In this episode, we discuss Aldous Huxley's novel Brave New World. Unlike the book club episodes (in which we read around 100 pages per week of the book), the book discussions will be one-off discussions of books that for one reason or another affected me.
For this book discussion, I'm again joined by Antonia, who works in academic publishing and with whom I did a series on Dostoyevsky's Crime and Punishment on this podcast.
Podcast links
Website: https://bjks.buzzsprout.com/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/BjksPodcast
Ben's links
Website: www.bjks.page/
Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.co.uk/citations?user=-nWNfvcAAAAJ
Twitter: https://twitter.com/bjks_tweets
References for books mentioned in the episode:
Huxley, A. (1932). Brave New World. Chatto & Windus.
Huxley, A. (1959). Brave New World Revisited. Chatto & Windus.
Huxley, A., The Gioconda Smile; in: 50 Great Short Stories. Bantham Classics.
Murray, N. (2009). Aldous Huxley: An English Intellectual. Hachette UK.
Wells, H.G. (1895). The Time Machine. Heinemann UK.
Wells, H.G. (1923). Men Like Gods. Cassell UK.
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[This is an automated transcript with many errors]
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: [00:00:00] Okay, Antonia, I thought we can start this, uh, episode with a quiz for you. Okay. Um, so it's
Antonia Eisenkoeck: the quiz. What? I've read it the book?
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: No, no, not whether you've read it. This is, it's, it's, well, I don't wanna say too much. It's a question. I'm trying to, I'm describing a person.
Antonia Eisenkoeck: Okay.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: And you have to guess who it is.
Antonia Eisenkoeck: Okay.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: So this person is male born in the nineties, and, sorry, uh, is interested in the, or was interested in the sciences and in the arts. Was very tall, liked to play the piano, had dark hair. His mother was a teacher. His half brother studied the brain. And in his teenage years, he had a rare eye infection that required hospitalization,
Antonia Eisenkoeck: Huxley.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Very good. I thought you were gonna say me
because
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: all of that also describes [00:01:00] me.
Antonia Eisenkoeck: Yeah, no, I knew about his eye infection. I also knew about, um, his brother or half brothers, you said being a scientist and I think he wants to be a scientist as well, but then because of his eye, eye infection, he couldn't pursue the scientific career.
Um, that's all, all the facts I know. So, uh, you gave, you gave some important, um,
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: uh, damnit I as I was trying to set you up, because, you know, all of those are also true for me. Some of them are slightly, uh, you know, some of them are intentionally leaving out some things to make it work, such as mm-hmm. I was born the 1990s.
He was born in the 1890s. Oh
Antonia Eisenkoeck: yeah.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: That kind of thing. Um, also my eye infection. Uh, was basically I had to go to hospital for two days to get some stuff checked, and then I could basically get away with not doing any work for school for four weeks despite having pretty normal vision.
Antonia Eisenkoeck: That sounds good.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Uh, whereas Huxley [00:02:00] was borderline blind at some point.
Yeah. And had, uh, some, yeah. It was a constant fact in his life.
Antonia Eisenkoeck: Mm-hmm.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Also, yeah, his brother or half brother won the Nobel Prize for some of his studies in neuroscience and my brother studied cognitive neuropsychology, so it's pretty similar. Well,
Antonia Eisenkoeck: you should have asked me to quiz in a different context.
It's just too easy.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah, I know. I know. Or you're too smart. I dunno. One of the two. Probably both, yes. Um, okay, so you, you passed that quiz very well, but No, I actually looked up so one, so I, I knew that he was born. Close to where I was born. Uh, so he was born in Godalming and I looked it up. That is actually, uh, 16 miles from where I was born and four and a half miles from where I grew up.
So it seems like we could have, you know, walked there in like one to two hours. Um,
Antonia Eisenkoeck: yeah.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: So I didn't actually realize it was that close. Yeah. But, uh, the, the, the similarities then end pretty quickly there. [00:03:00] Um, yeah, I thought I could maybe tricky with this one, but I guess not. No, I guess you're too, too educated about literally what we're gonna talk about for an hour now.
Maybe I should also say at the beginning, this isn't a huge difference, but there is a slight difference in between what we're doing now and what we did in the kind of book club series. So the book club series, we read a hundred pages or so a week and then discussed that part and then continued throughout the book.
Whereas here, this is more a one-off general discussion about the book. Mm-hmm. I think it's still probably best to have read the book first. But I don't know.
Antonia Eisenkoeck: Yeah, the spoiler, spoiler alert.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah. I mean, we'll see. I'm not entirely sure whether we're gonna, how much we're gonna say about the plot and that kinda stuff, but, yeah.
Um, oh, by the way, Anton, so I, I, I realize I never, you know, I never introduced my guests in the podcast, but that's because people listen to the episodes because of the guests, [00:04:00] right? Mm-hmm. The interviews are all about the guests, but then I realized in the book club, that's not really the case. Um, and I never introduced you in the Sevki, uh, book discussion.
Antonia Eisenkoeck: That's fine. Also, definitely don't introduce me, uh, as a, as anybody who knows, or somebody who knows anything about literature. I'm just, well,
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: I, I wanted to say, I did bring you as my literary expert on Okay. Early, early 20th century English literature.
Antonia Eisenkoeck: Yeah, yeah.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Not quite early to mid 20th century.
Antonia Eisenkoeck: I'd rather introduce myself as somebody who's interested and has an opinion.
But nothing more.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Okay. Interested opinions without education to back it up.
Antonia Eisenkoeck: Yeah. Um, opinionated interests without educated and educated, uh, half educated guesses. Having That's
good.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: I mean, this might be the book though, that you are most qualified to talk about though, because at [00:05:00] least Brave New World involves the psych, a lot of the psychology that was around in the 1930s.
Mm. So I guess at least, like, you know, if we've, we've heard of Pavlov and Skinner and these people Yeah. Outside of this book, and at least
Antonia Eisenkoeck: that's
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: five minutes in, in a lecture about this.
Antonia Eisenkoeck: Yeah.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Okay. So here, okay, so you passed my first question, so mm-hmm. I'm gonna make a, a second, uh, second quiz.
Antonia Eisenkoeck: Okay.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Goddammit, if you get this one right too. So who died on the same day that Huxley died? They're actually, I mean, there are many people who died that day, but two people actually who are famous,
Antonia Eisenkoeck: I have no idea.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: The first is I wish, uh, CS Lewis, you know, Chronicles of Nia and that kind of stuff. Yeah. But both of those deaths were kind of under reported and not that despite both of the authors being famous, it wasn't that, it was not the big [00:06:00] news of the day because on that same day, a certain man called Kennedy was assassinated.
Antonia Eisenkoeck: All right. Okay. Interesting.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah.
