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Summary: Why is it called Brave New World REVISITED?
Review: A society with lack of emotions and drugs to be sure of this, London has come very far since Ford made the first T-Model. Mass production is the most important thing in the society of Gamma's, Delta's, and Epsilons. Soon enough we find a person who is very different from the start named Bernard Marx, he seems to show signs of emotions toward Leninna in more then a sexual manner. Leninna is a very popular girl; if she would walk into a club she would soon realize that she had spent a night with almost everyone in the room. Leninna and Bernard have finally planned a date thanks to Leninna's asking. This is kind of interesting because Leninna is very popular and Bernard is not there are often jokes that things went wrong with him while he was being made. Leninna had only recently been spending time with Henry Foster; he was a normal person very popular and sexually driven. In Lennina and Bernard's trip to the savage reservation they meet a man named Jon and his mother. They didn't quite understand how he could consider her mother being as how they don't have parents are family of any sort. Jon is brought back to the community and considered very popular but he only thinks of the society as very ignorant.
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Summary: A historial look at the current world
Review: Although this book was written over 40 years ago, and is a reflection on a book written over 60 years ago the issues it covers are surprisingly relevant in today's society. Throughout the book Huxley contrasts his work with George Orwell's 1984, and the (then) state of the post WW2 world and current scientific discovery. Covering issues such as overpopulation, propaganda, the art of selling and brainwashing as well as drugs and political control he gives prescient warnings to the reader. My personal favourite chapter, The Art of Selling is an excellent analysis of the (then) new art of marketing. The final chapter though, is a call to activism through education of the people. The book is very accessible, and if you have not read Brave New World, you will not be at a disadvantage. I'd recommend it to anyone wanting a historical perspective to today's issues.
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Summary: Another Aldous Huxley Masterwork!
Review: Anyone who had the pleasure of reading the original edition of "Brave New World" published in the 1930s understands the nature of the concerns Aldous Huxley was exploring in this science fiction approach to the issues associated with modernization and where unleashed science and technology are taking us. In this marvelous companion non-fiction work published some twenty-some years later, Huxley further defines and describes the substance and consequences of his original concerns as outlined in "Brave New World". These concerns range from the fairly mundane issues of overpopulation to the quality of life for citizens in such a future society to the concerns for individual freedom and consciousness, given what he terms to be the increasing capability and interest of the upper reaches to mold and control the attitudes, dispositions, and perceptions of its individual citizens.Huxley is uniquely qualified to engage in such an exploration, largely due to his stature given the fateful ways in which so many aspects of his prognostications about the direction of future society have been substantiated and actualized before our very eyes, including, among other things, the development of nuclear weapons and the use of nuclear power. So too, as we approach ever greater integration of national economies into something gradually approaching a single global one, his fears regarding the likelihood of the rise of `fascism with a friendly face' seems much more to the mark than did all the fears of the Orwellian `1984' type totalitarian government. Yet he also is known and respected for having been, like Edmund Wilson was here in the United States in the same time frame, as an eminent man of letters, a man capable of successfully straddling the various academic fields with a vision so powerful and so true to the facts as to allow him immense credibility and latitude. Here he one again provides us with a fascinating, provocative, and, in retrospect, remarkably accurate of what would come to transpire in the years of the 20th century. As even Huxley himself admits, much of what has already come into existence did so much more rapidly and much more widely than he originally imagined it might. His accomplishment in this superb book is to survey the prospects for what increasingly now, in the first years of the 21st century, is now an uncomfortably accurate set of predictions of not only how we live, but under what particular set of social, economic, and political circumstances. Reading this book, in combination with several of his other texts, such as the wonderful "Doors OF Perception", helps immeasurably to liberate one from the kind of propaganda-influenced and politically correct sets of personal perceptions so many of us view the world through. This is indeed a seminal book, one that any serious student of the human condition and who lives in the so-called advanced social democracies of the western world must read to comprehend the nature of the environment he or she exists within. Enjoy!
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Summary: Somewhat Scary
Review: As Brave New World the novel was fairly prophetic, as is (and even more) Brave New World Revisited. While I don't necessarily agree with some of the more doom and gloom projections of the future, Huxley is quite adept at explaining mind control by the powerful wanting to remain in power. Plus he has a keen awareness of the threat of our stability by the rising problem of over population. Also, remember this book was written in 1958 so some of his projections have already come true. Brave New World Revisited is quite an intellectual book, yet very readable.
