Continued from Part 8

Promiscuity

In Huxley’s Brave New World, promiscuity is a duty and monogamy is not tolerated. Everyone is trained from birth with hypnopaedic proverbs such as “everyone belongs to everyone else” (p. 38). A similar idea is in Plato`s Republic.

Drugs

Everyone in Huxley’s fictional dystopia is expected to use a mind-altering drug called “soma” in order to suppress or escape unpleasant feelings. The characters often take drug-inspired “trips” called “soma vacations”. As far as legal drugs, nowadays we have more and more adults and children being prescribed psychotropic drugs. For criticism of these prescription drugs and how they have been falsely promoted to the public, see for example, Mad in America and Anatomy of an Epidemic by Robert Whitaker, and also Your Drug May be Your Problem and other books by Peter Breggin.

“Matrix”-like Entertainment

The multi-sensory entertainment experienced by those living in this not-so-fictional world is very basic and pornographic (p. 30, p. 152). It involves intense sensations. In addition to television, the main form of entertainment is called “the Feelies”, during which the audience experiences tactile sensations (p. 30). In this way, Huxley seems to anticipate the idea of virtual reality. Also he seems to predict the very intense electronic music we experience today (p. 67).

People think of Huxley as someone who was warning about the future he portrayed rather than promoting it. However, some are now presenting evidence that Huxley was involved in promoting the mind-altering cultural changes portrayed in his novel–on behalf of the elites–at least as far as psychedelic drug use is concerned.

Continued Part 10
Contents

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