Antonia Eisenkoeck: I'm sure there must be some conspiracy theory or something, um, around that date.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: There is a Kennedy Lincoln conspiracy theory because there's like, because Lincoln was. Assassinated in the Kennedy Theater or something like that, and Kennedy was assassinated in a Lin car or something like that.
And there's, I once saw a YouTube video on this. It's, it's, uh, very important.
Antonia Eisenkoeck: Yeah.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Anyway, yeah. So we wanted to discuss Brave New World. Um, maybe I should say kind of why I chose this book. So the, you know, the, the distinction to the, the, to the book club is also kind of relevant in the sense that in the book club we are talking about books that I haven't read and that I'm interested in reading.
Mm-hmm. Whereas in this one we're [00:07:00] discussing, these one-off books are books that I've already read, and that for one reason or another had some sort of influence on my life or that affected me in some way. And Brave New World is, you know, one of those books. And I don't think like it necessarily changed all that much, but it's, it's, I found a really interesting book in the sense that.
Um, I, I think I've rarely read a book and so frequently thought about the characters, like, are you idiots? Why you're doing this? And then half a second later, oh wait, I'm doing the same thing. So, you know, a lot of this, when they, they do something to seek pleasure or whatever, all this kind of stuff, right?
Like in this book, I think it's very easy to see why what they're doing is, doesn't seem right or doesn't seem like the thing you should do. But then as soon as you start thinking about your own life, you realize that yeah, most of the stuff, at least I do.
Antonia Eisenkoeck: Yeah. And I'm intrigued when your equivalent of the SOMA addiction is
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: sugar.
Antonia Eisenkoeck: Sugar. [00:08:00]
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: That's the best we've got. Basically, no, I, I don't have, that's maybe the one difference. I, I, I'm very stimulant or addiction free in that sense. But, uh,
Antonia Eisenkoeck: which I, I think is like one of the. Kind of a key aspects of it, of the society or the, the key building blocks in a way. Because if they didn't have it, the whole project wouldn't work or
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: system well, yeah.
I mean, I guess the whole point is more is, is a, is a, is a broader one, right? It's not just about taking a pill to ease some pain or make yourself feel better or something like that. I think it's more in general about, uh, yeah, just doing things to avoid to, you know, to feel good or to avoid pain, even though maybe that's not always the best thing to do.
Hmm. And sure, and in this case, he, uh, actually invented this super drug in a way that can, you know, do everything [00:09:00] without side effects. And we don't have that yet, but. I think that the principles are pretty similar.
Antonia Eisenkoeck: Yeah. I can see your point. It's, um, avoidance of anything that's negative by escaping and escape can be anything in, in the book.
Its, it's by means of, of taking a pill.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah. And yeah, I mean that's obviously just a small part of this book. I mean, there's, there's lots of stuff to this. Um, but that, that was at least the reason that for me was, you know, I think as we'll probably discuss later, I have lots of problems with the way this book is written.
Um, and I found it often quite frustrating to read, but those moments, I haven't had that as, you know, it's, it's, I think this might be more German saying, but like to have, to have a mirror held in front of you
Antonia Eisenkoeck: mm-hmm.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: And to kind of, you know, you're looking at something else, but you're realizing you're actually looking at yourself.
And that may be there, there are some [00:10:00] things you might wanna change in your life. And I don't think I've had that quite as much with, at least I can't remember having that quite as much with other books.
Antonia Eisenkoeck: So what aspects, because for me it's very much, um, the way I read the book is about, well it's a dystopian book, right?
Or like, talks about this, a dystopia. And I think probably it also has to be seen in the context of its time, which was during the two wars, which was a time where there was lots of new technology and new inventions, et cetera. And, um, I think some people maybe were afraid of where society was headed. And I could see how this book was maybe written in a time during which loss was changing and society was, uh, seemed to go into a direction and, um.
He was taking it to the extreme and imagining [00:11:00] this like very extreme society, which is based on technology and scientific advance in some sense. Um, obviously we can talk about the science, um, in more detail because it's also not black and white. But, um, I guess my question here is like, how was this a mirror for you?
Because for me it's almost like it is futuristic, kind of like a warning sign of where we could or where we are headed or we could had turds.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah. Um, so as I mentioned to you before we started recording. I haven't actually read the book in about a year, uh, because I spent, get started, spent so much time reading other books about around this.
Mm-hmm. So I, the problem is I don't actually know the, I don't remember the specific details right now of what it was per se, but I think it was more the kind of general feeling I just described [00:12:00] of realizing that you are just trying to, often you are trying to make yourself feel good rather than, um, you know, it's, it's, yeah.
I can't, I can't remember the precise details right now, but it, it, there was this sense just sometimes of the people, of, of the characters in the book trying to, I mean, I guess not so much the, the main character, the right who, who rebels against the whole system. Mm-hmm. More the others who go along with it and say like, oh look, all this technology is great, I'm feeling good and all this kinda stuff.
Hmm. And then me just thinking, yeah, but you know, is there, is that what you really want?
Antonia Eisenkoeck: Yeah. Well, this is the whole question of the book, right? Is it because they're in a state of constant bliss? But whether that's enough for, for us or whether that's that ideal for us, because it might seem like an ideal situation, constant bliss, but it's, if you don't, don't have the negative emotions, you.
Also can't really feel [00:13:00] the highs of positive emotions and that being love or, or, um, extreme joy, happiness, compassion, empathy, et cetera. Because there's, there is no love really. Everybody belongs to everybody. So there's no, no romantic love, no family love. Also because you don't have, have families and there's nothing to work to it because everything is set in stone with the social hierarchy.
So nothing to aspire to us, but there's only pleasurable activities. And that being like, you know, obviously sexuality being a big thing in a society and, and they have like all sorts of entertainment which brings pleasure. And together with the drug, they're in a state of bliss. But it's. Sounds very monotone.
And um, what I found is interesting is that, uh, in one part of the book, um, this to the end, when they [00:14:00] talk to the, uh, what's his title? The, the World Controller and, and he explains that it is, that everybody has to undergo a, what was it? The name like Surrogate Passion Surrogate. Basically, they have to undergo a medical treatment in which they are in the same state as you would be in, like physically or physiologically as you would be in, under conditions of extreme rage or anger or fear.
Because biologically for the body, it's sometimes important to, uh, to be in the state with other hormones, et cetera. And, and I found that interesting because at first I thought about, um, the necessity of pain and fear and anger in a more like a psychological context, but then also this part of the book, it is like, yeah, uh, actually makes sense because we, you know, like we need to [00:15:00] be in like, like a constant fight and flight mode is obviously not good for the, for the body, um, but sometimes for the heart rate to go up and, um, certain home hormones to be, uh, levels of hormones to be increased.
