An Huxwellian Distopia

O wonder!
How many goodly creatures are there here!
How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world,
That has such people in't.

—William Shakespeare, The Tempest, Act V, Scene I, ll. 203–206

I am hereby and forthwith declaring a new English adjective: Huxwellian©.  The current global distopia has exceeded the bounds of either Huxley's or Orwell's most shocking nightmares with elements of both in evidence, and so one must combine the two into something of a superlative to either alone.

Yes, the world has become an Huxwellian phantasm.  A la Huxley, we have populations unable to deal with daily life without the aid of pharmaceuticals.  In addition, we are on the verge (publicly at any rate) of being able to dispense human beings from bottles made to order.  It is not long before we will have Alphas and Betas running roughshod over Gammas, Deltas and Epsilons, and the latter enjoying it.  Certainly, the sharp class divisions and strict population controls are on the table for discussion if not already being implemented via GMOs and virus manipulation.

A la Orwell, we have a fascist security state with highly controlled economy, endless wars and Room 101 "rendition" centers.  Rationing is not overt, but rather is achieved by Inner Party Members shifting resources around and creating artificial shortages to control pricing.  And without a doubt, the MiniTruth is in full force changing history before our very eyes.  Witness nothing else beside the Boston Marathon bombings.

I believe that Huxley's world is probably the ultimate goal, with Orwell's vision the intermediate step to achieving it.  With 'unnecessary' history erased and culture severed from any connection with the past, the World State would be free to manipulate society in its own image, ultimately achieving the tranquil slavery and ultimate control of the brave new world.

Both writers envisioned a class of 'natural' people who exist outside the bounds of the State apparatus.  Orwell's proles and Huxley's savages are dying breeds of humans who neither fit into the Grand Vision, nor present much of a threat, as they consume their time with basic survival.

Both writers envision people incapable of thinking, much less expressing, ideas beyond the scope of their societal function.  Huxley's world has chemically modified worker classes that are dumbed down both in vitro and educationally.  They are unable to formulate ideas or desires that exceed their status in society.  In Orwell's world, the ever-shrinking vocabulary and constant manipulation of information prevents anyone outside the Inner Party from thinking outside the box.  Without words, there can be no thoughts.

In so many overt and covert ways, both visions of the future are in the process of being realized.

Entire populations are addicted to pharmaceutical euphoria - Huxley's soma.  These people are unable and/or unwilling to deal with reality and must chemically subdue their natural abhorrence to the world we are creating.  Millions if not billions of people are accepting GMO foods with nary a whimper of protest.  Our educational systems have already bifurcated into those dispensing the knowledge to run the world, and those offering just enough to push buttons and pull levers on command.

On the Orwellian side, the State has become all pervasive.  It invades our most private places and watches our every move with computerized precision.  Peace has become war and truth has become a lie.  Justice serves only the State and those found lacking are duly rendered into subservient drones.  Permanent war is the ends which justify the means.

Without a doubt, we live in an Huxwellian world.  Take your double-plus good soma and go back to sleep.

Is it too late to change our course?

The answer begins with the realization of what course we are on.  I therefore present my new adjective to the world in order to define the problem - a necessary step before we can remedy it.  Without proper diagnosis there can be no cure.

At this moment, the only reason we proles and savages are protected is because there is a war at the top for ultimate control.  The Inner Party members - alphas and betas - are fighting among themselves to be King of the Hill.  This buys us a bit of time, but it is a situation that can not last forever.  The key to victory is education, not by buying it from the hypnopaedic centers, but by greedily reading the wealth of information in the cultural classics of civilization that have been carefully marginalized by so-called 'education'.

My choice of Huxwellian as a new adjective serves a double purpose.  It highlights two of the most influential novels/writers of the 20th century, as well as points out the fact that real knowledge does not come from single sources, but rather is a connecting of dots across multiple sources.  The single greatest failure of our educational systems today is the lack of true liberal arts curricula.  We must read theology, science, philosophy, economics, and especially history.  We must study music and art and absorb literature before we can not only make sense of where we are, but alter the course we are on.

Furthermore, we must decide whether we hold an Aristotelian or Platonic weltanschauung.  If none of this means something to you, then you have a lot of work ahead of you.  Are you a materialist or metaphysicist?  Even deeper than that, we must formulate a new weltanschauung, one that encompasses a whole new way to describe the Universe we experience.  The materialists are hopelessly inadequate to the task, but by the same token, the metaphysicists are unable to cope with the true scope of reality.  However, the only way we can create new fertile ground for thought and growth is to thoroughly understand where we stand at this moment.

We can not do that without standing on the shoulders of giants, and those shoulders are in books, in reasoning and in focused effort.  Without these things, then the new weltanschauung may indeed be Huxwellian.  We may come to accept a materialist world of chemical processes, controlled information and deprivation as normal and be unable to formulate any other view.  We may forget the spiritual and metaphysical, and doom ourselves to servitude without even being aware of it.

We have a bit of breathing space right now while the Inner Party member/Alphas and Betas duel it out for dominance, but our opportunity is limited and slipping away.  With resources such as gutenberg.org and others literally at our fingertips, there is no excuse for us to avoid educating ourselves.  In a way never before available to nearly every human being on Earth, we have a tool called the internet which has the potential to profoundly change our world and our selves.  But, we must seize the chance, because it will not last forever without our direct action.

You, dear reader, have the ability where you sit right now to receive as good an education as any Oxford or Cambridge graduate.  All they do is read and discuss, and the keyboard and screen in front of you is every bit as effective.  All you have to do is start using it.

How much time do you throw away wandering aimlessly through the mall or vegetating in front of the TeeVee?  How much of your life do you piss away watching YouTube lip-synchs and stupid people tricks?  How much richer would your life be if you spent that time standing on the shoulders of giants?  How much less susceptible to fraud and control would you be with a solid background in history and philosophy?

The revolution is literally at hand.  It is all those buttons your fingers are resting on this minute.

Steer them.

The only reason we need an adjective like Huxwellian is because we have done nothing to stop those worlds from manifesting.  You might begin by reading two books: Brave New World and Nineteen Eight-Four.  Be prepared, though:

The future is here.