I usually only put up a picture of the book cover that I own, but I took a real liking to this guy; the pill looks super tasty and is also red-white-and-blue, a nice unsubtle reminder of how Brave New World does a real turkey slap on some crucial aspects of American culture. Plus there’s a foreword by Christopher Hitchens in this one? There’s also an edition with a Margaret Atwood foreword. What am I doing watching Bobby Bottleservice Talks to the Sexy Internet Ladies when there’s stuff like this to be read? (The real answer is, it’s two months exactly until I leave, so, no further explanation.)
Let’s talk about the parallels. In Brave New World, society is divided into Alphas, Betas, Gammas, Deltas, and Epsilons, in which the highest caste operates at total self-actualized, tall, Aryan capacity while the lowest caste has stunted growth from bad chemicals and spends all day operating machinery while wiping sweat from their dark-skinned brows. That sounds… realistic. Especially in context of that South Carolina chach (wait, which one?) who compared poor people to stray animals–actually, Andre Bauer sounds more ridiculous than Aldous Huxley does on this one, so let’s just leave it. Here’s another. One of BNW society’s mantras is “Ending is better than mending.” Yikes. Besides the obvious fact that we all like to throw everything away and circle-jerk around our new smartphones, the applicability of this statement to relationships–I can’t even think about that right now.
The Feelies–Avatar. Soma–I’d say that the standard university combination of caffeine, nicotine, alcohol, marijuana, Vicodin, Monster, Ambien, sex, and Dan Deacon videos on YouTube feels a lot more like “soma” than Huxley would have ever imagined anything could. In terms of after-hours merrymaking becoming so on-demand, every-nerve-ending-perfectly-stimulated, this idea of soma being chemically transcendent enough to replace the need for religion seems pretty biting. And, what else. This is again taken from Wikipedia: “In geographic areas nonconducive to easy living and consumption, the World State allows well controlled, securely contained groups of ‘savages’ to live.” Hmm, that’s awkward.
But I must admit. I’m running my mouth about society as usual, but if this life is bringing me things like Bobby Bottleservice I honestly have no complaints at all.
