Previous book reviews.
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley is often seen as the counterpart of 1984, which together with Fahrenheit 451, form the three most beloved and well-known dystopian sci-fi novels of the early 20th century. But while 1984 paints a picture of a dictatorship where people are ruled by pain and fear, which has almost become a cliché at this point, Brave New World uses a concept that feels much more original and 'fresh' (even though it's from the 1930s) for the genre, which is a world where the government controls people through pleasure.
The world of Brave New World is one which is controlled by a world government, where Christianity and all other religions are replaced with the worship of Henry Ford and science, where everyone speaks one global language, where parenthood and families no longer exist because babies are created by the government and where sex and drugs form the centers of people's lives.
Monogamy is looked down upon and people are encouraged to have sex with as many people as possible and not stay with one partner for more than a few weeks. The view of sex which people in this world have and the way it reflects the modern west's Tinder or hook-up culture which is now popular in the west while also the way the main characters struggle with the desire for a monogamous relationship is the reason why I believe most incels will find this book highly relatable. In the foreword of a 1964 release of the book, Huxley wrote that the sexual aspect of Brave New World's society was partly inspired by the high divorce rates of the cities in the US.
The book has two main characters; Bernard Marx, who is the main character of what you can consider the first part of the book and John Savage, the main character of the second part of the book. Which one of the two you will most relate to may depend on your outlook on modern society.
Bernard Marx is of very small stature, which is an important aspect of his character because the world in which the book is set in contains a caste system where the highest Alpha caste members are tall and physically strong while the members of the lowest castes are described as dwarves. Marx, even though he is of the highest caste, the Alpha-Plus, physically resembles people of the much lower castes which he is often ridiculed for by his fellow Alphas. Marx, because of his manletdom and his anti-social tendencies, is essentially an incel, which is quite unusual seeing as the society he lives in encourages people to have as many sexual partners as possible. The character of Lenina, who is one of the two important female characters of the book, for example, nearly rejects his offer to visit the US together because of what she perceives as his abnormal behaviour. The segment in which Lenina ponders with her female friend over what to do seems like it could be a regular, real-life conversation today between women, as the various male partners they have had are compared with each other as if they were shopping through a clothing store to look for the perfect piece. Not very different from how people nowadays 'date around' to find their 'soulmate'.
Marx realizes something is wrong with the society he lives in but his hatred for it, in the end, comes down to not being able to participate it in the way others can. He despises the hyper-sexual nature of society and considers it degenerate, yet, at the same time, he also wants to engage in lots of sex and connect with people, just like everyone else does. I think this mindset reflects that of a lot of this site's members. On the one hand, most of us romanticize the west from before the sexual revolution, when lifelong marriages were still possible and desire lifelong companionship like that for ourselves. At the same time, we have this mindset that if the modern west does not allow for these relationships to happen anyway, we should at least have the right to fuck as many mentally ill whores as we can and satisfy our primal desires, yet we can't, because we are undesirable.
The other main character, John Savage, reflects the desire of those who genuinely reject modern western society and seek a return to the values of the past. In the world of Brave New World, there still exist Indian (Native American) reservations which are some of the last places where people do not live a sterilized existence and where concepts such as father, mother and marriage still exist. The inhabitants of the 'civilized' world visit these places, much like people today may visit some tribal village in Africa, for their amusement and bewilderment. John's mother, Linda, was a member of the civilized world who visited such a place but got lost and injured herself and was taken into the society of the Indians. Because she was pregnant, she could not return because in the book's world, motherhood is considered shameful and disgusting and any woman would have gotten the child aborted before it came to actually giving birth. As a result, John, is raised as a white outsider between two conflicting worlds; the one his mother tells him about and which still controls her behaviour as she has sexual relationships with many of the Indian men and the traditional world of the Native Americans in which honour, God, love and death still mean something.
Bernard, intrigued by this story, asks John to come with him to London and John agrees, excited to see the marvels of technological development which his mother talked about during his childhood. But John quickly realizes that the civilized world was not exactly what he dreamed about, he is disgusted by the hedonism and lack of knowledge of the average person and can't keep up with the hyper-social system which forces everyone to always be in the company of others whereas he had been used to being alone in the desert. John also falls in love with earlier mentioned Lenina, who of course has a very different view of sex and relationships than he has. Lenina comes off onto him while John is trying to explain that he believes in marriage and wishes to wait for a good moment. Lenina doesn't listen and John, enraged by knowing that the woman he so loved is only interested in temporary carnal pleasure, beats her up while calling her a whore. I found this to be a very amusing segment because the utter confusion which Lenina exhibits in this segment seemed so similar to how women tend to behave in those videos where they get beaten up.
