Brave New World Revisited

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Permanent crisis justifies permanent control of everybody and everything by the agencies of the central government.

He then withdraws himself from society and attempts to purify himself of "sin" (desire), but is unable to do so. The nearly perfect control exercised by the government is achieved by systematic reinforcement of desirable behavior, by many kinds of nearly non-violent manipulation, both physical and psychological, and by genetic standardization. Apparently, taking soma doesn't give Bernard Marx, the disaffected sleep-learning specialist, more than a cheap thrill.Hence to treat his masterpiece as ill-conceived futurology rather than a work of great literature might seem to miss the point. Bernard, as "custodian" of the "savage" John who is now treated as a celebrity, is fawned on by the highest members of society and revels in attention he once scorned. Wells' hopeful vision of the future's possibilities gave Huxley the idea to begin writing a parody of the novels, which became Brave New World. Lenina is promiscuous and popular but somewhat quirky in her society: she had a four-month relation with Henry Foster, choosing not to have sex with anyone but him for a period of time. He believed when he wrote the original novel that it was a reasonable guess as to where the world might go in the future.

According to Huxley, even in the 1950s, propaganda emanates from those who want to control behavior on a large scale, just as the World Controllers of Brave New World want to maintain stability. The first Standard Chinese translation, done by novelist Lily Hsueh and Aaron Jen-wang Hsueh in 1974, is entitled "美麗新世界" ( Pinyin: Měilì Xīn Shìjiè, literally " Beautiful New World"). The admonishments of the men of Malpais taught him to regard his mother as a whore; but he cannot grasp that these were the same men who continually sought her out despite their supposedly sacred pledges of monogamy.On the first Christmas Day the population of our planet was about two hundred and fifty millions—less than half the population of modern China. Even the poorest government is rich enough to provide its subjects with a substantial measure of death control. The impregnable well-being of our transhuman descendants is more likely to promote greater diversity, both personal and societal, not stagnation. Those who live near the base of the Soviet pyramid enjoy none of the privileges accorded to the lucky or specially gifted minority. Hypnopaedia itself, of course, was a well-respected reality by the time of Brave New World Revisited.

But birth rates have either remained at their old high level or, if they have fallen, have fallen very little and at a very slow rate. Uncontrolled eruptions within the psyche must be replaced by the precision-engineering of emotional tone, if nothing else.

This book also includes the full text of Brave New World Revisited, Huxley's 1958 nonfiction followup to Brave New World. In vast state incubators, rows upon rows of gravid bottles will supply the world with the population it requires. In Huxley's last novel, Island, he again expounds similar ideas to describe a utopian nation, which is generally viewed as a counterpart to Brave New World. He taps into, and then feeds, our revulsion at Pavlovian-style behavioural conditioning and eugenics.