Brave New World by by Aldous Huxley (June, 2005)
A dystopia written in 1932, Brave New World describes an ideal society set to disturb the reader. Humans are manufactured in production lines, and then placed in a designated social level. There is no love or commitment, and no sadness. If a true feeling emerges, a dose of soma cures the feeling. John (the Savage) cannot understand this world, instead defending the right to suffer rather over enforced happiness. This book is a startling look at what can happen when science is misapplied by a totalitarian government, and when the public does not take interest in science. I consider this a must-read book.
Favorite quotations:
"Of course it does. Actual happiness always looks pretty squalid in comparison with the over-compensations for misery.”
“’..It’s curious,” he went on after a little pause, “to read what people in the time of Our Ford used to write about scientific progress. They seemed to have imagined that it could be allowed to go on indefinitely, regardless of everything else. Knowledge was the highest good, truth the supreme value; all the rest secondary and subordinate.”
“Anybody can be virtuous now. You can carry at least half your morality
about in a bottle. Christianity without tears – that’s what soma
is.”
