“….only pleasure has worth or value…” J S Mill Hedonism (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

Many years ago, a few friends and I wrote a list of five books, which must be read to satisfy the claim of being ‘well read’. This was one of them. Why?

It’s a book of sparkling genius taking the reader into unknown territory but in an ultra-readable non-coercive way. Every firmly held belief, embedded to the point of certainty, is challenged. Gently and persuasively.

Pleasure is so obviously a ‘Good Thing’ it seems impossible to deny. And yet? If life is lived without pain or, unwelcome challenges, and drugs relieve all anxieties is humanity diminished? Huxley invents a happiness drug, soma, to control the population. Even the riot police use soma gas to quell unrest as opposed to physical force.

To avoid social class antagonisms all babies are incubated in test tubes. People are designed to fulfil specific roles in society and nothing else. They’re indoctrinated, in the test-tube, with acceptable attitudes. This creates contentment.

Huxley in a cunning counter plot introduces Mr Savage. He wasn’t indoctrinated because he was brought up in a wilderness. When he’s exposed to the Brave New World of contentment he rejects it.

Try this

All right, then,’ said the Savage defiantly, ‘I’m claiming 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 tomorrow; the right to catch typhoid; the right to be tortured by unspeakable pains of every kind. There was a long silence. ‘I claim them all,’ said the Savage at last.

Mustapha Mond [the World Controller] shrugged his shoulders. ‘You’re welcome,’ he said. pp210-11