Mai rare initiativele unde autorul isi critica propria opera.

Written in 1957, and still applicable to today, if not even more so, especially the parts on advertising and mass consumption and manipulating consumers. The only thing that I had problems with while reading this was Huxley's strong anti-Communism, which seemed to make him extremely pro-capitalist and knee-jerk reactionary. Finally, in the last chapter, he talks about preserving democracy, fighting Big Government and Big Business, and even mentions syndicalists in a positive manner. Thus I find myself agreeing with his anti-Communism (big C) and fears of it. Also, have to remember that this was written pretty much at the height of the Cold War.

It's sad to see the author of what I think is a quite thought-provoking book in Brave New World relegated to a propagandist stooge of capital, making incoherent rambling arguments, siding with eugenicists, and promoting absurd red scare propaganda. I'm of the belief that Brave New World is a better book than Huxley knew, and this quite convincingly proves it. It would have helped his analysis greatly if he'd read more Marx than the 'opiate of the masses' line that he loves to quote (indeed without understanding even its full context). Alas, instead he is another George Orwell, blinded by chauvinism and self-interest, failing to see that his dystopia is already apparent in the capitalist world and that it's quite the opposite of the communist approach. Seeing population growth as one of the main drivers of 'authoritarianism' he develops this neo-Malthusian garbage in the logical direction, praising the western democracies (though fearing their downfall) in comparison to the backwards people who are incapable of grasping democratic principles. A shame he didn't read Marx's complete refutation of Malthus a century prior. Apart from that there's no real attempt at uncovering the underlying motion of the systems he supposedly has studied. In fact, he seems to consider attempts at this to disregard the complexity of the world (an absurd accusation constantly hurled at Marxists- complexity does not mean there aren't laws guiding the motion- just ask the physicists!). He's quite satisfied with the dull 'power corrupts' hand waving. The most unfortunate part of all perhaps is his view of 'the masses'. It appears he takes the same line as Orwell (who relegates them to the stupid work horse) and has a good deal of contempt for the masses. He brings up the fascist view in Hitler's words, and admits he agrees a good deal with it. Much like Orwell again, he ends up working towards the same things he portrays as a dystopia.

Poor worm, thou art infected.
This visitation shows it.

Brave New World: Revisited is half "meh" and half mind blowing. Huxley’s treatment of propaganda in democratic societies, Big Business' impact on liberty through technology, and totalitarianism as most effectively instituted through pleasure rather than pain are worth considerable mulling.

If only we listened to Huxley a bit more.
He would probably be horrified at how literally we’ve followed every step he told us not to follow. This collection of essays gives a lot of insight on the state of our society and great lessons on what we can do to prevent a future Brave New World.

While Brave New World was a fantastic book, one may not fully appreciate the amount of detail that had gone into it before reading Brave New World Revisited, an explanation from Aldous Huxley on what each part of the original novel had meant and to what purpose each detail served. Brave New World Revisited is practically a how-to manual on running a dystopian city and distributing propaganda and enforcing the law.

The work of Huxley in Brave New World Revisited is nearly as brilliant as the first book itself. In this book, Huxley explains how and why people respond to certain events, making it almost a tour through the human brain and human behavior. It goes into detail on what makes us happy and what makes us fear—and clearly shows that it can easily be manipulated. Huxley’s excellence in Brave New World Revisited almost emits a feeling of intelligence simply from reading his words. While the book happened to get stale and boring every once in a while, the ideas portrayed and the reasons behind them make Brave New World Revisited nothing to be ignored after reading the original novel, making it a great novel that I would recommend to fans of dystopian literature.