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Summary: A Brilliant Masterpiece
Review: Even though this book was written 40 years ago, most of the ideas are still intact, and most of them have come very true. If you really want a brief inside look on how masses are controlled and yet you don't want to be overwhelmed by academic language, this book is just for you. Although I recommend that you read Brave New World before you read this, you really don't have to. Aside from several references to it, Brave New World Revisited has nothing to do with the book Brave New World. It is actually a collection of articles that Huxley wrote for New York Times back in the late fifties (published under the name Tyranny over the Mind).
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Summary: "Look How Right I Was!"
Review: I read this directly after finishing Brave New World. This is Huxley's big, long essay where he essentially says: "see how right I was?" His thesis is that the society he envisioned in Brave New World was coming to pass far more quickly than he imagined. He then goes on to detial the steps that are inexorably leading to our descent into totalitarianism. At the end, he suggests systems of eduction that he sees as the only way to prevent this almost certain and horrible future. I recommend this to those who were enraptured by the philosophy behind the novel and have an interest in the politics and sociology of totalitarianism.
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Summary: Brave New World Revisted -- Book Summary
Review: Incensed by the burgeoning 20th century onslaught against human freedoms, Aldous Huxley attempts to divulge the threat, which he claims "...are of many different kinds-demographic, social, political, psychological" (131). Huxley reiterates the warnings first pronounced by John Stuart Mill. That we must remain vigilant in protecting our freedoms from willing usurpers. In this sense liberalism is the antithesis of order and efficiency. And the interests of the individual are opposed to that of "Big Government" and "Big Business". Apparently, the demise of Malthusian economic theory had not yet reached Huxley by 1958. In Huxley's chapter on over-population he remarks, "The problem of rapidly increasing numbers in relation to natural resources, to social stability and to the well-being of individuals-this is now the central problem of mankind...Unsolved, that problem will render insoluble all our other problems" (8-9). Of course modern agricultural technology allows a much larger number of people to subsist than the 2 billion originally predicted by Huxley. Additionally, Total Fertility Rates (TFR) have tended to decline in the presence of literacy, economic growth, and contraception. Ironically, the problem posed to the industrialized countries today is not too much growth but to little, with many demographers predicting an 80% likelihood of an end to world population growth by the year 2080. These discrepant predictions reveal that present projections should not be taken for granted. Indeed, the problem of over-population remains not only a potentially endogenous threat to the industrialized world but also an exogenous one in light of the tendency for poorer countries to support totalitarian regimes. While Huxley may be somewhat off-base when it comes to over-population he does hit the nail on the head when it comes to the corrupting influence of power and the methods used by which to increase power, "But liberty, as we all know, cannot flourish in a country that is permanently on a war footing, or even a near-war footing. Permanent crisis justifies permanent control of everybody and everything by the agencies of the central government" (14). Adopting a war stance is only one of the many machinations in which the powers that be seek to increase their power. Huxley's writing reveals that he is a cynic by nature, and perhaps rightfully so. He writes, "But the Nature of Things is such that nobody in this world ever gets anything for nothing...Indeed, like last year's washing machine, they are still being paid for-and each installment is higher than the last" (19-20). Huxley fears that technological progress leads to greater centralization of both economic and political power, and ultimately the squelching of freedom. Unfortunately, the truth of this becomes abundantly clear. For example, we all benefit from the Internet. I enjoy purchasing books from Amazon.com for a discount. However, in enjoying this pecuniary benefit, I inavertedly put my credit card information at risk. In steps the FCC or other governmental agencies that serve as a watchdog against identity theft. This in itself may not pose a problem. However, they do not stop there. Next, the CIA receives authorization for their CARNIVORE program to scour through our emails and library records searching for clue words that may suggest a threat to national security. When all taken together we can see how government is playing a growing role in the affairs of our daily lives with us nodding in consent. Moreover, power tends to corrupt and is not give away without a fight. One can imagine a scenario where government acquires increasing power over our lives to the point that we are no longer in a position to do anything about it. This is exactly what Mill and Huxley are warning us of. Yet, according to Huxley this tendency remains a fundamental part of what it means to be human, "The wish to impose order upon confusion, to bring harmony out of dissonance and unity out of multiplicity is a kind of intellectual instinct, a primary and fundamental urge of the mind" (24). He refers to this urge as the "Will to Order." While not wholly bad, this 'will to order' wreaks havoc when applied beyond the realms of science and art toward politics and social conformity. Thus, red lights should immediately go off and sirens sound once we hear of Marx's 'scientific socialism'. Huxley relates his constrained vision of human nature in biological terms infused with a sense of natural harmony, "A great gulf separates the social insect from the not too gregarious, big-brained mammal; and even though the mammal should do his best to imitate the insect, the gulf would remain. However hard they try, men cannot create a social organism, they can only create an organization. In the process of trying to create an organism they will merely create a totalitarian despotism" (26). Some organization is necessary for us to enjoy our freedom. The goal is to find a happy medium between organization and freedom and educate ourselves to be able to tell the difference.
