do you miss me, miss misery?

[tanaise]

I forget sometimes, how horrible I thought HS was. But I was thinking today about "Brave New World," and it reminded me. I read it for the second time my senior year for AP English. And I remember writing a paper on it, arguing that it wasn't a dystopia, it was a utopia, because everyone knew their place, and furthermore was happy in it. And those that weren't happy in it, got sent off to an idyllic little island to have fun.

I remember being really, truly confused as to why people thought this was dystopic. I got a bad grade on the paper, but most of what I remember is looking out at my class while I presented the paper and having them stare blankly back at me. I still can't bring myself to really believe that it's dystopic. I'll give it lip service, but I think parts of me, possibly very large parts of me, still really wish that I could just *know* where I belonged in life and be happy in it. It's not the knowing so much as the being happy in it.

And it's funny, because HS wasn't really that horrible. I had friends. I'd had enough practice over there years that I was able to ignore most people who didn't like me, and by and large my teachers liked me and while it was really boring, I did fairly well in school. I just remember this huge gap between me and the rest of the kids I had classes with--most of them were doctor's children, the rest were college brats, and almost all of them had more money than I did. In 9th grade my mother made 16K. With the money from my dad for child support, it was 21K. Poverty level for a family of 4 then was 22K. It wasn't like we were starving, or I had to get a job or anything--my dad bought most things we needed, like new clothes and such, and my mom put a lot on credit cards, which she's still paying off in one form or another. BUt I was always worried, and she got very depressed and didn't pay her bills for vast stretches of time, and it never felt fair. Everyone else I knew, when their parents got divorced, their moms married someone with *so* much money. My mom dated a prison guard (this one I really liked, but he was an alcoholic, and my mom couldn't handle that.) and a teamster (on, off, on, off, on, off, on, off) and a professor who was married at the time, and thus we never met him, or really were supposed to know he existed even, and another prison guard who I never met while she was dating him who was something like 400 pounds. When she used to argue with me about not dating people, I'd make her list positive relationship models in my life. Even the ones that lasted aren't really anything to write home about. And this wasn't where the post was supposed to go at all, so I'm ending it now.

Comments

[cissa.livejournal.com]

i agree with you about Brave New World, by the way. If the people are happy, I don't think it counts as a dystopia. The whole utopia/dystopia thing is too binary, anyway, but I'd call BNW a disturbing utopia.

[lonesomenumber1]

I seem to remember having this conversation before. Both of you naturally identify with the Alphas and Betas. If you were genetically bred to be a mentally retarded menial worker, knowing your place might not seem so attractive. If you're not intelligent enough to know you're unhappy, does it mean that you're happy?

[cissa.livejournal.com]

I don't see intelligence as necessary for emotion. Therefore, I think people- and animals- are quite capable of feeling happiness or unhappiness, whether or not they can put the emotions into words. What's important to happiness, I think, is having a home in the world, and areas in which to exercise competence. And this would be true of all the classes in BNW, except possibly Alphas.

The people that seem most discontent to me, and this is true of me when I'm discontent- are those who have expectations for themselves or their world that they're unable to meet. This would not be a problem in BNW,m except (again) possibly for some Alphas.

Verbal and abstract comprehension do not seem to me to have anything at all to do with happiness or contentment, only with how they're expressed.

[lonesomenumber1]

Maybe I didn't phrase that very well. Maybe the Gammas are as happy as the Betas, but that's because they're designed that way. You could give me a lobotomy and put me to work sweeping the sidewalk and I'd probably be perfectly content, but I wouldn't call that happy.

Besides, I think, and I'm sure Huxley thinks, that a certain amount of discontentment is necessary to both society and the human soul. Would you give up your art, even if you wouldn't remember having given it up, in order to feel content? What if every artist felt the same way? The resulting society would be about as "human," as I perceive the word, as an ant colony.

BNW is a dystopia because of the eugenics -- even if the result is that everyone is "happy," the method is horrific -- and because the result is a completely stagnant society.

Sorry if I sound like I'm lecturing; discussing literature brings out the latent English major in me. My professors frowned on phrases like "in my opinion." ("If you're saying it of course it's your opinion!")

[cissa.livejournal.com]

Hmm. I'm not an English major, so am quite likely missing some specialized language used to discuss such things.

I agree BNW is a dystopia when viewed from the outside, but it looks a lot like a utopia when viewed from within it. That's one of the things that makes it more interesting to me than 1984. I think it also makes it a more interesting comment on the whole concept of utopia/dystopia: how do you tell the difference? It's not necessarily as obvious as it might seem initially.

I've read other things intended to be utopias that raise similar issue, but less consciously. The authors get too invested in the perfection (supposed) of their cultural creation. These aren't as interesting, even though the "utopias" are similarly flawed.

BNW also takes some of the cultural trends of our society and turns them into extremes, so that we can contemplate where to draw the line. Still, I think its most fascinating aspect is the way it plays head games with our perception or definitions of utopia/dystopia.