Eventually, he snaps when his mother dies in front of his eyes in a state hospital and a bunch of nurses and children mock his grief, as they are conditioned to treat death as a minor event and because they have no family, will never know what it feels like to lose something akin to a parent. He attempts to 'wake up' the low-caste workers outside of the hospital and holds a speech about how their whole lives are founded on lies but they do not understand what he is trying to stay due to being conditioned from birth to be content with this lifestyle and instead attack him.
John is arrested and afterwards, decide to go full Kaczynski and live in a lighthouse and attempt to live off natural resources and devote the rest of his life to repenting for his mother's death and worshiping Christ. However, this attempt fails as people marvel at what they conceive as a barbaric lifestyle and come in droves to film him for their amusement. He attempted to escape civilization but civilization simply came back to him.
I could strongly relate to John as I live in the west but was raised in an Islamic household, the ancient values that I was brought up with of course strongly conflicted with the values of the society I participate in. This includes the views on sex and marriage, whereas Islam expects one to marry for life, westerners have already come to be used to a society where their future wives participated in gangbangs and can divorce them at any time for whatever reason. I also share some of his anti-technological views, as I am for example sick of the social media and smartphone culture that exists today, in which one is expected to be sharing absolutely everything he does.
I personally suspect John's character was inspired by Shakespeare's Othello (which is directly referenced many times by John himself, who is an avid fan of Shakespeare, which most people in this age have never heard of because his works were banned). Othello was a play about a Moorish (Muslim) general in the Venetian army who marries a Venetian Christian girl, who Othello suspects is cheating on him, after which Othello murders her. This may not have been Shakespeare's intent, but this to me reflects the more liberal attitude the west has always had regarding cheating and marriage compared to the very orthodox attitude in the Islamic world.
Concluding, when it comes to sexual relationships, we already live in Brave New World, this is why it's quite a depressing read at times. Many of either Bernard's or John's monologues made me think of emotional struggles I dealt with in life so far.
Leave out the caste system and certain inventions like rocket-fueled public transport and this book might as well have been written by Michel Houellebecq. With the media's attempts at popularizing anti-monogamous fetishes like 'swinging' and women no longer having to marry because they can get financial stability by merely posting pictures of themselves online, it seems like monogamy and the concept of the nuclear family might already be on its death-row. At least in the west.
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley is often seen as the counterpart of 1984, which together with Fahrenheit 451, form the three most beloved and well-known dystopian sci-fi novels of the early 20th century. But while 1984 paints a picture of a dictatorship where people are ruled by pain and fear, which has almost become a cliché at this point, Brave New World uses a concept that feels much more original and 'fresh' (even though it's from the 1930s) for the genre, which is a world where the government controls people through pleasure.
The world of Brave New World is one which is controlled by a world government, where Christianity and all other religions are replaced with the worship of Henry Ford and science, where everyone speaks one global language, where parenthood and families no longer exist because babies are created by the government and where sex and drugs form the centers of people's lives.
Monogamy is looked down upon and people are encouraged to have sex with as many people as possible and not stay with one partner for more than a few weeks. The view of sex which people in this world have and the way it reflects the modern west's Tinder or hook-up culture which is now popular in the west while also the way the main characters struggle with the desire for a monogamous relationship is the reason why I believe most incels will find this book highly relatable. In the foreword of a 1964 release of the book, Huxley wrote that the sexual aspect of Brave New World's society was partly inspired by the high divorce rates of the cities in the US.
The book has two main characters; Bernard Marx, who is the main character of what you can consider the first part of the book and John Savage, the main character of the second part of the book. Which one of the two you will most relate to may depend on your outlook on modern society.
Bernard Marx is of very small stature, which is an important aspect of his character because the world in which the book is set in contains a caste system where the highest Alpha caste members are tall and physically strong while the members of the lowest castes are described as dwarves. Marx, even though he is of the highest caste, the Alpha-Plus, physically resembles people of the much lower castes which he is often ridiculed for by his fellow Alphas. Marx, because of his manletdom and his anti-social tendencies, is essentially an incel, which is quite unusual seeing as the society he lives in encourages people to have as many sexual partners as possible. The character of Lenina, who is one of the two important female characters of the book, for example, nearly rejects his offer to visit the US together because of what she perceives as his abnormal behaviour. The segment in which Lenina ponders with her female friend over what to do seems like it could be a regular, real-life conversation today between women, as the various male partners they have had are compared with each other as if they were shopping through a clothing store to look for the perfect piece. Not very different from how people nowadays 'date around' to find their 'soulmate'.
