“But I don’t want comfort. I want God, I want poetry, I want real danger, I want freedom, I want goodness. I want sin.”

“In fact,” said Mustapha Mond, “you’re claiming the right to be unhappy.”

“All right then,” said the Savage defiantly, “I’m claiming the right to be unhappy.”

“Not to mention the right to grow old and ugly and impotent; the right to have syphilis and cancer; the right to have too little to eat; the right to be lousy; the right to live in constant apprehension of what may happen to-morrow; the right to catch typhoid; the right to be tortured by unspeakable pains of every kind.”

There was a long silence.

“I claim them all,” said the Savage at last.

— Brave New World, pg 211

John the Savage’s defiant claim, so late into his interaction with a society saturated with pleasure, brings the reader out of a numbed state (I’ll admit to considering John irrational while he rejected Lenina despite his attraction to her) and leaves them freshly critical of the society of 632 A.F. He thus departs to an abandoned lighthouse where he frantically ‘cleanses’ himself through incantations and self-flagellation until his eventual suicide. But why does John act like that?

Brave New World, in my opinion, gets a lot of things wrong about the future of society. Governments, have, in general, become more open in the last 80 years since the publication of the novel, and it doesn’t seem plausible that the government is at the root of society itself. Huxley hints at consumerism driving society, but this seems to come from the government. Only sports requiring expensive and complex equipment, such as “Hyperbolic Tennis” and “Obstacle Golf” are permitted. But again, the trend is towards privatization. Companies shape and drive consumerism, not governments. Socialism has waned.

But the fundamental message behind the book, the one that I think is truest today and what is essentially incorrect in Nineteen Eighty-Four is the interaction of government with human nature. Concerning the latter, it is safe to say that a government based on  terror, withholding information, engineered poverty, and exploitation for its own sake to keep people in repression is not a viable one. However, a government that, rather than taking away something, takes away the desire to have that something – be it monogamous love, books, religion…that’s quite a force to be reckoned with.

The issue presented in the excerpt is the main one explored in Brave New World. Technological advancement was accelerating in the 1930’s and continues to do so. We seek technology to give us pleasure, in the short-term. But what about happiness? Isn’t it said that those only those who have different aims can find happiness?

To quote Soren Kierkegaard: “Most men pursue happiness with such breathless haste that they hurry past it.”

This is known as the paradox of hedonism. Receiving pleasure does not bring happiness. Perhaps this confusion stems from human nature – we frequently have trouble distinguishing between short-term and long-term desires.

Nobody wants cancer or syphilis or starvation. The world is better off without them. Starving families and cancer patients do not bring happiness. This is benign technology. But what about sentient “friendly AI” – Robot butlers? Increasingly realistic video games? More potent drugs?

Nearly all of us seek to reduce pain in the short-term. But the fact is, we can’t, or at least couldn’t, make it go away entirely. Pain and suffering are the driving force of humanity. Isn’t the inconvenience of life really what it’s all about? We can’t wish our problems away, but nowadays, a large number of powerful distractions are available.

There are those who glorify pain, suffering, and struggle. Friedrich Nietzsche proclaimed, rather counter-intuitively, “That which does not kill me, can only make me stronger” (Kanye West might have mentioned something along those lines as well). The Underground Man decided that “Pain is the sole origin of consciousness” and that the purpose of life was the “journey” – getting to the end of it would mean the end of free will, the end of purpose, the creation of a great table of values that defined existence.

I think to one of my favorite works of non-literary merit, the distance-running cult clussic Once a Runner. After the protagonist, Quenton Cassidy, wins a major race against the mile world-record holder after months of training in solitude, the narrator sums up:

“Quenton Cassidy looked up, gave a little smile and wave and thought, I have nowhere to go.

It was then that Bruce Denton turned with a sigh and walked alone toward the gate, thinking that Quenton Cassidy’s smile looked sad indeed…” (Parker, 269).

Cassidy’s quest to win is a metaphor for life. In the end, successful or not, the journey is more satisfying and meaningful than the end result. Distance running is, to me, the ultimate search for ones’ self, engineering trial after trial to keep this forward spirit alive. Happiness lies at the end of the road. The worst fear is that of idleness, of refraining from pursuing new goals and destination, or becoming too self-satisfied to continue on.

And the society of Brave New World signifies the end of that journey and its horrifying destination. This is what John the Savage can’t grapple with. As someone who reads and recites Shakespeare, is conditioned to bear the responsibilities of Indian society with none of its benefits, he is constantly stuck in the journey, willing to even sweep Lenina Crowne’s floor so that he can deserve her. “Soma is Christianity without tears,” boasts Mustapha Mond. But what use are the benefits of Christianity without the tears?

To pull in yet another work, White Noise by Don DeLillo, into the discussion, life is made all the more sacred by death – it gives it necessary parameters, enhances its definition. This does indirectly support my idea – life’s purpose is inextricably linked to its journey, its progression from beginning to end. To rid life all obstacles, to render it devoid of suffering and difficulty, is to remove its meaning altogether