ones to build the future like they always have.

>3. Having every possible need, want, and desire immediately at hand, leaving absolutely nothing to be desired and taking away the will of the individual essentially short-circuits and destroys humanities future.

Well shit I will have to read that portion again because I figured he just attempted to hit her and she was just pushed to the back of the crowd while John whipped himself into a "soma coma." It would make his disgust the next morning make a lot more sense. I didn't get the idea that he fucked her but I was wrong.

>Why is this considered dystopian? The setting sounds pretty rad to me all around. Was it just because it was written at a time when things like no religion, marriage, or standard families were seen as scary?

It's dystopian because it's a totalitarian society tat confuses pleasure with good. You are forbidden by, and prevented from living anything even resembling a good life. You are not allowed to express any virtues because if you do you are exiled. People talk about how you can always opt out and go to the island if you disagree with them but it's a very shallow way of thinking. You have be designed from birth to be a vapid, non-reflective, pleasure seeking waste of space. They do not provide anyone with the skills to pursue a good life, so that when they exile you they are condemning to an equally vapid life (because how can you conceive of anything else) except it is without the pleasure. You can see that several of the characters in the book realise there is something missing from their lives. This society has made it impossible for everyone on the whole planet to even ask what it is they are missing.

You're right there is innovation. This isn't want I mean though. There is 0 impetus to go beyond The State, it has achieved its goal. The game is over. Ultimately, in the long run, humanity is circling the drain, although it will have a fun time all the way down.

Of all the dystopian scenarios BNW is one of the nicer ones even yet the most sad at the same time for there is no chance of it ending except in extinction.

>There is 0 impetus to go beyond The State, it has achieved its goal. The game is over. Ultimately, in the long run, humanity is circling the drain, although it will have a fun time all the way down

I somewhat disagree. I can see controllers like Mond striving to completely eliminate abnormal subjects like Bernard or Helmholtz from the breeding process. There is still clear progress to be made. I do understand your point of humanity heading toward extinction but there are always those reject islands free to do as they please (not sure if they are allowed to breed normally or not).

In spite of everything that happens in 1984 you can always silently rebel in your mind. You have somewhere that you can live deep inside of you. Even if they change the language to suppress certain modes of thought (which is a completely discredited idea) you can have that feeling of freedom and hold on to it. In A Brave New World there is only the occasional sensing of something being wrong when the soma and orgies dip for a bit. It's like in Buddhism how the heavens aren't places you want to go to because the immense amount of pleasure distracts you from the path.

>but there are always those reject islands free to do as they please (not sure if they are allowed to breed normally or not).

>You have be designed from birth to be a vapid, non-reflective, pleasure seeking waste of space. They do not provide anyone with the skills to pursue a good life, so that when they exile you they are condemning to an equally vapid life (because how can you conceive of anything else) except it is without the pleasure.

>You can see that several of the characters in the book realize there is something missing from their lives. This society has made it impossible for everyone on the whole planet to even ask what it is they are missing.

Isn't this what most religions strive to be though? I'm not super familiar with the details of the different afterlives portrayed in different religions but I feel like "heaven" is what BNW's society is striving to be. "Everyone belongs to each other" is a prevalent theme throughout the Alpha's various dialogues and what the controllers are striving to do is fill that "void" some of the rejects feel, hence the pregnancy surrogate the one girl wants to go through. It's just one example of how they are still in the process of building the perfect society.

>You have be designed from birth to be a vapid, non-reflective, pleasure seeking waste of space. They do not provide anyone with the skills to pursue a good life, so that when they exile you they are condemning to an equally vapid life (because how can you conceive of anything else) except it is without the pleasure.

But even Helmholtz is excited to begin writing what he wants and looks forward to being sent to one of the island, even one that has worse conditions than others, so why can't there be other "rejects" that feel the same? John was raised without knowing how good normal citizens have it, but Helmholtz does yet still doesn't mind leaving it and WANTS to pursue his own dreams.

A young boy who watched a war movie is not ready to go to war. A soft man, born of pleasure thinks he wants that a hard life, but he is not prepared for it.

He wants to write things other than what he is told but when he reads the Shakespeare talking about motherhood he cannot begin to comprehend it. Imagine some African child whose whole family is killed and he is kidnapped to become a child solider. The immense trauma and conditioning that would go on in the crucial stages of his life would make it near impossible for him to ever life a good life. It is the same with this society. It is conceivably possible but so difficult and rare that you might as well say it is.

They are trying to fill that void with pleasure which is not enough. Also to think of Buddhist enlightenment or a Christian heaven as just places of maximum pleasure is to completely misunderstand them. There may be religions out there like that but none of the major ones today, or in fact any that I can think of.

>Also to think of Buddhist enlightenment or a Christian heaven as just places of maximum pleasure is to completely misunderstand them.

You're right, I really don't understand much about religion and was trying to draw comparisons where I shouldn't.

>He wants to write things other than what he is told but when he reads the Shakespeare talking about motherhood he cannot begin to comprehend it.

I got the impression Helmholtz still wants to learn about it though. I figured he understood his own shortcomings and was humbled by that fact and it's why he requested a shitty island, kind of a self-punishment akin to what John did.

1. It's utopia made by Ford. The lack of religion isn't scary, because the religion is Fordism. If you pursue small parts of science to the detriment of others religiously, you wind up with fedoras, and that is not fun dinner conversation without a lot of drugs.
2. They're both being dipshits. It's the 'why you no like what i like' back and forth you'll see all over the place; even with Fordism, they needed to keep the savages to prove they were better than someone who thought of themselves as human. Feeling better than an Eppy who was designed to be worse than you isn't the same feel as feeling better than a natural human. He's trying to not pull a Rousseau and pretend savages are naturally noble but instead show savages and scientists are both dicks who can't understand each other because they're not fully human or meant to be since they're stereotypes of human beings.
3. I don't think so, I think he just roughs her up. I can't remember since it's been ages since I read it.

Try Island next. It's another utopia by Huxley which isn't a utopia once you put it into practice either. That was Huxley's point: you could get close to utopia but someone's going to be unhappy and wind up dead in any human utopia, because they're two important parts of humanity.

The point of Island is that utopia is fragile. It requires the right start, the right care and upbringing and the right global socioeconomic climate. You can see that the utopia will end only a few years after the book.

>someone's going to be unhappy and wind up dead in any human utopia, because they're two important parts of humanity.

What part of Islands makes you think that people getting sad and the presence of death prevents the society from being a utopia? You said yourself they are important parts of being human, which is why there is a place to healthily experience them.

You know that his quasi-gf on the Island was depressive and didn't even give a fuck her husband died because his body type predestined him for that or something worse and everyone just accepts he's better off dead because he's born too Veeky Forums It's not a better utopia than BNW because they use a different superstition to justify the same callousness. Also, the Island is fragile like a dodo because half the point is that it's not any match for the outside society; the oil company replaces the savage who reads Shakespeare. It's a very black and white reading to think that the oil company is evil and the island perfect, especially when you're meant to view it through the eyes of the character sent by the oil company who falls in love with the island.