Utopian and Dystopian Reading Group discussion

I liked this book. it is a good look into utopian societies and how they seem to work, but the secrets behind why they dont.

BNW is more than that, although not many people really talk on abstract terms about it as you have, which is funny. It is true that it is telling in terms of Utopian ideals and how they operate, but this is classified and is indeed, a Dystopic work. -that is, like 1984, based on negative societal ideals compared to ours. Plus it was written by a Christian, so you get all the anti-sex stuff...

Neal wrote: "Plus it was written by a Christian, so you get all the anti-sex stuff..."

Neal, you are flat wrong on two counts.

A) Aldous Huxley was not a Christian (he was a follower of the perennial philosophy, inspired through Vedanta).

B) Brave New World is not anti-sex at all - almost the opposite. Brave New World is the counter example to 1984, both showing sexuality being controlled by society divorced from free expression of human individuals.

Otherwise, I think it's interesting to try to interpret Brave New World as a utopia, since it starts to resemble Skinner's Walden Two which was intended to be a utopia. The ambivalence and ambiguity is interesting.

I'm sorry if I have mispoken. I consider utopian and dystopian so silimar that in my mind they are grouped together. Forgive me? :)

Ashley wrote: "Forgive me? :)"

I'll forgive you, Ashley. Lol. As both deal with the idea of perfection being a task that can be performed, yes, they are very close. And as I pointed out earlier, some utopias (like Walden Two) are read as dystopias by those who don't share the author's vision of perfection.

I totally stand corrected. Very interesting! What is Perennial Philosophy? I think he was Christian raised though. i.e. what's wrong with everybody having sex with everyone else, per se? It is obviously viewed in the book as something to do with the world gone wrong. He confirms it I think in Brave New World Revisited, where he espouses a lot of his politics along with his misadventures with mescaline. :)

Very interesting! What is Perennial Philosophy?

The idea that there is a core of basic spiritual insights and disciplines that arise in all cultures from time to time due to the structure of the human being and the nature of reality. He wrote a book on it, very influenced by Vedanta.


I think he was Christian raised though.

Er, nominally C of E, if that. He was a Huxley, a family of naturalists, grandson of famous agnostic Thomas Huxley, and brother of Julian Huxley.


i.e. what's wrong with everybody having sex with everyone else, per se? It is obviously viewed in the book as something to do with the world gone wrong.

Nothing is wrong with sex, but the sex in the book is not portrayed as a free act, but an act of social cohesion. Attachment and specialness of any one person is considered to be abnormal and a slight to the community. The point is that neither Big Brother nor the World State want competition for the devotion of the citizen. One crushes the sex-bond through eliminating the orgasm, the other undermines it by eliminating the partner. Both hold no object of devotion higher than the whole, society in both is a jealous god.

In Island, there is much sex, but it is a free act and integrated into the human personality.

"All competing pleasures shall be destroyed."

Neal wrote: ""All competing pleasures shall be destroyed.""

Precisely. And Huxley's interesting insight is that this can be accomplished through positive reinforcement as well as punishment, like "all competing wills shall be destroyed".

People are manufactured to have desires that meet the needs of the World State, thus even their will is not their own. And when nature resurfaces with individual wills, the "ideological state apparatuses" springs into action and brings the individual back to "health" and "normalcy".

Matthew wrote: "I'll forgive you, Ashley."

Thank you. :P

Neal wrote: "what's wrong with everybody having sex with everyone else, per se?"

Lol, Nothing at all!

Sounds like I need to read that book, Island
;)

Ashley wrote: "I'm sorry if I have mispoken. I consider utopian and dystopian so silimar that in my mind they are grouped together. Forgive me? :)"

I think they are definitely grouped together, you can't have a dystopia without someone at some point trying to make a utopia - however misguided they might have been. That's what's so interesting right?

exactly

I just finished BNW yesterday. I really enjoyed it, despite the fact that it was kind of a bummer. But I suppose that's more often than not the point of dystopian fiction. Rarely do they end on a positive note, unless the ending suggests a post-revolutionary beginning of something else. The ending threw me off a bit. I have questions about it, but I don't want to put spoilers in here.