Brave New World ?

South Pacific Familyadventure 2008
Claes Brodin
Wed 28 Aug 2019 17:37
Crossing the centre in Svolvaer you will pass loads of advertisements from the experiential industry who offers to bring you out to watch eagles,fiords,fishing, kayaking and so on. When I was last here in the late nighties there was almost nothing of this industry present . When the children were small we did some of these trips as well and of course there´s nothing wrong about that. Most people are not that privileged having the time,economy and knowledge to do these things on their own.
At the same time I couldn´t resist relating to "Brave New World " by Aldous Huxley which I read again a couple of months ago.
Huxley wrote the book 1932 and in his future dystopia a dna modified subclass of humans take care of all lowstatus production work. The alfa humans live for maximum happiness(utilitarianism) and already in childhood they are educated to be good consumers to keep all wheels running. Relations are also consumed and long lasting relations are banned. Subsequently concepts like family,mother and father belongs to stoneage. Love (or sex rather) is consumed and ordered through cyberspace and weekends are spent travelling around in the world among other things doing adventures through the experiential industry.All alfa humans are medicated to avoid anxiety and depression and if bored,they all use the "Soma drug". Their work is mainly superficial cyberspace work dealing with management,financial issues etc (what would today sometimes be referred to as "bullshit jobs") and they have the right to weeks of "somavacation" should they feel their work is meaningless.When they are 60 years old they are sent to a crematorium and vanish from earth.
Today in the western world almost all heavy production have been transferred to third world countries. Walking through the centre of Stockholm looking through office windows the majority of working people sit in front of a computer working in cyberspace. The consumtion of antidepressives (serotoninreceptorblockers/Prozac analogues) in the western world is sky high and increasing (especially among younger people). Walk on an airport and see masses of people staring into their mobiles getting a little kick of dopamin avoiding "irl" and boredom for a while.Media in general have become more superficial (tabloid tv mainly showing soapoperas or cooking programs)contributing to what some experts call the "dumbification" of the western world. Love can be arranged through cyberspace and the use of the Tinder app has exploded.Today you can get pregnant with a frozen egg from Russia implanted with sperms from Denmark and delivery planned according to your almanac.The tourist industry travels billions of people every year and the experiential industry penetrates more and more habitats on earth (with heavy environmental impact)
Perhaps maximizing happiness is the way to go (utilitarianism is advocated by some famous philosophers of today)but to me it all seems superficial, a way of loosing the real essence of life and the soul of living. I also think it creates feelings of emptiness and futility perhaps one reason for high consumtion of antidepressive drugs(together with lobby from the medical industrial complex). On top of it all that way of living must be a life characterised by boredom.
Finally it struck me what a masterpiece of future vision Brave New World is. The similarities of the western world today,and Aldous Huxley´s dystopia from 1932 are terrifyingly striking. 1984 by George Orwell used to be number one among future dystopias(about the future surveillance society influenced by the Soviet Union), but today with communism sent to the museums as part of our history,Brave New World stands out as number one (recognised by several writers and journalists of today).
It should be obligatory reading for high school students and read again after some decades since aging gives another perspective on life and the book.

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