Re: Stories for James Nicoll's Nightmarish Future

Bill Swears <wswears@xxxxxxx> wrote:

> Jonathan L Cunningham wrote:
> > James A. Donald <jamesd@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> >
> >
> >> --
> >>Jonathan L Cunningham:
> >>
> >>>Forget the protagonist: is _Brave New World_ a utopia
> >>>or a dystopia? Why?

> >>2. It is a dystopia because the inhabitants have had
> >>their minds cut down to like it.
> >
> >
> > Cut down? Or sharpened?
>
> They use a drug called SOMA, to take away the pain of their regimented
> lives. Somebody else plans their lives, decanting to grave, and then

Is that a knee-jerk reaction to the word "drug" I see there? What is
wrong with soma? Compare:

(1) Cancer patients use a drug called DIAMORPHINE to take away the
pain of their illness.

(2) Factory workers use a drug called ALCOHOL to take away the pain of
their regimented lives.

(3) Multi-millionaire Hollywood movie stars use a drug called COCAINE
to take away the pain of their luxury lifestyles.

(4) Average Joes use a machine called a TELEVISION to take away the
boredom of their regimented lives.

(5) Smarter-than-average Janes use devices called BOOKS to escape from
the reality of their existence into virtual worlds.

Are you suggesting that in a *real* utopia, no one would read fiction,
or watch television, or take recreational drugs, because their lives
would be so fulfilled without? (ObSF: _Men Like Gods_ by HG Wells?)

What is it that, in your view, makes soma use a sign that BNW is a
dystopia? Is it the regimented lives, or that they use a recreational
drug with fewer side-effects and health consequences than alcohol?

> lives. Somebody else plans their lives, decanting to grave, and then
> takes appropriate steps to ensure they follow the plan.

I'd hate that. I reckon you would too. But is it "bad" for a reason, or
just because you wouldn't like it yourself?

> No matter how imperfect, I want to follow my own plan. It's the edges of
> society where somebody else tells me how to live, and where what I want
> to do things that harm no others, yet am not allowed to do, that makes
> the country I live in dystopic. So, for me, control of personal liberty
> is a first evil, and taking advantage of the large percentage of people
> who think that the way it is, is the right way, is the second.

Yeah, but if you'd been born in the BNW, you wouldn't want to follow
your own plan. You'd want to conform. So that's not an argument against
it.

Gerry (in another post) almost reformulated the question: is there
anything about it, other than your own personal preferences, that you
can identify? Because you are saying that an advanced, high-tech society
where virtually everyone is happy is worse than one where lots of people
are poor and miserable.

I can't help feeling that there ought to be stronger arguments against
it than "Yukk!". For example, "the only way to achieve it would be to
brainwash a billion people against their will, which would be an act of
such unspeakable evil that a trillion years of prosperity and happiness
could not make up for it" or "it would indeed be a utopia, but not for
real human beings - it couldn't be stable in reality, because real
people wouldn't go along with it" or ... what?

(I don't happen to believe either of those, although I suspect there's
an element of truth to them.)

Jonathan
.

Relevant Pages

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