I am pleasantly surprised. This book was a series of essays about certain social institutions that are slowly making the world more closely align with the future Huxley predicts in Brave New World. I am not sure why Huxley is trying so hard to prove that his predictions are more likely to come true than George Orwell's 1984. Here are some of the main ideas that I thoroughly enjoyed:

"That so many of the well fed young television-watchers in the world's most powerful democracy should be so completely indifferent to the idea of self-government, so blankly uninterested in freedom of thought and the right to dissent, is distressing, but not too surprising"

"To be under no physical constraint and yet to be a psychological captive, compelled to think, feel and act as the representatives of the national State, or of some private interest with the nation, want him to think, feel and act"

"Most men and women will grow up to love their servitude and never dream of revolution".

essay

Una lectura breve que más que hablar del libro en sí, hace un análisis de los peligros que pueden llevarnos a una sociedad sobre "Un mundo feliz", desde un punto de vista liberal. Pone la libertad individual por encima de todo.

Pero creo que se contradice un poco, se pasa gran parte del libro hablando de las manipulaciones sociales y de sus preocupaciones por los demagogos, el control mental, la sobrepobalción y gobiernos autoritarios... para al final darnos a entender que nuestro entorno social no nos moldea tanto. Eso a mí me descolocó bastante, quizá en otra lectura le llegue a lo que quiso decir, pero de momento no me cuadra.

Cesur Yeni Dünya'nın yazarı Huxley, büyük yankı uyandıran ütopik eserindeki tahayyül ve öngörülerinin ne oranda gerçekleşmekte olduğu üzerine bir güncelleme yayımlamış denilebilir.

Yazar, Orwell'ın ütopyası 1984 ile kendi ütopyasını da kıyaslıyor. Fazlaca özet olacak ama; baskıcı rejimlere zorla boyun eğen 1984 dünyasının insanlarının aksine, Cesur Yeni Dünyanın insanları karınları doyduğu ve acı çekmedikleri sürece (ya da acı çekmemek üzere) gönüllü olarak özgürlüklerinden feragat edebiliyorlardı. Ütopyasının izlerini süren yazar, özgürlük problemi dahil birçok konuda zamanın kendisini haklı çıkardığı hatta ütopyasının öngördüğünden daha çabuk sürede gerçekleşeceğinin ipuçlarını verdiği belirtiyor. Ben de aynı fikirdeyim. Üstelik 1932 tarihli kitaba düştüğü notlardan oluşan 1958 tarihli bu kitabı, 2017 yılında okurken yazarı haklı buluyorum ki bu da yazarı garanti 3 maç istenilecek yazarlar kategorisine sokmak için yeterli.

Kitabın genel olarak odaklandığı konu başlıkları şu şekilde;

I. Aşırı Nüfus
II. Nicelik, Nitelik, Ahlaklılık
III. Aşırı Örgütlenme
IV. Demokratik Toplumda Propaganda
V. Diktatörlükte Propaganda
VI. Satış Sanatları
VII. Beyin Yıkama
VIII. Kimyasal İkna
IX. Bilinçaltı İkna
X. Hipnopedya
XI. Özgürlük için Eğitim
XII. Ne Yapılabilir?

Görüldüğü üzere neler döndüğünü ve gelişmelerin nelere gebe olduğunu öngören Huxley, son bölümde olası olumsuzluklara karşı neler yapılabileceği üzerine de kafa yoruyor. Net bir öneri yapabildiğini söylemek zor, zaten kendisi de bunun farkında. Çünkü çözümlerinde hep dengeyi ve orta yolu öneriyor ki, bu tarz çözümlerin insanlık göz önünde bulundurulduğunda fazlaca iyimser olduğunu belirtmemiz gerekir.

Bu kitapta tespit edilen ve ileride başımıza iş açacak bazı problemlere karşı aşırıcı çözümlere örnek olması açısından da şu güzel diziyi tavsiye ediyorum; Utopia

n  Quis custodiet custodes?n

Mankind has always dreamed of the perfect society, just as it has always feared the oppressive one. From this dream has been born the fantasy of Utopia and from this fear the nightmare of Dystopia.

