I'm approaching the end of Aldous Huxley's Brave New World, in which a scary, desensitized sort of human civilization exists - all people are cloned or created, sexual promiscuity is the convention whilst monogamy becomes an unspeakable crime, the concept of family doesn't exist - the word mother is in fact scandalous, and the idea of God has been entirely replaced by the great Ford. Ford is a system that enforces stability and conformity, and utilises science and eugenics to an astonishing degree. All everyone cares about is happiness and pretty much... everyone are bimbos; just totally ignorant of their ignorance.
Some nice parts:
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"Because our world is not the same as Othello's world. You can't make flivvers without steel - and you can't make tragedies without social instability. The world's stable now. People are happy; they get what they want, and they never want what they can't get. They're well off; they're safe; they're never ill; they're not afraid of death; they're blissfully ignorant of passion and old age; they're plagued with no mothers or fathers; they've got no wives, or children, or lovers to feel strongly about; they're so conditioned that they practically can't help behaving as they ought to behave. And if anything should go wrong, there's soma. Which you go and chuck out of the window in the name of liberty, Mr Savage. Liberty! Expecting Deltas to know what liberty is! And now expecting them to understand Othello! My good boy!"
Soma is basically like a drug, encouraged and enforced by the system, that the people take to dispel any sort of unhappiness.
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"Actual happiness always looks pretty squalid in comparison with the overcompensations for 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."
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"My dear young friend, civilization has absolutely no need of nobility or heroism. These things are symptoms of political inefficiency. In a properly organized society like ours, nobody has any opportunities for being noble or heroic. Conditions have got to be thoroughly unstable before the occasion can arise."
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This one's my favourite part so far:
" 'Men and women must have their adrenals stimulated from time to time.'
'What?' questioned the Savage, uncomprehending.
'It's one of the conditions of perfect health. That's why we've made the V.P.S. treatments compulsory.'
'V.P.S.?'
'Violent Passion Surrogate. Regularly once a month. We flood the whole system with adrenin. It's the complete psychological equivalent of fear and rage. All the tonic effects of murdering Desdemona and being murdered by Othello, without any of the inconveniences.'
'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. "
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Reading this just reminds me of what someone else said - how youngsters today seem to bemoan too much about a difficult life. When in fact, it's good to have it difficult. It's good. It's supposed to make you stronger and smarter and wiser, and above all, human. We're not supposed to have it easy.
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