That make sense? That that is important for our body. Yeah. Don't really have a pond with this, but I find it interesting to think about it from, from that angle as well.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Uh, but I guess, you know, this is maybe kind of that, those relate to what I meant in that, you know, that is kind of what we're trying to do, right?
We're trying to feel good all the time. And then we realize though, like, you know, for example, that's why people do lots of sports and exercise, because that is almost a way of, of changing your physiology in that sense. Mm-hmm. But without actually feeling rage or any of those things, right? So that, of course, it's different because exercise then is difficult and then so, you know, it's not like there where you can just kind of be brought into it.
You have to do it yourself. And so that's uncomfortable, but it's, [00:16:00] it's in a way still a, a sense or a way of creating those kind of physiological reactions without actually experiencing necessarily the negative emotions.
Antonia Eisenkoeck: Yeah.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: So there are all these things where you go like, why, why do we do all the things we do?
And most of it is just to feel good either the short term or the long term, right? If you're doing it in the long term, then you are almost. Uh, then you're almost wise, but it's still kind of the same thing, right?
Antonia Eisenkoeck: Mm-hmm. But the reason why we, in our society, why we seeking to feel good is because we know what it means not to feel good.
We've all been in, in pain, we've all been angry, we've all been hurt and in fear, et cetera. So we have very good reason for avoiding it. Find it interesting. Almost like if you had like no motivation, like, or where does it come, the motivation to continue or [00:17:00] to to live? Where does it come from if you haven't really experienced the negative?
Emotions or sensation.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: I mean, it just becomes culturally ingrained, right? I mean, that I think is the kind of interesting thing. So now we, we still have to experience these things, but the more, I mean, the question is whether ever possible, but let's just assume it is, the more and more you get all these unpleasant stuff, the unpleasant stuff out of your life, but you still do certain things to preemptively avoid negative emotions or whatever.
I think then at some points, that does become just kind of general, these kind of societal norms and that kind of thing. And then through that way you can maybe reinforce that. Yeah. To do, to do those things to, to basic, to just still avoid feeling bad without having experienced it. I mean
Antonia Eisenkoeck: that's, but I don't, but I don't think that like, because we never, ever really gonna get there unless we, we have a drop.
We [00:18:00] would have like a, an AC equivalent drug that keeps us in one state because you. You know, like no matter how advanced our plastic surgery or whatever is or, or the like, is that what you do to feel good? No, but like, you know, obviously they, they are like in a set of, of youth until they die. So they don't have any like physical pains and like aging doesn't really exist, but at some point they just die.
Um, and maybe, maybe from like a physical perspective, I could see that our society, we are get getting better. You know, like we, we keeping younger for longer probably. Like, uh, you can, we have get better screening methods, we have better medicine and drugs and all sorts of treatments that I can see, but there's still jealousy, there's still, you know, um, goals or aims and therefore also [00:19:00] disappointment because there's still competition, there's still rivalry.
And that only the reason why they don't have it is because a, there's a very, like, there's a system and structure in place so that you're born an alpha, you're an alpha, you're a leader, you have a great job, you're at the top. If you're born an den, you are a laborer and you're conditioned in a way that you, you are right with this and you don't want to ever be at the top.
So there's a, is is the social distraction, and b is. I think it is the drug, because I was thinking about this whole aspect of nobody having relationships and nobody having intimate relationships, and everybody belong to everybody. Everybody's sleeping with everybody. And then I was like, well, this is like, why?
Why wouldn't people feel jealousy? Because it's ingrained in our. [00:20:00] Biological system. This is how we evolved. That is that we fueled, she, she, and it, it makes sense evolutionary, right? That you, that you wouldn't want your partner necessarily. I'm obviously not speaking for everybody, but in general, like people often feel this, that they don't want their partner to, to have sexual intercourse with somebody else.
Um, and I came to the conclusion the only reason, like obviously parts can be the conditioning, but if it's such an innate and automatic response that in my eyes can only really be inhibited by a drug, which just prevents you from feeling negative emotions. And you're just happy anyway, no matter, like, you know.
No, no matter what.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I don't know. It's, it's interesting. Well, it's, it's rather, it's difficult to, to say [00:21:00] how, how people would feel differently about these things if the entire culture was set up completely differently. Right. I mean, I I, I would also imagine that there's some biological basis to it that's difficult to, um, avoid whatever you wanna call it.
But yeah, I think it is interesting, like if you take the entire culture around the expectation of monogamy and these things, if you just take all of that away, I wonder yeah, how much of that is still left? But, um,
Antonia Eisenkoeck: sure.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: But yeah, I guess if you take a drug then that, that probably should, that should do it.
Antonia Eisenkoeck: Yeah. And I think, so therefore, I'm just like, I don't see the book as some like, as a, like, for obvious reasons, but this is not something that is likely to, to ever happen within the next 10 years or so because I think like. First of all, we don't, we are not that advanced that we could easily just get rid of, [00:22:00] of aging and, and have a drug that would work in the same way without any side effects.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: But I mean, this is set though, I can't remember exactly. 300 years in the future or something. Right. So there's, and in, you know, within 300 years, anything, I mean, whatever, like, I think saying anything beyond like 50 years into the future is fine now. Yeah, yeah. God knows what's gonna happen, right? Um, yeah, I mean, yeah, I just find it interesting how, I mean, some of these thing, yeah, I mean, just how, how a lot of the things that, that society has reached.
Do you seem a consequence of what we're trying to do now? And that doesn't, I guess, necessarily mean that what we're trying to do now is wrong per se, because, you know, you don't have to take it to the extreme. You can stop, you can say, okay, it worked until we're now, and now we're gonna do something different.
Antonia Eisenkoeck: Hmm.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: But yeah, I do find it in that sense, a, a [00:23:00] useful not warning that's maybe a bit too strong. But, um,
Antonia Eisenkoeck: but then I think one component you are missing there is that it is very much suppressive and controlled and the whole system only works because people are not aware of it and they're being controlled because of the conditioning and, uh, so much so they, it's, I don't think, I think that the, the awareness is missing.
So they don't know. What is being done to them, like the controller, he knows, like he, he made the decision to not to go to an island, but to, you know, support the system and, and be a part of it. But he's very much aware of it and he's kinda like, he's got all the forbidden books and, and science and literature, whatever that nobody's allowed to read.
He's aware of this, but the [00:24:00] rest of the population isn't. So I think that like two aspects of it, yes. Maybe that's something, you know, individuals try to avoid negative emotions and pain, et cetera, but also they don't really know that they're doing it because there's this very controlled state and whoever has a different perspective and does want to take the drugs or is a bit of a more critical thinker.
