Largely set in a futuristic World State, whose citizens are environmentally engineered into an intelligence-based social hierarchy, the novel anticipates huge scientific advancements in reproductive technology, sleep-learning, psychological manipulation and classical conditioning that are combined to make a dystopian society which is challenged by only a single individual: the story's protagonist. A visit to one of the few remaining Savage Reservations, where the old, imperfect life still continues, may be the cure for his distress.… Huxley’s ingenious fantasy of the future sheds a blazing light on the present and is considered to be his most enduring masterpiece.īrave New World is a dystopian social science fiction novel by English author Aldous Huxley, written in 1931 and published in 1932.
Harbouring an unnatural desire for solitude, and a perverse distaste for the pleasure of compulsory promiscuity, Bernard has an ill-defined longing to break free. Bernard Marx seems alone in feeling discontent. Through clever use of genetic engineering, brainwashing and recreational sex and drugs, all its members are happy consumers. It is a world without awe, without love, without profound beauty, it is a world without struggle and overcoming, it is a world where people will never realize their true potential, and never experience the furthest heights of human nature.Description Marking the 75th anniversary of its original publication, Vintage Canada is proud to publish the first Canadian edition ever of the 1932 classic Brave New World with an original introduction by Margaret Atwood.įar in the future, the World Controllers have created the ideal society.
It is a world that does not nurture the greatest parts of what it means to be human. The sorts of pleasures people pursue in that world are of little substance, they are base and fleeting. However, the world of Brave New World does not seem like that great of a world to me. It is a much nicer world than the one presented in 1984. And those who cannot enjoy this hedonistic lifestyle get sent to some isolated colony where they can live their lives as they please. From this point of view, the world Huxley created is a pretty good world indeed, most peoples live their lives with minimum suffering and with loads of pleasure. Utilitarianism is all about trying to maximize utility, with pleasure being positive utility and pain being negative utility.
From the utilitarian point of view it’s actually a pretty good world, utilitarianism is roughly defined as “the greatest good for the greatest number” with “good” being pleasure and “bad” being pain. I’m pretty sure Huxley meant it to be a dystopia, however I really appreciated how it was ambiguous at to how “bad” of a dystopia it actually was, and how certain ethical views could even view it as a utopia.
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