Brave New World

Aldous Huxley wrote the novel Brave New World in 1931. In it he gives the accounts of a future world where the utopian society gone wrong and turned into what the reader should think as a dystopia, but for the people of the time is a happy place. The story's "utopia" has been achieved by following the Assembly Line concept first introduced by Henry Ford to build the Model T.

The opening sequence reminded me of the movie Matrix and its incubator idea. I bet Matrix got it from this book. The concept of genetic engineering and breeding people for specific task-sets is quite remarkable considering that Huxley developed the idea in the 1930s. Then again, H. G. Wells' The Time Machine was published in the 1890s and it has humans evolving into two separate species.

If we take several steps back from our own society today and look at the big picture, we may find that there are some similarities between us and this story. For instance, we are slaves to the modern (in)conveniences such as the Internet, the cell phones, the pharmaceuticals, etc. And, we certainly don't lack the "herd mentality" (ie: everybody else has an iPhone, a Facebook page, Windows, etc.) Instead of sleep-conditioning, we have the brain-washing being done by the right and left-wing media outlets, the political parties, the corporations, the advertisers, the paid lobbyists ... We are being conditioned to think a certain way, to buy certain things, to use certain drugs. Instead of Huxley's single drug, soma, we now have many such things legal and illegal. So, are we on the unalterable path to Huxley's dystopia?

It was really interesting that towards the latter part of the book, Huxley tries to equate the idea of "free thinking" to Christianity or the subservience to God. That concept, to me, is just ironic! Then again, I guess, back then he didn't have Jesse Ventura telling him that "religion is a crutch for people who can't think for themselves." {grin}

Bottom line: For a futuristic novel written in 1930s, this book more than enough holds on its own in any time-frame. Good read; enjoyed it; made me think.