The Huxter

I first read (then promptly mostly forgot) Brave New World, as did many of us, in high school. Now I am reading it again because someone I care about is doing an assignment which includes discussion after each chapter, and I am honored to be, once again, the discussor du jour.

It is amazing what a couple of miles in the log book will do to ones' perspective. It is also interesting to note how different the view is from behind her eyeballs. Even though I was about the same the same age when I initially read Mr. Huxley's most famous work, her cognitions are wrapped around social injustice, political correctness and child abuse; I was just looking for the next dirty part. Yep, I was typically shallow then....probably still am.

The fascinating bit is that today, more than ever before, we actually have the technology to make Hux's nightmare a reality, and to do so with much greater finesse than he imagined back in the early 30's(?!?) No need to partially poison foetuses to make Gammas or Epsilons, just a judicious nip here and a tuck there on the old DNA helix, and voila! And throw out the incubators; I'm sure OctoMom would love to help populate the Castes.

Turns out we didn't need the hypnopaedia, either. Television does the job quite nicely, and ever since it became the 'babysitter of choice,' we have simply handed over the indoctrination of our children to the kind folks on the far side of the screen. Surely they have no agenda. And what they miss, our schools cover. We seldom teach the kids to think. Just so they pass the friggin' test and make the numbers look good.

And talk about engineering for continuous consumption. Think of all the things we spend money on now that simply cannot be repaired. Cell phone broke? Can't really fix it, and a new one will toast bagels for the same price! (Speaking of cell phones, what ever happened to the concern over brain cancer? Was that resolved in our favor? Or did profit possibilities tip the scales?)

I could make a list of 'throw away' consumer products, but it would be obsolete before it was complete, right?

You know the old saying, "It's not bragging if you can do it"? Well, it's not far-out fantasy and science fiction if it's happening!