John's Choice

If you want to know who John is, read the book.

Images courtesy of http://static.flickr.com & http://www.techno-utopia.com

Brave New World is one of my favourite books. A fascinating topic (engineered utopia = dystopia?) with an interesting treatment (is the benevolent despotism that creates a peaceful existence for most of the population really so bad?) and quite well written (except for one chapter where there's altogether too much quoting of other texts for the sake of philosophical discussion).

In the Brave New World, what would you choose? Comfort or depth? There are no heights without depth. Would you claim the right to be unhappy? Not to mention:

"...the right to grow old and ugly and impotent; the right to have syphilis and cancer; the right to have too little to eat; the right to be lousy; the right to live in constant apprehension of what may happen to-morrow; the right to catch typhoid; the right to be tortured by unspeakable pains of every kind."

All for the sake of a hope that you might experience something in equal measure as glorious as the above is distasteful?

I have an inkling that even whithout the question being asked, that most of us have make our choice and that even without the Hatchery and Conditioning Centres to select our paths in life, to drug and brain wash us into vague contentness, or at least comfort, that the selection, drugging and brain washing happens anyway. We do it to ourselves (albeit it in a less transparent, rigorous and efficient manner).

Click here to read Brave New World by Aldous Huxley