Brave New World

Brave New World
by Aldous Huxley
read: approximately 1996
Modern Library #5, Guardian 1000 Novels

Brave New World is one of the first pieces of literature I understood and loved.  I read it in high school and I think the theme is one that appeals to a high school student, particularly one who is not necessarily the most popular kid in the class: the value of individuality in a world dominated by conformity.  Huxley set up the novel so the reader identifies with John the Savage and his anger, his faults, his desires, and his Genuine Human Emotion.

At the time I accepted the innate nobility of that stance, but as I get older it seems a bit more hollow.  People should have freedom to do what they want, but freedom includes the choice to just be conformist and be happy.  The uniqueness of humanity is found not in our emotions (which can be animalistic and base) nor in our intellect (which can be robotic and cold) but in the balance between them.  I can't help but feel that Huxley sets up a bit of a false dichotomy in Brave New World; the answer is not found in the regimented society nor in the free, chaotic wilderness but somewhere in between.

I do think the book is brilliant for laying out a plausible dystopia, one where humanity is not cowed by might and fair but one where individual people are presented with increasingly appealing options and largely through choice create an anodyne society.  The idea is frightening not in a direct, paranoid way but in a subtle, more subversive way.  It's not "will they kill me?", it's "have I already lost my humanity?", or worse, being unable to ask the question at all.