Is outcast an island? And I think that's is a big aspect, so that, that, that is important for this whole system to work and for the whole society to function in a way. So don't think it's only avoidance of negative emotions and pain.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah, I agree. I mean, it's not only voluntary and um, I'm glad you mentioned that because I've been doing all this reading and I've been waiting for something to come up that relates to some points I wrote down and here we are.[00:25:00]
Um, so as I mentioned, I've, I've been reading a few books around this. One of them is Brave New Award Revisited Antonio Jean. You wanna know what that is
Antonia Eisenkoeck: and Yeah, I want, I want to know. Tell me.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah. Um,
Antonia Eisenkoeck: enlighten me.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah, sorry. I mean, Antonio asked before we started recording what it is. That's why I'm saying it in such a weird way.
Um, so it's basically, uh, wait, let's see. When this was published. Yeah, this is about 25 years after Huxley published Brave New World. Um, so 1958 he published Brave New World Revisited, which is a series of essays that Huxley wrote in which he kind of just comments. Some of the stuff can almost be seen as a, as a kind of, um, nonfiction companion to bravely world in which he explains some of the principles or, you know, in a, in a nonfiction way, um, what they mean or what the consequences are in some cases.
He also talks about whether stuff [00:26:00] might, that he wrote about in Bravely World Works or not, um, or some recent developments. I mean, so one that I can maybe mention briefly is, um, for example, he talks about, um, the origins of Soma, this drug, and that it's not just something that. There's a long history to humans making different substances, um, to alter their minds.
I mean, the, the one chapter there is called Chemical Persuasion and he, you know, talks about how in India or whatever they had certain drugs, well, they had a drug called Soma, that's where the name's from. He also talks about, I mean, you know, Huxley experiments a lot with different drugs in the thirties and forties and fifties or something.
Dunno exactly when, but you know, I mean, when he died also he was on a substantial amount of LSD so that, you know, he, for example, there talks about those kind of things and how humans are starting to develop these kind of drugs [00:27:00] that can alter mine. But the one point I wanted to mention that relates to this is, um, as you mentioned, it's not about part of.
What brave world is about is that people actually want to do these things. But another part about it is that it's a kind of dictatorship that forces it onto the people without them knowing to. And I guess there's two points here, um, that I can make. One is, um, so this, the first point is about basically people becoming these suggestions that the world makes.
So they have this hyp edia where people are told all these things while they're sleeping. And that Huxley commented, this is page 114. In the brave new world, no citizens belonging to the lowercase ever gave any trouble. Why? Because from the moment he could speak and understand what was said to him, every lowercase child [00:28:00] was exposed to endlessly repeated suggestions.
Night after night, during the hours of drowsiness and sleep, these suggestions were like drops of liquid seeding, wax drops that adhere in crust, incorporate themselves with what they fall on to. Finally, the rock is all one scarlet blob to at last. The child's mind is the suggestions and the sum of the suggestions is the child's mind and not the child's mind.
Only the adult's mind too orders lifelong the mind that judges and desires and decides made up of these suggestions. But these suggestions are our suggestions. Suggestions from the state. Is it actually a quote from Brave New Water itself? Dunno. Uh, but that's part of it, right? So they, yeah, you, you ingrain in people with these kind of beliefs.
But a more interesting point I thought was that so, you know, brave New Water is often compared to 1980.
Antonia Eisenkoeck: Mm-hmm.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Um, by George Orwell and Huxley himself also made this comparison. Um, and, oh wait, [00:29:00] I should play some ads while I'm searching.
Antonia Eisenkoeck: Yeah. Oh
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: yeah. Or I'll just take them out. Um, I mean, this is, then I'll just make this very short.
Um, so this is from page four three, which is the chapter on propaganda in a democratic society. Um, he says, in the immediate future, there's some reason to believe that the punitive methods of 1984 will give place to reinforcements in manipulations of brave new world. Um, so, you know, I mean, brave New World was published first, but Huxley explicitly said like, you know, the kind of stuff that's done in, in 1984 is probably not what's gonna work.
And part of that is because then he continues. He basically mentions how to create good propaganda in a state. Um, and the way of doing that is by, you know, not appealing to force and violence, but to, by appealing to people's self-interest. So the, the brief definition [00:30:00] here is there are two kinds of propaganda, rational propaganda in favor of action that is consonant with the enlightened self-interest of those who make it, and those to whom it is addressed.
And non-rational propaganda that is not consonant with anybody's enlightened self-interest, but is dictated by and appeals to passionate blind impulses, unconscious cravings or fears. Um, and then, right, so this is from the next chapter called brainwashing. And this I think is interesting when you then yeah.
Think about how society's set up right now in some sense. So before that, he talks about how you can like break down anyone's mind and that kinda stuff, and you can make people confess to anything, uh, if you just basically, uh, torture them. But then he says, but confession is not enough. A hopeless neurotic is no use to anyone.
What the intelligent, practical dictator needs is not a patient to be institutionalized or victim to be shot, but a convert who will work for the cause. You know, maybe I'll just leave it as that. [00:31:00] Yeah. I mean, I think the interesting point there that he's making and what, when you read Brave New Worlds Revisited, you realize that for Huxley, this brave New World is much more political book than ever would've been for me because I think he, he's very interested in how.
In a way, a state, you know, a modern democracy can set up propaganda, um, in a way that people are just gonna follow up with it. He also has, I'm not gonna read it now because it's too long, but he has this another quote about, you know, how you set up marketing, but basically instilling fear in people and then you kind of substitute some sort of product that, uh, then sells you hope rather than the actual product.
Antonia Eisenkoeck: Mm-hmm.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: And, um,
Antonia Eisenkoeck: I mean, I think this is very relevant at the current times, um, propaganda. I mean, I see it, I think like at the moment during like, um, like COVID pandemic, um, is very interesting to [00:32:00] me to compare different countries or states how to deal with it and how a successful. Vaccination program or like successful quotation marks.
You can, like, you measures like everybody measures success differently, but how this in some countries is used as propaganda to support political parties. And there's very much the aspect of fear and in hope and rescue, which yeah. Is I think used very cleverly and, and also because I think for like over the past two years the public has been controlled by the state.
Like so much is like, like yeah. Since, since the the second world war, I think we haven't obviously been in a situation in which the state [00:33:00] has so much influence in our personal lives. I, I, I don't really have a point with this other than this is interesting to think about, um, propaganda and state control through propaganda and to play with fear and hope.
Current moment.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah, and I mean, yeah, it's, it's, yeah. I mean, it's just so effective, right? I mean, I think the, the, the, the, the, the big thing is just how widespread it is, right? Not, I mean, propaganda always sounds so as if there's, you know, someone trying to pull the strings and manipulate the world. I think it's often much more people acting in their self-interest and realizing, oh, this, you know, marketing campaigns, realizing, hey, this, if we, you know, make people feel bad about themselves, uh, then we can sell a bit more of this.
