Aggregated News
To the Editor:
Adam Kirsch and Jennifer Szalai made some interesting points about Aldous Huxley in their Bookends essays (Nov. 10) but, in my view, they really missed the boat about Huxley’s prescience.
We are seeing dizzying developments in genetic research, in I.V.F., fetal screening, paid surrogacy and so on. Huxley’s assembly-line baby factories were an exaggeration, but it’s a mistake to dismiss too quickly his fears about the genetic manipulation of the species.
The description of soma, used to pacify the population in “Brave New World,” seems prophetic in light of the widespread contemporary use of antidepressants and sleep aids. The astonishing growth of prescriptions of mood-altering and psychiatric drugs even to children would have shocked Huxley. Ours is a very druggy society, and Huxley got that very right.
He may indeed have suffered a bit from some residue of prudish Victorianism and some snotty cultural attitudes typical of his milieu, but his sense that new, ever more immersive media technologies would use eros to manipulate and distract the populace certainly came to pass in advertising. He may not...
Adam Kirsch and Jennifer Szalai made some interesting points about Aldous Huxley in their Bookends essays (Nov. 10) but, in my view, they really missed the boat about Huxley’s prescience.
We are seeing dizzying developments in genetic research, in I.V.F., fetal screening, paid surrogacy and so on. Huxley’s assembly-line baby factories were an exaggeration, but it’s a mistake to dismiss too quickly his fears about the genetic manipulation of the species.
The description of soma, used to pacify the population in “Brave New World,” seems prophetic in light of the widespread contemporary use of antidepressants and sleep aids. The astonishing growth of prescriptions of mood-altering and psychiatric drugs even to children would have shocked Huxley. Ours is a very druggy society, and Huxley got that very right.
He may indeed have suffered a bit from some residue of prudish Victorianism and some snotty cultural attitudes typical of his milieu, but his sense that new, ever more immersive media technologies would use eros to manipulate and distract the populace certainly came to pass in advertising. He may not...