Marx realizes something is wrong with the society he lives in but his hatred for it, in the end, comes down to not being able to participate it in the way others can. He despises the hyper-sexual nature of society and considers it degenerate, yet, at the same time, he also wants to engage in lots of sex and connect with people, just like everyone else does. I think this mindset reflects that of a lot of this site's members. On the one hand, most of us romanticize the west from before the sexual revolution, when lifelong marriages were still possible and desire lifelong companionship like that for ourselves. At the same time, we have this mindset that if the modern west does not allow for these relationships to happen anyway, we should at least have the right to fuck as many mentally ill whores as we can and satisfy our primal desires, yet we can't, because we are undesirable.
The other main character, John Savage, reflects the desire of those who genuinely reject modern western society and seek a return to the values of the past. In the world of Brave New World, there still exist Indian (Native American) reservations which are some of the last places where people do not live a sterilized existence and where concepts such as father, mother and marriage still exist. The inhabitants of the 'civilized' world visit these places, much like people today may visit some tribal village in Africa, for their amusement and bewilderment. John's mother, Linda, was a member of the civilized world who visited such a place but got lost and injured herself and was taken into the society of the Indians. Because she was pregnant, she could not return because in the book's world, motherhood is considered shameful and disgusting and any woman would have gotten the child aborted before it came to actually giving birth. As a result, John, is raised as a white outsider between two conflicting worlds; the one his mother tells him about and which still controls her behaviour as she has sexual relationships with many of the Indian men and the traditional world of the Native Americans in which honour, God, love and death still mean something.
Bernard, intrigued by this story, asks John to come with him to London and John agrees, excited to see the marvels of technological development which his mother talked about during his childhood. But John quickly realizes that the civilized world was not exactly what he dreamed about, he is disgusted by the hedonism and lack of knowledge of the average person and can't keep up with the hyper-social system which forces everyone to always be in the company of others whereas he had been used to being alone in the desert. John also falls in love with earlier mentioned Lenina, who of course has a very different view of sex and relationships than he has. Lenina comes off onto him while John is trying to explain that he believes in marriage and wishes to wait for a good moment. Lenina doesn't listen and John, enraged by knowing that the woman he so loved is only interested in temporary carnal pleasure, beats her up while calling her a whore. I found this to be a very amusing segment because the utter confusion which Lenina exhibits in this segment seemed so similar to how women tend to behave in those videos where they get beaten up.
Eventually, he snaps when his mother dies in front of his eyes in a state hospital and a bunch of nurses and children mock his grief, as they are conditioned to treat death as a minor event and because they have no family, will never know what it feels like to lose something akin to a parent. He attempts to 'wake up' the low-caste workers outside of the hospital and holds a speech about how their whole lives are founded on lies but they do not understand what he is trying to stay due to being conditioned from birth to be content with this lifestyle and instead attack him.
John is arrested and afterwards, decide to go full Kaczynski and live in a lighthouse and attempt to live off natural resources and devote the rest of his life to repenting for his mother's death and worshiping Christ. However, this attempt fails as people marvel at what they conceive as a barbaric lifestyle and come in droves to film him for their amusement. He attempted to escape civilization but civilization simply came back to him.
I could strongly relate to John as I live in the west but was raised in an Islamic household, the ancient values that I was brought up with of course strongly conflicted with the values of the society I participate in. This includes the views on sex and marriage, whereas Islam expects one to marry for life, westerners have already come to be used to a society where their future wives participated in gangbangs and can divorce them at any time for whatever reason. I also share some of his anti-technological views, as I am for example sick of the social media and smartphone culture that exists today, in which one is expected to be sharing absolutely everything he does.
I personally suspect John's character was inspired by Shakespeare's Othello (which is directly referenced many times by John himself, who is an avid fan of Shakespeare, which most people in this age have never heard of because his works were banned). Othello was a play about a Moorish (Muslim) general in the Venetian army who marries a Venetian Christian girl, who Othello suspects is cheating on him, after which Othello murders her. This may not have been Shakespeare's intent, but this to me reflects the more liberal attitude the west has always had regarding cheating and marriage compared to the very orthodox attitude in the Islamic world.
Concluding, when it comes to sexual relationships, we already live in Brave New World, this is why it's quite a depressing read at times. Many of either Bernard's or John's monologues made me think of emotional struggles I dealt with in life so far.
Leave out the caste system and certain inventions like rocket-fueled public transport and this book might as well have been written by Michel Houellebecq. With the media's attempts at popularizing anti-monogamous fetishes like 'swinging' and women no longer having to marry because they can get financial stability by merely posting pictures of themselves online, it seems like monogamy and the concept of the nuclear family might already be on its death-row. At least in the west.