In a way, it makes me think of more intimate relationships, too: if it looks miserable from the outside, but the people in it are content and/or happy, is it a good relationship or not? Is that even a meaningful question, except as one asks oneself whether one would like to be in a similar relationship?

And thus we enter the morass that is cultural and/or moral relativism... Thank goodness I'm an artist and not a philosopher, so i don't have to have answers to any of this!

On a more personal note, my art usually makes me happy, not unhappy, so there's no temptation to give it up. I'm not a suffering artist, except sometimes by accident. But that's a whole different rant. On the other hand, there are other things that I'd give serious consideration to giving up, even if they'd change me substantially, for the guarantee of contentment... I dont' know if i would go through with it, but I'd have to give it a lot of thought if it were a real possibility. Since it's moot, I might contemplate it for a bit, for fun, but then I return to more concrete issues.

Interesting topic! :)

[lonesomenumber1]

I'm not an English major, so am quite likely missing some specialized language used to discuss such things.

Hey, I made it through five years of college without using any jargon more specialized than "metaphor." :-)

In a way, it makes me think of more intimate relationships, too: if it looks miserable from the outside, but the people in it are content and/or happy, is it a good relationship or not? Is that even a meaningful question, except as one asks oneself whether one would like to be in a similar relationship?

I think it is. Some people are content in a relationship that any outsider could instantly recognize as abusive.

On a more personal note, my art usually makes me happy, not unhappy, so there's no temptation to give it up. I'm not a suffering artist, except sometimes by accident.

But my point wasn't that being an artist makes you unhappy. It's that, if you lived in BNW, someone else would make the decision whether or not you would be one. What I meant by "would you give up your art" is, would you trade your freedom to choose to become an artist for contentment?

I agree that Huxley's dystopia is more interesting than Orwell's. He'd have to make it a lot more ambiguous to make me question whether it's a dystopia or a utopia, though. It's been a while since I've read BNW, but isn't all the power concentrated in the hands of a few "world controllers" who are completely cynical and corrupt?

[podling]

Well, but I mean, people in cults are generally pretty happy too, and yet we regard those as bad. I think much of it is truly based on cultural and/or moral relativism, as you said. I've not read BNW in forever, but I'm in general a big fan of dystopias. And I'm thinking of this one where everyone is telepathic. If for some reason, you lose that ability, you're killed, no ifs, ands, or buts about it. Oh, and it turns out that they actually killed most of the rest of the people surrounding their society who were non-telepaths. From the point of view of most people inside, it was a happy lovely place. Of course, if you were *different*, then it was indeed, quite a different story. And I think that's how many dystopias are, honestly. From a certain view it's all good, from another it is soooo not. Take that movie Equilibrium (though I won't do spoilers for that, but each time I watch it, it gets more complex for me) the people in the society who are doing what they're supposed to are perfectly content, same as BNW (well, except the rebels, obviously, who've realized that they've lost something, but in the story you have an enforced choice of being drugged, rather than just eugenics). It's the viewer/reader imposing their moral structure on it that makes it horrific. Similarly, I am horrified by some very strict Christian societies that I've seen depicted, but that's neither here not there. Honestly, part of what I feel makes a dystopia work is that there isn't as much of an element of choice. Our society seems to be built on this framework of choice, independence, freedom, whether it be real or imaginary (because in a working society, I am convinced that there really are times when there either is no choice, or the least bad choice in a given situation). Take that away, and you've taken away the base of what we consider to be humanity. Which brings me back to the cult thing. People in cults are happy because someone is telling them what to do, what to think, how to behave, as in your average dystopia. Some are harmful, physically and in other ways, but the people who stay in the cult (or dystopian society) are generally happy. We (and by we I mean, the greater society surrounding said cult) still impose our moral structure of choice on it and see the cult as a bad thing. Your utopia is my dystopia and vice-versa.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Have you read Huxley's utopian _Island_? It's very strange. It's like _BNW_ with the pluses and minuses reversed. We don't have a stagnant society, we have a stable society! We don't have evil bad soma, we have a good happy happy drug in the moksha-medicine! Etc.!

I respected Huxley more after reading _Island_, because I think he had the personal and intellectual honesty to acknowledge that the same system -- which had to interest him a certain amount, or he wouldn't have been able to write two books about it -- could be idyllic or horrific depending on the people and conditions involved. Sometimes I think any writer who wants to do a utopia or a dystopia should be required to do the opposite as well, with the same general premises.

[podling]

I think that when we're in high school, generally our understanding of other people is less, just because of lack of time spent thinking that people have other thoughts. So, just as you were unable to get in their heads, so they too were unable to understand you. The money thing is another story though. I mean, I went to a school where it was pretty much all middle income to upper middle income, for the most part, and it is different when everyone seems to be more or less on the same playing field as far as that goes. You were just more mature because you *understood* the money issues, so there was another way you thought differently. Okay, I'm not helping, but I love you anyway.