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wingedbeastChapter eleven has two intended themes and one big unintended theme.
The first theme is that Bernard is getting caught up with his newfound popularity. This is more told than shown and I'm mainly alright with that.
Thanks to his association with "the savage", Bernard has something to offer women to get dates and a reason to be invited to all the best parties, where people listen to what he has to say. And, I'm perfectly okay not seeing all of that, particularly the part where he "has" six girls in a week.
About the only thing that's left subtle is that Bernard is engaging in the exact same behavior that had him so angry at the beginning of the book. This much is fairly simple.
On this, I have only to say that, during this, I don't like Bernard... but I have to admit how easily I would have, given the opportunity, done the same. I view this, like my view of 1984 as very High School in nature and the person I was in High School, given a shot of popularity, might very well have gotten caught up just like Bernard. I don't know if it was to my benefit or detriment that I didn't get that option.
The second theme is the clash between Fordly society and John's values.
This happens in a number of different ways, but they mainly attach to the big unintended theme of this chapter, that being disagreements I have with Huxley.
This throws a good number of details about Fordly society at us. And, we're supposed to disprove. To an extent I do, but only for that sex-mandating purity culture reason. Take that out and some of these become good things.
For one point, John asks if the students read Shakespeare. They don't. John would have that be otherwise, of course. We're expected to think that students should read Shakespeare. But, I've made my thoughts on that clear. To repeat, they shouldn't read Shakespeare, they should watch Shakespeare's plays and/or act in them. Reading should be a means to that end.
For another, obviously set for us to judge, once a week students are brought to a hospice in order to learn about death. Now, there is an extent to which this is taken to a bad direction, specifically the idea is to inoculate children with enough happiness so that they take death as no big deal.
Look at this another way. Children go to a hospice (meaning that a Fordly citizen isn't just thrown away, but kept comfortable in their final days) where they interact with the people there and, if someone dies, they learn how to process that emotion.
Huxley seems to think this is a part of devaluing humans. I think this is a potentially valuable. It improves the quality of life of those who are dying and consciously able to converse with the children. It gives the children experience and language necessary to handle losing someone as well as to empathize with someone else losing someone.
Even the movie they present. Okay, in the book this "feelie" (a movie that replicates not only sight and sound, but tactile sensations) is Three Weeks in a Helicopter is presented as nothing but porn with slim plot. The plot, however, involves a polyamorous woman being forced into a monogamous relationship for three weeks. This has the makings of a tense thriller, something that could deeply impact one, emotionally.
Presented in Fordly society, it's not going to get very deep. But, presented in the sex-positive version, it has the opportunity to be a deconstruction of personal values, social pressures, conditioning pressures versus the sense of self. And, details like this concern me about Huxley's ability to recognize a sex-positive culture versus a sex-mandating purity culture.
On certain points, BNW still holds up. An examination of conditioning and distraction versus managing to be your own person with your own thoughts. That's great. But, the cultural warning of a world to come is... less there.
I get visions of the same people who object to a vision of sex where "so long as there's consent, anything goes", all the while ignoring that consent has to include indirect participants. Then, they call us hypocrites for being upset at some matter of harassment or molestation.
And, that feeds into my reaction to John's reaction to Fordly society. He's no more able to understand the values of this society than he is of understanding his own influences. Base and ignoble are the judgments of this Shakespeare fan-boy on Three Weeks in a Helicopter.
I will repeat. A Midsummer Night's Dream is a sex comedy. Were Shakespeare alive and writing movies in the 90s, at least a few of his movies would be fit for Cinemax Friday After Dark.
John is enamored with a set of values, one that goes so far as to lead him to divide women into Madonnas and whores, without understanding it. And, at the same time, he seems to be the closest we have to a presentation of values that should be. I will argue that those values shouldn't be. Neither should Fordly values as presented be. They just seem to be the only two sets offered up for consideration.
The first theme is that Bernard is getting caught up with his newfound popularity. This is more told than shown and I'm mainly alright with that.
Thanks to his association with "the savage", Bernard has something to offer women to get dates and a reason to be invited to all the best parties, where people listen to what he has to say. And, I'm perfectly okay not seeing all of that, particularly the part where he "has" six girls in a week.
About the only thing that's left subtle is that Bernard is engaging in the exact same behavior that had him so angry at the beginning of the book. This much is fairly simple.
On this, I have only to say that, during this, I don't like Bernard... but I have to admit how easily I would have, given the opportunity, done the same. I view this, like my view of 1984 as very High School in nature and the person I was in High School, given a shot of popularity, might very well have gotten caught up just like Bernard. I don't know if it was to my benefit or detriment that I didn't get that option.
The second theme is the clash between Fordly society and John's values.
This happens in a number of different ways, but they mainly attach to the big unintended theme of this chapter, that being disagreements I have with Huxley.
This throws a good number of details about Fordly society at us. And, we're supposed to disprove. To an extent I do, but only for that sex-mandating purity culture reason. Take that out and some of these become good things.
For one point, John asks if the students read Shakespeare. They don't. John would have that be otherwise, of course. We're expected to think that students should read Shakespeare. But, I've made my thoughts on that clear. To repeat, they shouldn't read Shakespeare, they should watch Shakespeare's plays and/or act in them. Reading should be a means to that end.
For another, obviously set for us to judge, once a week students are brought to a hospice in order to learn about death. Now, there is an extent to which this is taken to a bad direction, specifically the idea is to inoculate children with enough happiness so that they take death as no big deal.
Look at this another way. Children go to a hospice (meaning that a Fordly citizen isn't just thrown away, but kept comfortable in their final days) where they interact with the people there and, if someone dies, they learn how to process that emotion.
Huxley seems to think this is a part of devaluing humans. I think this is a potentially valuable. It improves the quality of life of those who are dying and consciously able to converse with the children. It gives the children experience and language necessary to handle losing someone as well as to empathize with someone else losing someone.
Even the movie they present. Okay, in the book this "feelie" (a movie that replicates not only sight and sound, but tactile sensations) is Three Weeks in a Helicopter is presented as nothing but porn with slim plot. The plot, however, involves a polyamorous woman being forced into a monogamous relationship for three weeks. This has the makings of a tense thriller, something that could deeply impact one, emotionally.
Presented in Fordly society, it's not going to get very deep. But, presented in the sex-positive version, it has the opportunity to be a deconstruction of personal values, social pressures, conditioning pressures versus the sense of self. And, details like this concern me about Huxley's ability to recognize a sex-positive culture versus a sex-mandating purity culture.
On certain points, BNW still holds up. An examination of conditioning and distraction versus managing to be your own person with your own thoughts. That's great. But, the cultural warning of a world to come is... less there.
I get visions of the same people who object to a vision of sex where "so long as there's consent, anything goes", all the while ignoring that consent has to include indirect participants. Then, they call us hypocrites for being upset at some matter of harassment or molestation.
And, that feeds into my reaction to John's reaction to Fordly society. He's no more able to understand the values of this society than he is of understanding his own influences. Base and ignoble are the judgments of this Shakespeare fan-boy on Three Weeks in a Helicopter.
I will repeat. A Midsummer Night's Dream is a sex comedy. Were Shakespeare alive and writing movies in the 90s, at least a few of his movies would be fit for Cinemax Friday After Dark.
John is enamored with a set of values, one that goes so far as to lead him to divide women into Madonnas and whores, without understanding it. And, at the same time, he seems to be the closest we have to a presentation of values that should be. I will argue that those values shouldn't be. Neither should Fordly values as presented be. They just seem to be the only two sets offered up for consideration.