So it's not necessarily that there's, you know, like, you know, if these world controllers who try and the world per se, I think it's just that certain beliefs can [00:34:00] just naturally lead there. Mm-hmm. I had, uh, one very brief point that I thought was surprisingly, you know, he wrote this in 1958, the Brave New Award revisited.
And, um, I don't wanna draw any obvious, um, uh, uh, comparisons, but I think there are quite a few politicians who've become famous because of, well, basically he describes a lot of modern politicians. So this is now, uh, from the chapter, there's now, uh, the arts of selling.
Antonia Eisenkoeck: Mm-hmm.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: And he's talking about politicians and how they have to.
Uh, be able to look sincerely on TV or at the TV camera. And here. So here's a quote from page 74. In one way or another as vigorous, He-Man or kindly father, the candidate must be glamorous. He must also be an entertainer who never bos his audience. In neuro to television and radio, that audience is [00:35:00]accustomed to being distracted and does not like to be asked to concentrate or make a prolonged intellectual effort.
All speeches by the entertainer candidate must therefore be short and snappy. The great issues of the day must be dealt within five minutes at most, and preferably in 60 seconds flat. The nature of orry is such that there has always been a tendency among politicians and clergymen to oversimplify complex issues from a pulpit or platform.
Even the most conscientious of speakers finds it very difficult to tell the whole truth. The methods now are being used to merchandise the political candidate as though he were a deodorant, positively guarantee they'd electorate against ever hearing the truth about anything. And I think there's so much of, you know, politicians saying something that sounds good on a five second TV clip or whatever.
Antonia Eisenkoeck: Hmm.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: But, but I mean, the problem is in some sense, you know, I think it can very quickly sound condescending and you know, like, uh, these stupid people [00:36:00] who vote for these people. But I think the problem is it's just kind of
Antonia Eisenkoeck: it human
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: the way most things work right now. Right.
Antonia Eisenkoeck: Well, I think it's, it's human nature, right?
We noticed from psychology, we have a non, we, our attention span is, um, not infinite. And we have limitations and we react to. Yeah. Simple messages differently to very complex ones. And we find it hard to listen to somebody for sweat, 20 minutes straight. However, somebody tells you something within a minute that, that we can do.
And
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: just briefly, the listen of this podcast are very capable of listening. Yeah.
Antonia Eisenkoeck: Yes.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: 20 minutes.
Antonia Eisenkoeck: You can take this out. They
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: are the,
Antonia Eisenkoeck: but this is why you have to have to add,
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: right. Antonia? No one wants to, uh, advertise on this.
Antonia Eisenkoeck: Okay. Not yet. I've
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: asked.
Antonia Eisenkoeck: [00:37:00] Okay. Um, well, you can play some music in between something.
Um,
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: just make up some fake products.
Antonia Eisenkoeck: Yeah. Um, no, but I, I guess my point view was just this is, yes. It's like, it would be great if we could. If the politicians have very complex discussions on points, over an hour would be more successful than the ones who give you a simplified answer to a very complex problem.
And by doing it, they're not really answering it. But unfortunately, we are humans and this is how we work.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: And also, I mean, I think it's, it's just getting worse, right? Not just because there's so much information now that you know, even, okay, like, okay, let's, we can maybe set politics aside for a second. Um, because that's very obvious.
You know, lots of people don't care that much or don't wanna put lots of effort into something they have to basically do or [00:38:00] whatever it, so that even if you just set that aside for a moment, even in something like science, right? I mean, there's occasionally, there are studies done on how much scientists actually read of the articles they cite, and often it's, they've read the title, the abstract at most, um, in a shockingly large amount of, of cases, right?
So that people don't even read like what the actual experiment was, but they just say like, oh, they, you know, they found this thing and just sign it. I, and I think that's just a natural consequence of this complete, uh, information overload, overload, right? You, you don't have much time for anything because there's so much coming at you.
So you take, so yeah, whoever can say the strongest message, the loudest, uh, is gonna be heard. And. Yeah. Yeah. So like, what chance do we even have in something like politics when there's all these different candidates and you often have local candidates, and then you have a [00:39:00] countrywide candidate and you know, you have to, or look into all these different parties and it happens, like, for me, it's ridiculous.
I've, because I'm moving, I've, I've seemed to have been moving around in Germany so that I've been basically had to vote like every year for the last five years. Um, at like, major elections. It's just stupid. Um, but you know, you don't have like, who's gonna put the time and effort into it, right? You just watch a 10 minute clip of each candidate and then go, okay, that one seemed like they knew what they were doing.
Antonia Eisenkoeck: Hmm. Yeah. So almost like I'm thinking, what, what's the way around this? And probably just only through realizing that this is how one works to go against. Your intuition or like your automatic way of going about other things and to realize, okay, I'd like to only give 10 minutes to, but I am gonna do a bit of work [00:40:00] and gonna sit here for an hour and look at different sources.
Probably that's the only way ready to
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah, but I mean, even that's not really your way, right? Because you have, you know, I mean, I'm fairly, I mean, this is not like something I make a big point about, but I don't really care for politics as a kind of general interest and, and I don't read up that much about it.
And part of the reason is that I say like, there's only so much you can do in a day, and if I now also spend lots of time doing all this political stuff, then something else has to give. And so I don't know, right, because it's easy to say like, okay, everyone should, you know, read all the manifestos or the parties and inform themselves.
But you know, if you've. If you have, you know, if you're a, you're a single parent or something and you just come back for like 10 hours and your children want something to eat, like you're not gonna go read up for two hours on political parties. Right. So, I don't know.
Antonia Eisenkoeck: Yeah. Quick question is whether you have to do it every day or what [00:41:00] are, what is enough to do it before a big election?
I was just thinking that probably part of the reason why questionable people have been elected in the past decade is because people didn't do it and are not even aware of actually who's the other candidate could vote for. And what, I
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: don't know. Yeah. I, I, I mean I, from what I've heard, a lot of it was also protest against the status quo.
You know, I'm not doing well, so I'm just gonna change it. See what happens. Can't be much worse than it is for me right now. I think. I think that's been part of it, but yeah, I dunno.
Antonia Eisenkoeck: Percent. Yeah.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Um, after all this largely uninformed, waffling on these topics, um, should we talk about the writing of the book?
Antonia Eisenkoeck: Yeah,
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: you add some points and I add some points too here.
Antonia Eisenkoeck: So I, my biggest point is inconsistency. [00:42:00]
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Okay.
