Killing The Savage 'By Reluctant Materialism In Brave New World'

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December 2, 2010 Killing the Savage By Reluctant Materialist What we need now is another Aldous Huxley. Most people know Huxley for his psychedelic drug influenced writings. But recent events have me thinking of his 1932 novel “Brave New World,” in which he observed the hazardous effects of materialism and promiscuity, and offered a solution: exercise chastity and don’t be materialistic. “Feeling lurks,” he threatened ironically, “in that interval of time between desire and its consumption.” O.K., in reality promiscuity and materialism haven’t hit us as hard as in “Brave New World”, but they’re here — and the rate of divorce is only 50%, it’s not an obscenity…yet. But only a satirist — and one with a very savage pen — could do justice to what’s happening to the modern world now. The story begins just last Friday (Black Friday), the…show more content…
As the rate of people who have sex before 17 goes up, so does the rate for divorce. Also, the second people want things and material objects, they’re given the thing like a baby being spoon fed. So what? Why are divorce and promiscuity and materialism bad? Think back to the quote above about feeling lying between desire and consumption. That means that the longer you want something before you have it, the more feeling is involved and the more it means to you. Huxley believed that when you had things simply handed to you – like that PS3 of Jimmy’s – the less value it had. He said the same thing applied for sex and marriage; if you wait until you’re married then your partner will mean so much more to you. In “Brave New World,” the only character that exercised chastity was John the savage. However, he so strongly believed in his cause that when he was drugged and participated in an orgy, he killed himself. His suicide was caused by insanity that derived from the difference between his beliefs and the world around him. You may say that there are no Johns in today’s world, but you’d be

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