After hearing that Westworld had some nods to Huxley’s dystopia, arguably one of the first dystopias of its kind, I was motivated to finally read the book that would go on to inspire science fiction writers for now almost a century. Huxley’s cynical view of society and its doomed destination continues to be a nice check on the norms that we consider perfectly acceptable. He offers a world wherein our constant pursuit for happiness, knowledge, technological & scientific advancement, and personal fulfillment could paradoxically lead us to a world where that pursuit ceases to exist, and thereby potentially invalidating the very meaning of life itself. As a reader, I saw bits of myself in almost all of the main characters, and in those same characters I saw other traits that were completely unrelatable. So is the nature of our own reality: there is no one white knight or dark villian - in us all lie the entire spectrum of character, the absolute propensity for mistake, and a persistent drive to, above all, serve none other but ourselves.
Notable Excerpts
‘Utopias appear to be far more feasible than was previously thought. And we are now faced with a much more agonizing question: How can we avoid their definite realization? Utopias are feasible. Life is walking towards utopias. And perhaps a new century begins, a century when intellectuals and the cultivated class will dream of avoiding utopias and of returning to a non-utopian, less “perfected” and freer society.’ NICOLAS BERDIAEFF [Translated by Google]
“And that,” put in the Director sententiously, “that is the secret of happiness and virtue - liking what you’ve got to do.. making people like their unescapable social destiny.”
Home, home - a few small rooms, stiflingly over-inhabited by a man, by a periodically teeming woman, by a rabble of boys and girls if all ages. No air, no space; an understerilized prison; darkness, disease, and smells…and home was as squalid psychically as physically. Psychically, it was a rabbit hole, a midden, hot with the frictions of tightly packed life, reeking with emotion. What suffocating intimacies, what dangerous, insane, obscene relationships between the members of the family group! Maniacally, the mother brooded over her children… like a cat over its kittens; but a cat that could talk, a cat that could say, “My baby, my baby,” over and over again.
The world was full of fathers - was therefore full of misery; full of mothers - therefore every kind of perversion from sadism to chastity; full of brothers, sisters, uncles, aunts - full of madness and suicide.
I drink to my annihilation.
“…Actual happiness always looks pretty squalid in comparison with the over-compensation do misery. And, of course, stability isn’t nearly so spectacular as instability. And being contented has none of the glamour of a good fight against misfortune, none of the picturesqueness of a struggle with temptation, or a fatal overthrow by passion or doubt. Happiness is never grand.”
“I was wondering,” said the Savage, “why you had them at all – seeing that you can get whatever you want out of those bottles. Why don’t you make everybody an Alpha Double Plus while you’re about it?” Mustapha Mond laughed. “Because we have no wish to have our throats cut,” he answered. “We believe in happiness and stability. A society of Alphas couldn’t fail to be unstable and miserable. Imagine a factory staffed by Alphas – that is to say by separate and unrelated individuals of good heredity and conditioned so as to be capable (within limits) of making a free choice and assuming responsibilities. Imagine it!” he repeated. The Savage tried to imagine it, not very successfully. “It’s an absurdity. An Alpha-decanted, Alpha-conditioned man would go mad if he had to do Epsilon Semi-Moron work – go mad, or start smashing things up. Alphas can be completely socialized – but only on condition that you make them do Alpha work. Only an Epsilon can be expected to make Epsilon sacrifices, for the good reason that for him they aren’t sacrifices; they’re the line of least resistance… Each one of us, of course,” the Controller meditatively continued, “goes through life in a bottle. But if we happen to be Alphas, our bottles are, relatively speaking, enormous. We should suffer acutely if we were confined in a narrower space.”
“The optimum population,” said Mustapha Mond, “is modelled on the iceberg - eight-ninths below the water line, one-ninth above.”
“And they’re happier below the water line?”
“Happier than above it.”
Happiness is a hard master – particularly other people’s happiness. A much harder master, if one isn’t conditioned to accept it unquestioningly, than truth.
“But I like the inconveniences.” “We don’t,” said the Controller. “We prefer to do things comfortably.” “But I don’t want comfort. I want God, I want poetry, I want real danger, I want freedom, I want goodness. I want sin.” “In fact,” said Mustapha Mond, “you’re claiming the right to be unhappy.” “All right then,” said the Savage defiantly, “I’m claiming the right to be unhappy.” “Not to mention the right to grow old and ugly and impotent; the right to have syphilis and cancer; the right to have too little to eat; the right to be lousy; the right to live in constant apprehension of what may happen tomorrow; the right to catch typhoid; the right to be tortured by unspeakable pains of every kind.” There was a long silence. “I claim them all,” said the Savage at last. Mustapha Mond shrugged his shoulders. “You’re welcome,” he said.
“I say,” Helmholtz exclaimed solicitously, “you do look ill, John!” “Did you eat something that didn’t agree with you?” asked Bernard. The Savage nodded. “I ate civilization.” “What?” “It poisoned me; I was defiled. And then,” he added, in a lower tone, “I ate my own wickedness.” “Yes, but what exactly? …I mean just now you were…” “Now I am purified,” said the Savage. “I drank some mustard and warm water.”
That the purpose of life was not the maintenance of well-being, but some intensification and refining of consciousness, some enlargement of knowledge. Which was, the Controller reflected, quite possibly true. But not, in the present circumstance, admissable.