Antonia Eisenkoeck: So I started the book and I noticed a very floral language that I found interesting, but then very early on and like is the second, just
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: very briefly, not only interesting, you, you wrote me a text after when you started writing saying like, this is amazing.
I love the
Antonia Eisenkoeck: writing. And maybe it was only, uh, uh, I was like, I think back, it was just the first
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: page. That's what
Antonia Eisenkoeck: you said. Yeah. But it, but I was like, it was interesting because also there was, I had like a day off or something and I had like a morning and I started a book and I was obviously, you know, whenever you start a book, your attention, it's like, are you focus on writing?
But then like the, in the second chapter, chapter, I think it is, it completely changes in the way everything is written. And it becomes very confusing in a way that is like every paragraph is from a different perspective and language changes quite a lot. And then throughout the book, then it comes more, turns into, again, away from the floral [00:43:00] language into a very descriptive plot focused language, which is, you know, more in a sense of, and then this happened, and this happened and this happened.
And I, throughout the book, I felt like this could have been written by different authors.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Maybe it was,
Antonia Eisenkoeck: maybe it was
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: maybe all the Huxley wrote this together.
Antonia Eisenkoeck: Yeah. But it's
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: almost to the front. Only say on my cover only says vintage Huxley.
Antonia Eisenkoeck: Yeah. It could not out of Huxley could, it could be whole family.
Yeah. But, um, it is almost like the way it appears to me, because I can imagine, so I don't know whether he's written this book chronologically or whether he's written, you know, like parts chapters first and then like, uh, earlier chapters later would like, I don't know. But it almost seems to me like he's written it in a go and had obviously a lot of [00:44:00] development, like he's developed or maybe changed as a writer.
And it seems to me as, as if there wasn't the, that the editing didn't happen. That somebody was like, okay, great. However, it's not consistent, so we have to change certain bits. This is all the perception I had as if there wasn't, as if I perceived it a way, in a way as it, if it would've been written in a go.
And then it's like, okay, done. And I'm not gonna look at consistency. So yeah, that was my, my perception. What,
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: um, it's interesting. I never noticed that. Um, I realize, I just forget, forgot to say that one of the reasons, this is why I should have made more, more, more specific notes. The reason I chose this is twofold.
One was that I felt, you know, it have this mirror, mirror up to what we're doing, that kind stuff. The other part was that what I would consider this a great book in that sense that, you know, it affected me in this [00:45:00]way. It's probably the worst written great book I've read. And interestingly, I didn't notice that.
But like the, there are, there are two things that really, that stood out to me that really annoyed me about the book in terms of the writing. So the first is a general problem. That science fiction writers face, I think. And in a way it's kind of, I've, oh, I don't read lots of science fiction, but of the few books that I have read, none of them has really done this well either.
And that's the problem of exposition, because if you are describing a completely different world, you have to describe what the rules are of that world and you have to describe how it works, you know, what the people think and all this kinda stuff. And that's very difficult to do without explicitly saying at the beginning of the book, this is how this world works.
So, you know, the first 30 chap, uh, pages or whatever of Brave New World, uh, just this guy is showing you around the world, right? Saying, oh, this was the hatchery, this is how this works, this is [00:46:00] how this works, this is how this works. And it's just not really, it's, it's not how I think a book should be written in that sense.
Um. Again, this is, so, um, a slight comment here is, so I also read two one and a half books by hgs, who was, I think one of the, one of the first like huge successes in science fiction. And he wrote, for example, the Time Machine, the other book. So that's one book I read. And the other is, um, men Like Gods, which according to Wikipedia was also part of the not inspiration for Brave New World.
But you can see some similarities here. And the funny thing is, since reading HD Wells, I think a lot higher of Huxley's writing. Mm-hmm. 'cause HG Wells really doesn't write well. Um, and so he has this kind of, you know, it's also HG Wells wrote [00:47:00] those books. You know, let's say roughly turn of the century, um, so still a bit before Huxley, but he has this like really old school narration kind of style almost.
Where, so the way he solves this problem of exposition is that he takes a person from our current world or the current world of his time and puts them into this new world so that that person, so you can, you can see all the differences and you learn how the world works through the eyes of that person.
For example, in the time machine, um, he has this time traveler who invents this time machine who, you know, uses the time machine and comes back and says, Hey guys, let me tell you what happened. And then he can explain like, oh look, I was in this world and this is how it worked, and all that kinda stuff.
And in somewhat similarly in men, like Gods, he, there's this random guy who. Basic. I think he has a car crash or something. He, [00:48:00] him and something really random. Anyway, he has, there's a car crash or something, and then suddenly him and some other people are in this new world now where they're like, where are we?
What's going on? And then the beginning is this discussion of them and the people from this other world talking to each other, going like, Hmm, how do you people work? How do we work? Right?
Antonia Eisenkoeck: Mm-hmm.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: So compared to that, you can almost say that Huxley is very modern in the way that he writes his books. Um, but I still, I find it difficult to read these kind of books where the, where so much is taught to you about how the world works.
Interestingly though, there is in the beginning of, in the, in the Fore word of Brave New World Revisited, they mentioned that Huxley wanted the novel to be a perfect blend of novel and essay. And in that sense, you can see how brave New World kind of. Applies by that ideal. It's just, I don't think a novel should include essays.
Um, [00:49:00] yeah, that's part of, so that's one half. The other half is that, so this is something I've seen Huxley do in other stories also, uh, or in one particular. So Huxley has this really, at least I think, annoying way of writing something really Well, making a point softly and then telling you that he made the point in the immediate sentence afterwards.
So he, in Brave New World in particular, he makes this point about the conditioning of people with a hyp edia. So he, you know, as we discussed earlier, you have these people who are just constantly being told, uh, or like, you know, they sleep and they constantly hear these tapes and their minds basically become, or the contents of those tapes becomes their minds.
And I think in particular where I where this happens is with, uh, Leino.
Antonia Eisenkoeck: Oh yeah.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: She has this moments where she says something [00:50:00] and you realize, that sounds familiar, like I've heard this before. And then you realize like, oh, that's something that they heard from the tapes. She's basically just repeating the propaganda that's being told to her.
And you have this, uh, at least I had this, and you have, I had this a few times, this moment of going, ah, this is really good. Like, this is really good writing. You, you are, you are realizing that the characters are just becoming, uh, this propaganda. But then Huxley will, in the next sentence, say, uh, she said as she was conditioned to think, or something like that.
Mm-hmm. Like, he'll, he'll make this amazing point and then tell you that he made this amazing point at the sentence afterwards. Like someone telling you a joke and then explaining why the joke is funny and knows me so much because, sorry, just last point here. I randomly once bought this book at a train station called 50 Great Short Stories, um, which at least in Europe is pretty common to see in the English speaking section of train stations.
