By Kate Ermakova
The novel “Brave New World” by Aldous Huxley made me question my perception of the modern world we are currently living in. While reading the book I couldn’t quite analyse it throughout, as I fully sank into the story itself, which touched on many universal topics like relationships, social and financial status, religion and culture differentiation. However, having the whole summer ahead of me to think it through and get to the moral of the book, I was (without any exaggeration) shocked by the conclusions that I managed to draw from it.
First of all the reader is presented with two contrasting worlds: the “perfect world” where each citizen is happy due to the lack of close relationships between people and affection, therefore completely avoiding the world of emotions and suffering, and the “other” world, where people still believe in their religion, love and natural birth.
At first the “other” world seems completely wild and primeval. It was difficult for me to relate to it due to the extremely contrasting elements of the“brave new” world. The world seemed like an utopian society, however not as disturbing as the “other” world. At first this “other” world seemed completely irrelevant and imaginary. The “brave new” world seemed to me more relevant and understandable. But, thinking this book through over the next couple of months, I actually realised how relevant it is. And not only because the genetic modification and technological progress of our world is moving vigorously towards the exact same world that is described in the book, but because the “other”, wild world, with religion, love, diseases and illnesses is exactly the same world we are living in now. Have we really not moved that far away from the primeval people? Are we still living in the medieval ages, with deadly diseases, illnesses we don’t know how to cure, with anti-sanitary and emotional suffrage? Are we that naive? When I thought about it, the “brave new” world made perfect sense. Is it really a better place? Should we actually move towards such a society? Is it actually going to better that way?
What shocked me the most is that, although I am not yet living in such a world that is described in the book, I could relate more to it than to the “other” world, which is actually the reality we are living in right now. This, in my opinion, shows how close we are to slipping into the “brave new” world and how topical the problem of technological progress is, as we are already reprogrammed to perceive the future and utopian society as more sensible then reality. Huxley was clearly ahead of his time – and this is a book worth reading!