WHERE IS ALDOUS HUXLEY WHEN WE NEED HIM?
At the age of 18 I read a novel which I thought would drift away like other books that year. The author was Aldous Huxley and the book was ‘The Brave new world’.
I was stunned by the concept of a society which was controlled by science, procreation rules and hierarchies. As young university students we all wanted a dram of ‘soma’ and reach a manufactured Nirvana. It was thrilling beyond words and no one felt scared reading this book it was an accepted fact that Huxley had ingested Mescalin along with his wife Freyda in their Mexican sojourn. This was the pre LSD period nevertheless mind bending or altering substances still remain in vogue. The book has been forgotten but its blueprint is visible in Sci-Fi Lit and film.
A study of Sci -fi on television and film indicates that despite the trappings of glowing skulls or diverse acting talent of a glamorous cast, to make or remake the world is a sought after theme. It means one is not happy with the state of nations of the world and the true good is being sought in the imaginations of script writers and Directors of Photography. A shallow concept indeed. Still how wars are made and genocides and social injustices casually unfold on television screens there is good old Netflix which gives a banal free hand to our chroniclers. Netflix is your history book now. A popular
book called ‘The coddling of the American mind ‘ and ‘The anxious Generation” point out to good intentions and bad ideas leading to mental illnesses. In fact we are setting up development for failure and hence the rise of sci-fi. Lets get away from it all say the naughty euthanasia groups spreading like poison ivy..
. Our woke brethren have prevailed and non- binary creatures are floating everywhere. Its already a sci-fi social order .Freedom of speech is now hotly debated and even discarded. The Gaza horror is not being tolerated by American Ivy League Universities. Students and careless Academics are feeling the lash of this ‘McCarthy’ like whip. It is crackling all over the place. Check Columbia and Yale in the US.
Huxley’s first revolutionary act in his novel was to ensure that human feotus developed in sacs outside the womb. The idea that a parent owned a child through composite identity was ended. If the lines of people finding their parents to be substandard, and responsible for major life traumas, are to be taken seriously, then Huxley may have had a point.
Canadian author Margaret Atwood wrote a jaw dropper of a book called ‘The Handmaids Tale’ decades ago, but now new television fans mostly located in developed nations shuddered and let it make a fortune on Netflix. Whereas Huxley insisted that pleasure in the form of a substance called Soma was available regularly as was consensual sex. Smart man . Atwood’s Handmaidens were held down by the wives of the men who raped them. It will not happen here, or again, but sci-fi may be already be dictating flavour of the ratings benchmark. I would like to be told if this is a bad move. Please speak up.
From the sublime to the ridiculous. If I may be indulged. In a few days as summer no longer plays peek a boo and most of us have to change clothing. Making the woolies disappear and the cottons appear the results are often shoddy, had we lived in Huxley’s Brave New World everyone would be dressed in a sleek jumpsuit with temperature changing abilities. The message here is that with all the banner waving freedom being demanded, routines and rituals are what make people ultimately behave. Just observe a queue anywhere.
Or this could be the ultimate naive assumption that rebellion may be an outburst but order is infinitely more comforting. This may well be the reason that contemporary sci-fi is simply imagining worlds but is someone more powerful going to make decisions? Where are the Brave New Worlds? I am convinced everybody is ready.
“ OOfh.”says the hunky mail-mail who is stuffing the letterboxes in the lobby.
“I don’t want to do this anymore. Its all flyers nobody gets serious mail anywhere.”
“What do you suggest?” I am being polite.
“Its a pre-dated idea. People need to line up once a week and go to a sleek modern station. You place your palm on a machine and it delivers your mail to your phone screen. Opened.”
Is that the ghost of Huxley smiling in the corner.
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