Uh, and it has like [00:51:00] lots of different English speaking short stories. And one of them is by Huxley called the Ja Smile. Same thing. He does the same thing there again, where he makes a subtle point, and then in the next sentence he tells you that he just made a subtle point and, oh God, I hate that so much.
Yeah. So I did, I, I don't really wanna speak that negatively about books in particular because I think this book has some value, but I find it interesting that in this case you have this juxtaposition of Huxley, who to me seems to be a very good thinker, but not a great writer. And that's kind of an interesting combination.
Antonia Eisenkoeck: Yeah. Yeah. I can definitely see your partner unless this as well, especially with l Nina. I think at times also it feels, and this is maybe moving away a bit from the writing spot style, but more into the plot. Like I wasn't convinced by everything and sometimes it felt to [00:52:00] me a bit, um, uh,
I guess some, some of the things that were happening or described didn't, which is so obvious that, that it didn't, didn't really convince me. And I'm like, for example, the whole thing that they go into this concert and they bump into Linda and, and John and this director of the hatchery has just told Bernard that.
He had lost a, a woman there, and it's just like, it's so obvious they go there and then all of a sudden they bump into her and then without anything happening in particular, they, they're taking him with them. It's just like so simple that it didn't really convince me because it's like, like should he, like, you [00:53:00] could like build it up a bit or make it a bit more because it's just like, um, just, um, did wasn't really like cleverly written or cleverly presented to me.
It was, it was too simple. And then also without any questions asked, they come, come back with them to civilization and then to hold a love story, not love story between Sean and l Nina is like all of a sudden it happened and it was like they hadn't really like. Talk to each other like, I don't know. But it was, again, very simple, like not very elaborate, not very detailed, not very clever in any way, which didn't convince me.
And then Sean himself being like in this new world, but he's not also, he didn't seem to be surprised by anything. I mean, he was uncomfortable. He didn't like the civilized world for sure, but he, it was [00:54:00]almost like assumed because his mother had told him about this brave new world that he wasn't surprised by anything that was going on there.
And, and I'm just like, even if I was told that you could fly around and like. Taxis from here to there within seconds and there's like multisensory, cinemas, et cetera. I would still be surprised and a bit bit overwhelmed if I ended up in this world. Um, so yes, I think there as a couple of times in a book, whereas it's like, this is like, it's a, it is a shame because I'm liking the whole book and I think it's interesting.
Good points, but some parts of it didn't come across to me as clever and were too simple, which yeah, kind of like were lost the illusion a bit, you know, like sometimes when you read you in this kind of like really immersed illusion, but parts of it, I just fell out of it a bit. [00:55:00] Did you have a similar feeling at all mean?
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Uh, just a quick, a brief comment is, you know, a a book doesn't have to be clever in that sense, right. Um, like, or complicated. I think many of the best books are very simple books, but the, and this kind of all relates to somehow when I, when I read this, when I read Revenue World and Realized, or also when I read the Ja Smile and realized that actually keeps explaining his own jokes, it really seemed like he just lacks confidence as a writer.
Because, you know, if you have a very simple story, it takes a lot of courage to write a simple story and publish that because you feel like you have to make it complicated. You have to make it, you know, clever and all these things. And yeah. I wonder whether he just lacks that sometimes because Yeah, because of the explaining his jokes and, and putting all the signs into it and.
Antonia Eisenkoeck: Yeah. But like, I don't know, like when you say it doesn't have to be complicated, [00:56:00] obviously it still needs to be, really needs to be able to follow. But let's take the example of them straight away bumping into Linda and Sean and surprise, this is the woman director lost. It has
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: to be believable. Yeah.
Antonia Eisenkoeck: Yeah.
For, for me it wasn't believable, but that's, you know, obviously my message subjective, um, perception of, of this scene. And I feel it does need to be so complicated that you spent 300 pages on them, finding Linda or bumping into Linda and John. But it just was so quick and so simple. The depth. Yeah, I,
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: yeah.
Yeah. No, I mean, I think from the few books by Huxley I've read, I, I often had this [00:57:00] thought of, in principle, it's interesting, but it's, it's not well written. It's not well put together. Um, which is a real shame because I think, yeah, I mean, he was, you know, in a lot of what he wrote, you know, 50, 80 years ago came true, or is even more the case now.
Right. And it's, it's almost a shame that yeah, he, he just wasn't better to able to, to put that into a proper story, that kind of thing. I mean, I don't want to, so without trying to rip too much into Huxley as a writer. Um, so I read this biography of his right, um, by Nicholas Murray, um, out Huxley, an English intellectual.
And one thing I found, one comment I found interesting is that, okay, this, I'm gonna make a smaller site now just 'cause I read this and it's gonna damn well go into this podcast because somehow all the effort I put into [00:58:00] this isn't going into this. Uh, so I'm at least gonna put this one into it now. Uh, but it's about Artis, actually the poet, because, um, his first books, what, what books of poetry, so this is just a funny little story about his first collection of poetry.
So his quote from page. 77 in September. Huxley's first book was published. I was amused by the Times Review of Me pleasantly offensive end quote. He told his father, when the first review of the burning wheel, the name of the book appeared. The Slim 51 page book had been published by Basel Black Hole in the series Adventurers, all which the jacket described as quote, a series of young poets, unknown to fame, end quote, Huxley's fellow poets in the series, Frank Bets.
She Vines and s Reed Haman were destined to continue to enjoy that status. Perhaps because black horse sales pitch was rather un impassioned. Quote, the object of the [00:59:00] series is to remove from the work of young poets the reproach of insolvency end quote. The common preface began a publisher's advertisement in the book quoted the observer to the effect that quote, uh.
The getup of this series is very attractive type paper and the shape of the pages are all good, and the poems are printed with a nice regard for margins. End quote. The observer was silent on the actual merits of the poems that positioned themselves so pretty between those margins. So that was the first book, actually Fiveish.
Um, but the second one is actually, I just wanted to put that in there. But the second one is actually more interesting in terms of how it was, um, received. This again, was a collection of poems. Um, it was with the same publisher, but now he managed to upgrade to, uh, the series from the series, a series of young poets Unknown to fame.
He was now a part of the series of poetry by proved Hands. And there was of [01:00:00] this, there was an a. Anonymous review in the time literary supplement, uh, where someone said, quote, better equipped with the vocabulary of a poet than with the inspiration of a poet end quote. And that reviewer turns out to have been Virginia Wolf.
And what's even more interesting is that, so I dunno whether this was the case at the time, but Huxley was very well connected and he was friends with TS Elliot, uh, and with, uh, Virginia Wolf and. Finally, then there's, for his third book of poetry, there's a, not exactly a review, but a comment by TS Elliot, which was, quote, I was unable to show any enthusiasm for his verse, which is pretty brutal if your two friends, Virginia Wolf and ts Elliot, just rip you to shreds on your poetry.