But is Utopia truly the antithesis of Dystopia, and is it really an egalitarian society possible? From Thomas More to Karl Marx and H. G. Wells and many others, this perfect society generally abides by some rigid, unimaginative and sometimes implausible rules, the main one being the austerity caused by the absence of personal property. But, as it has already been seen in all Communist countries, this invests the State with an incredible power over the individual, denying the latter its importance whilst overstressing the importance of the community. And because there is nobody left to sanction its actions (that is, nobody to answer the question which is the title of this review), the State is prone to become, sooner or later, a dictatorship of the enforced good, a hell paved with good intentions, like in that old joke in which a young man eagerly helps an old woman get on a tram she didn’t want to climb. How easily Thomas More’s Utopia becomes George Orwell’s 1984.

The other way around is the decadence caused by overindulgence. The hunt for happiness at any cost leads to another type of totalitarian society: the New Brave World’s one, in which the mankind is programmed to listen to its instincts and not to its reason. Apparently so different, the two societies are in fact very similar:

In 1984 the lust for power is satisfied by inflicting pain; in Brave New World by inflicting a hardly less humiliating pleasure.

Inclined to think the future will belong to the second, much more persuasive in his opinion than the first, Aldous Huxley’s Brave New world Revisited tries to find a way to escape its Siren song. Using the same premise as Freud in Civilization and Its Discontents, that the man is in search of happiness at all costs, the author denounces the major perils of our civilization, either of biological, social or psychological nature.

A first danger is the over-population that menace to consummate the resources, undermining the well-being of the individuals and therefore the social stability. He grimly foresees (in 1958!) a future where all over-populated and underdeveloped countries will be communist. His prophecy was partially true and even though communism collapsed in Eastern Europe, it continues to flourish elsewhere. Moreover, another form of totalitarianism, the Islamic terrorist State menaces to take over.

Another danger results from the fight of the humankind with the natural selection: the medical discoveries reduce the mortality rate and overcrowd the Earth with flawed individuals: in his opinion, the decline of average healthiness may lead to a decline of average intelligence and this ethical dilemma is not easy to solve.

The technology is another good thing that turned bad in our civilization, for the technological progress leads to the concentration and centralization of the economic power. Although organization is important, over-organization transforms people into automats, suffocating the creative spirit and robbing them of freedom.

Then there is the power of the mind control, from propaganda to chemical and subconscious persuasion that brainwash people into believing everything. In a democratic society the force of the propaganda consists mainly in a combination of Dr. Jekyll (a propagandist of the truth and reason) with Mr Hyde (an analyst of human weaknesses and failings), so that the nowadays politicians appeal to the ignorance and irrationality of the elector. The same is true for dictatorship, which successfully uses “herd-poisoning” – the intoxication by the crowd:

Mindlessness and moral idiocy are not characteristically human attributes; they are symptoms of herd-poisoning.

But as the human being, as Huxley justly observes, is not fundamentally a gregarious being, society is, or should be, not an organism (like a hive or a termitary) but an organization. An organization where three values should be always respected: the value of individual freedom, the value of charity and compassion and the value of intelligence.

This is why the final chapter, What can be done?, is a pleading for creating a society as a form of “self-governing, voluntarily co-operating groups, capable of functioning outside the bureaucratic systems of Big Business and Big Government.” This is the only way for the individual to assert his freedom. And even though mankind sees less and less the intricate relation between humanity and freedom, maybe all is not lost:

The cry of “Give me television and hamburgers, but don’t bother me with the responsibilities of liberty”, may give place, under altered circumstances, to the cry of “Give me liberty or give me death.”

Not only a companion to the Brave New World but it's even a great non-fiction about how our societies gets victimized towards dystopia under psychological techno-dictators. This book explores the concepts of Brave New World, it talks about brain-washing and subliminal injection and how Hitler used these devices in propogandas, also about neo-pavlovian conditioning as applied by commercial brands and religious leaders. It revolves around human-psychology and how herd-corruption takes place.

Amazing thing being, Huxley extrapolated the contents of this entire book just from a single TV interview which he gave being disillusioned about how his fantasy can easily get real soon.