Yesterday, on June 13th the headline for the front page of ‘The Times’ was ‘Get out and shop, PM to tell Britain’. This was a jarring parallel to Huxley’s work which has characters telling us ‘You can’t consume much if you sit still and read books’, and vivid descriptions of the newest style.
Brave New World imagines a society where people are produced - and produced to be alike - where one has ever more complex trivial games to fill up ones time and where the dopamine firing acts of sex and ‘erotic play’ are encouraged at a young age.
One thing Huxley doesn’t predict is the environmental disaster and impact of such consumerism. There is no mention of the environment being ravished, or of any engineering to maintain it. Additionally, there are scenes featuring people which choose to live ‘outside of civilization’, yet these savages are so dumbed down and backwards that these scenes are almost cringe-worthy. Additionally, Huxley seems to be excessively fascinated with sex, and birth, devoting long detailed scenes to the production of people.
Despite these faults, Brave New World manages to strike a nuanced note. The World Controller in charge of this half paradise, half hell-scape is aware that he has sacrificed his individuality, and joys like reading Shakespeare and embracing religion for society. We really are made to ponder if this society is really so bad after all? Even if it is, would we be able to resist it?