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Summary: The world is ripe to take Mr. Huxley more seriously
Review: Mr. Huxley started warning us in 1932, with his masterpiece, "Brave New World." In this essay-style analysis of his own book, written twenty-six years later, he takes it one big step further. Addressing everything from overpopulation to overorganization, his words ring more true with every passing year. Our society needs to lift its head from the computer screen for a few hours to read this critical work. Few, if any, have said so much in so little space. Mr. Huxley is one of the greatest thinkers of the twentieth century, and it is a criminal shame that his words are not more widely read. We should put down our endless self-help manuals and learn where our ills really begin. We need to understand how the roots serve the tree before we can improve upon the tree. Mr. Huxley is an expert gardener...
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Summary: Some good tid-bits and history. Not much else.
Review: Once again, I have to go and do things out of order. I read 'revisited' before the original. That said, Huxleys arguments will be accessable even to those who've not read the original. I'm guessing, but it may even be more beneficial to read this first. (Kind of like reading the introductory exposition before the classic fiction.) Huxley is a skilled polemicist. Not only is his observation skills remarkable but his writing is forceful with a sense of urgency. Ironically, the two writers I can compare his fervent style to is Ayn Rand (The Virtue of Selfishness) and B.F. Skinner (Beyond Freedom and Dignity). How's that for strange company! Unfortunately, like the above writers, Huxleys ranting is exciting at first, leading to mildly annoying, spiraling to nervewracking. A reader reading in 1958 might've been able to take that urgency as the communism mentioned in this book was quickly spreading. In 2002 however, it's a bit harder to take. This is not to say that much of the observation in this book is not happening today. The 'propaganda', 'selling' and 'organization' sections are DEAD ON!! Propaganda: Those in control have convinced us that government (Huxley warns us of vague terms such as these) is the best way to solve problems. Selling: Business is getting bigger and successful advertising is suspiciously easy. Organization: As business gets bigger and needs to become more effective, the organizational structure spreads and to some degree subordinates the individual to the whole. Last but not least, Chemical Persuasion: Huxley was half right. As above trends continue, we medicate more. Not only is illegal drug use out of control, but drugs to combat psychiatric disorders (including 'Math Disorder'? Thanks DSM-IV!) are abundant. Might this be fooling us into thinking that the problem is solved upon the individuals adjustment to the world? Does the problem lie not with the individual sickness, but the world itself? Huxley would cheer 'Yes.' "Their perfect adjustment to that abnormal society is a measure of their mental sickness." Why is Huxley half wrong? Neuroscience has shown quite otherwise. Because of it's overpreachiness and what seemed like a mission to doom and gloom us (while talking the COMMUNISTS tendencies to exploit fear in propaganda) I could only give it three stars. A quick, dark read to give you cause for pause? Yes. A propehsy? Well.....
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Summary: Be Afraid, Be Very Afraid
Review: That is the message which Huxley conveys through this follow-up to his masterpiece, Brave New World. Huxley's obsevations of modern day mind control methods, brainwashing, and propaganda are chilling. What is even more chilling is that this book was written in 1958, one can imagine what advances in these dark sciences man has taken since then. A key point in this book is that if a totalitarian state is going to exist in the present day it will almost surely be more like Huxley's Brave New World, rather than Orwell's 1984. The main reason for this is that whereas Orwell's society revolves around the threat of violence, torture, and death, Huxley's revolves around the reward system. Huxley's Brave New World lulls the masses to sleep so that they have no idea that their freedom is being taken away. Huxley predicts that we will drug people who are even slightly out of the norm for "mental illnesses" (does Prozac ring a bell?). He predicts that valuable information, information necessary for the preservation of freedom, will be subtly, very subtly, taken away from the masses while replacing it with a seemingly terrific reward (does television ring a bell?). Huxley's most frightening premise in this book is that the individual (what he and others identify as "The Great Man") is being done away with by modern "science". He recapitulates for us the great debate between the behaviorist psychologists (like Watson and Skinner) and the philosopher psychologist William James. Skinner and company believe that the individual is powerless over his environmental influences while James strongly believes in the idea of "The Great Man". (In other words did Elizabethan England create Shakespeare's plays or did Shakespeare create his plays?) Huxley tells us the bad news in bulk before getting to the obvious question What can we do? His answer can be summarized in one word, THINK!!! Think, debate, don't accept the packaged and marketed ideas that are given to you like a McDonalds cheeseburger. In Huxley's words, educated yourself for freedom. And you can start by reading a copy of this book. If your local bookstore doesn't have one, then for God's sake, for all of our sakes, find a copy quick.
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