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ANTHRAX BRINGS IN BRAVE NEW WORLD? I've just finished reading Aldous Huxley's BRAVE NEW WORLD for the first time and I'm amazed at how much of an "inside track" he so obviously had. He wrote the book in 1931 and Orwell developed many of its concepts in 1948 while writing '1984'. It's conjectured that Huxley belonged to the stable of futuristic writers the powers-that-be employ to speak between-the-lines to the masses in the form of science fiction (others of his day include H G Wells and modern counterparts are Kurt Vonnegut, Tom Clancy etc). In other words, he was smiled upon, and wrote for, to quote Orwell: "the anonymous directing brains who coordinate the whole effort" from somewhere deep inside the Ministry of Truth where "the whole process of composing a novel, from the general directive issued by the Planning Committee down to the final touch-up by the Rewrite Squad" occurred. Here's an excerpt from BRAVE NEW WORLD wherein Huxley's elite explains the turning point from the OLD world's freedoms and pursuit of truth and knowledge to the NEW world where freedom is sacrificed in the name of peace, security and happiness and the people are tranquillized and erogenously stimulated into acquiescence. Whereas in writing '1984' Orwell dwelled on educated generalities it seems Huxley was in-the-know regarding actual specifics. Read for yourself what he says in Chapter Sixteen, page 273: "People USED to imagine that knowledge was the highest good, truth the supreme value. ...People still went on talking about truth and beauty as though they were sovereign goods. Right up to the time of the Nine Years' War. That made them change their tune all right. What's the point of truth or beauty or knowledge when the anthrax bombs are popping all around you? That was when science first began to be controlled -- after the Nine Years' War. People were ready to have even their appetites controlled then. Anything for a quiet life. We've gone on controlling ever since. It hasn't been very good for truth, of course. But it's been very good for happiness." [end quoting] For further comments on the coincidence of anthrax in the scheme of things go to: ANTHRAX THE MOVIE commentary |
