I read Brave New World a long time ago, off the shelf of my mother’s books, and you know, I never ever got why it was supposed to be a “negative” utopia, there’s not a thing wrong with it.

People will say “Oh, but there’s no Art” (and oh boy, can you hear that capital A) and as someone who still considers himself a screenwriter, I’ve got to object - the hell do you call the feelie with the acrobatic triplets?

Now John the Savage sniffs that it’s not Shakespeare, because John the Savage is a pretentious twit (and Huxley a modernist snob), but that is after all mass market stuff, I’m sure there’s an Alpha Plus Plus somewhere making arthouse fare for the Alphas, with more complex plotting and avant-garde technique and still a good deal of sex. Probably in French, let’s be honest.

Plus, any culture that accords so much respect to pneumaticity and the athleticism of Centrifugal Bumble-Puppy clearly has a cult of physical beauty strong enough to imply a figurative sculpture tradition.

Religion? Well, for one, Fordism. For two, I’d argue that the use of soma, especially as part of the death-transition, constitutes shamanic practice. I guess John the Savage did introduce the ecstasies of flagellant dervishism, good for him.

The one point I’ll yield is that the utopia lacks war and violence, the frisson of suffering. (Assuming there aren’t, say, snuff feelies.) But, as above, once exposed to the power of suffering they’re pretty quick to co-opt it into the orgy porgy as BDSM so things are set right by the end.

I guess the only thing that’s really missing is a tragic sense. Well Mustapha Mond is cynical, which is like a tragic sense minus the po-facedness. But anyway, to frame that as a complaint would be “this can’t be a utopia, things never go wrong”. Which is really just the dumbest modernist shitpiety, right there.

Wankers.