A Brief Thought: Brave New World

Reading Brave New World felt like waking up.

It’s one of those stories that, despite being fiction, reflects reality on a scary accurate level.

I first read Brave New World in 2012 when I was a senior year in high school. And as an 18-year-old girl on the verge of entering the real world, it was sort of an introduction to it. A jarring, but eye opening one.

I felt so many emotions while reading this book. On one hand, I was fascinated by certain ways that it parallels our society. There are pieces of technology mentioned in the book that we have in real life today, like artificial insemination (test tube babies), birth control (pregnancy substitute), and even helicopters.

Also, I love that the title comes from a line of Shakespeare that’s quoted in the book:

"O wonder!

How many goodly creatures are there here!

How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world,

That has such people in't."

- The Tempest, Act V Scene I

But on the other hand, I realized that other aspects of the story depict more alarming parts of our society, like the use of state-enforced drugs (Soma), the controlling of media and art, and hookup culture.

The story is a prime illustration of a dystopian society, and how, over time, America has been leading itself down a path to becoming exactly that. The World State (the “utopian” society in the book) uses their array of advanced technology and so-called intelligence to make themselves seem like the utopia, this perfect happy place. And at the same time, it uses those same things to make the other places mentioned in the story seem like dystopias, and horrible places. But to the reader, all these efforts by the World State just show how dysfunctional and disconnected from reality they are.

Even at 18 years old, the extreme indoctrination, shallow ways of thinking, and overall lack of human connection jumped out at me, and even scared me. And I’m continually reminded of it as I get older, because we’re basically living that same experience now.

I think on a certain level, I knew that this story was a pretty accurate depiction of the world; the parallels to real life were crystal clear, even then. But it was still hard for me to ultimately accept. I didn’t want to believe that the world we live in could actually be like this. Who would?

But therein lies the point of the story.

We try so hard to avoid the discomfort and messiness of life and the human experience. But in doing so, we close ourselves off from the good parts of life. Joy, love, connection, creativity. All the things that make life worth living.

We’re left with an empty existence, where art has no substance and love is practically nonexistent. And that’s not kind of life I want to live.

I like to think that Brave New World has helped me develop a greater understanding or awareness of the world. It’s one of those books that I think about often, and it reminds me to keep my mind open, to always strive for truth and authenticity, and to never lose sight of humanity, no matter how uncomfortable it may be sometimes.

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