THE AVENGERS: We Have Feelies

The novel “Brave New World” was written by Aldous Huxley in the 1932 and set in the year 2540. And unless a 3-D movie adaptation comes out of Hollywood within the next ten years, I fear the story will be lost. At this point, it would not be ironic for “Brave New World” to essentially become one of the ‘feeley’ movies the literary masterpiece dryly predicted and condemned—such a fate is inevitable. In the novel, citizens by the millions voluntarily sedate themselves with various drugs and conglomerate at entertainment megaplexes to witness visual and auditory sensory overload. It is an extraordinary future unlike any other hypothesized and one of such bleak mindlessness that it is nearly impossible to ever imagine happening in our real world.

Several stories set in some dystopian future (“V for Vendetta,” “1984,” “Fahrenheit 451,” etc.) often employ totalitarian governments that ban books. In Huxley’s chilling world, such censorship is largely unnecessary. Books are not feared in “Brave New World”; they are irrelevant. They are a relic of a simple and boring time. Indeed, just calling something “history” is as much an insult as a fact. The newest and shiniest things are best.

Books,unlike video games, are not interactive. In fact, they are not active at all. They are passive and when they are presented to a passive, futuristic, audience, books are disregarded. Trivial distractions and instant pleasure rule the world of “Brave New World.” Character work eight hours a day, sleep another eight hours a day and will damned if they have to waste their time learning or exhaust themselves thinking for those precious eight hours remaining. The characters want to be indifferent because that is the easiest way through life.

Nihilism. Egotism. Hedonism. Narcissism. 

The dream of every individual, in Huxley’s story, is to be stress-free. Unending bliss is the end goal of their lives. The shared experience of vacuous entertainment is the perpetual centerpiece of vacuous discussions and such interactions are strung together for an appropriate amount of time before blossoming into vacuous relationships.

In “Brave New World,” Alpha males pad their glamour muscles and boast their many sexual conquests. And the best women? Why, they can hold a glass of wine with those butt cheeks. These are the desirables for all other characters and if they were to deny such by pointing to more virtuous qualities, it would only be a deflection that has as much subtlety as the euphemisms of a 16-year-old boy.

If any part of this review dabbled in cynicism, I apologize; such reflection on “Brave New World” is only meant to sting of acceptance. The world is becoming more urban. With the internet, the world is becoming more connected. With planes and high-speed rails, traveling is becoming faster. Yet at no point in human history have more people lived alone than they do now.

We are losing a sense of each other and (like Huxley’s characters) we cling to easy stimuli in droves and defend ourselves as just trying to escape the rigors of life. If only everybody in the world could afford ten bucks a week and be subjected to the latest, greatest entertainment marvel; perhaps then, the world would be able to avenge those who have suffered pain, growth, loss and curiosity. And then, only then, we would all be able to achieve the dream of Huxley’s characters: bliss.