Um, but I did find the Virginia Wolf comment [01:01:00] interesting. Like, he has the vocabulary, but he lacks the inspiration or imagination. And sometimes it does feel like that a bit to me in bravely world. Like he has the thoughts, he has the, you know, he has the intelligence.
Antonia Eisenkoeck: Hmm.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: But he kind of lacks that, um, not necessarily poetic, but yeah.
That kind of imagination to really make something out of it.
Antonia Eisenkoeck: Hmm.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Sorry, I just wanted to show hone in that.
Antonia Eisenkoeck: Yeah, no, it's interesting. But, but, um, the question is, does uh, piece of literature need to tick all the boxes because it's one, you know, one of the biggest CLA classics, and it's been around for almost a hundred years now,
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: of course.
I mean, we've been for the last 20 minutes, shitting on a book that's, uh, one of the most famous, uh, highly acclaimed and bestselling books over the last 70 years or whatever. So, [01:02:00] um, yeah, but I, that is, it is really, but that is an interesting part to me, that you can write a great book. Even without writing a book that's particularly well written, uh, but as fiction, right?
It's not like, you know, in, in science and philosophy. We know that stuff doesn't have to be, have to be well written. Yeah. But it's interesting that fiction seems to be the same thing.
Antonia Eisenkoeck: Yeah.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Um, although probably the exception rather than the norm.
Antonia Eisenkoeck: That's true.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah. Um, I feel like I prepared incorrectly for this because I read so much around it that actually I failed to say about the book itself and more about, have so many points more on Huxley's biography in life, but it seems like it's just random at this point now.
Antonia Eisenkoeck: Yeah. But I mean, we've covered quite a lot.
No, I'm just looking at my, I think we covered most of mine. [01:03:00]
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah. I mean also, I mean, we're not. Providing the ultimate companion and commentary on Brave New World. I think this is somewhat similar in vain to the book club where we are just interested in reading.
Antonia Eisenkoeck: Mm-hmm.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: And have a brief discussion about it.
And yeah, in this case I read like three books, but not the actual book recently.
Antonia Eisenkoeck: But you had read it before. I think that's important to mention.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah, I mean, I read it, I read it before and actually this is, this is probably the first book that I was supposed to read in school and that I actually read. I, I mean, I didn't read it in school, but I read it afterwards.
Um, yeah. And I, one thing that, okay, so we, you know, we keep saying that Huxley is not that great of a writer, but Hel Ho Watson is such a catchy name that every single time I hear Hel Hoz, which actually happens occasionally. I always think Watson [01:04:00] immediately afterwards, it's really annoying.
Antonia Eisenkoeck: Yeah, that is a good name.
I mean his name. So I could also, van had Marks as quite kid.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah. Yeah. But I mean, hel Watson is such a, yeah, it's a good name. Um, Leino is maybe a bit, I mean, Helmut Watson is really on the nose in the same way that Lenina is, but somehow funnier. Yeah. Actually one, one thing that um, I was surprised by when you read the biography is that Huxley himself, I think in letters to his father or something called this, a satire or a comedic book, which I didn't really get, I don't
Antonia Eisenkoeck: think.
I mean, if you think about it like this, then all of the points that I make made that it is unbelievable and too simple. Kind of like disappear because it is, as you think about it, in a comic sense, or, [01:05:00] uh, yeah, but it's not like a slapstick
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: comedy.
Antonia Eisenkoeck: Right.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: I mean, it's, it's not that either.
Antonia Eisenkoeck: Sure.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: I mean, I don't think, I don't think he's making fun of, you know, I don't think it's a satire of the, or a parody of the genre.
Um, I think he does develop it further. As I said, if you reach HG Wells, you very much have this kind of, you know, let me tell you the story about this crazy place where I went. And then someone just tells them everything. You know, it's, it's, so, in that sense, Huxley is, is quite advanced. And I think he did advance the
Antonia Eisenkoeck: Yeah.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Genre. But yeah, still I didn't, I didn't realize this was comedic.
Antonia Eisenkoeck: Mm-hmm. I changed, I missed that one.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: I mean, to, this was maybe more from the, when he started writing it, maybe that changed, but
Antonia Eisenkoeck: mm-hmm. But yeah, this is also what I, what I meant like the, the voice in the writing style changes throughout the book.
I feel. Maybe, maybe what it's, although I also didn't really find it com, um, come at the [01:06:00] beginning, so, yeah.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah. I don't know. Okay. Maybe, maybe the last point is that when just talking about the sci-fi genre, it was interesting to me how a lot of what's, a lot of the general message, some of it of what's in Brave New World is also an HD Wells' book, um, which I found kind of interesting.
For example, in the Time machine, which is ostensibly. Quite different book.
Antonia Eisenkoeck: Mm-hmm.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Oh, I mean not, yeah, I mean, it's, it's kind of different. He talks about, um, or maybe I'll just quote the thing. Uh, so the quote goes from the time machine. For the first time I began to realize an odd consequence of the social.
Of the social effort in which we are present, engaged strength is the outcome of need. Security sets a premium on feebleness, the work of ameliorating the conditions of life. The true civilizing process that makes life more and more secure had gone steadily onto a climax. One triumph of united humanity over nature [01:07:00] had followed another things that are now mere dreams had become projects deliberately put in hand and arrived forward.
And another quote is, uh, we are kept keen on the grindstone of pain and necessity. And then finally, at once, like a lash across the face came the possibility of losing my own age, of being left helpless in this strange new world. So I know that the, the title is from Hamlet or whatever, something by Shakespeare Breaking New World.
Antonia Eisenkoeck: Yeah, the Tempest.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: But when you read it, oh, sorry, Tempest. Uh, but when you read it this way, like The Strange New World, I did go, huh? That sounds familiar.
Antonia Eisenkoeck: Yeah.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Funnily, weirdly enough, and this really surprised me, apparently HG Wells really hated the book, so he, he didn't like brave at all, even though it seems like they were talking about a lot of similar things, that you kind of need this struggle.
You can't just, you know, you can't just live and bliss all the time.
Antonia Eisenkoeck: Mm-hmm.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Um, I dunno, do you have anything, any more wisdom to share? [01:08:00]
Antonia Eisenkoeck: Uh, I think I've shared all of my wisdom.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: That was all of it. Okay.
Antonia Eisenkoeck: Unfortunately, I'm sorry to be disappointing.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: It's fine. I mean, you can, you know, collect some more and then whenever we do another book you can just dispel with all of that.
Antonia Eisenkoeck: Yeah, we will do that.