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154-431: Brave New World is a dystopian novel by English author Aldous Huxley , written in 1931 and published in 1932. Largely set in a futuristic World State, whose citizens are environmentally engineered into an intelligence-based social hierarchy , the novel anticipates huge scientific advancements in reproductive technology , sleep-learning , psychological manipulation and classical conditioning that are combined to make

308-493: A dystopian society which is challenged by the story's protagonist. Huxley followed this book with a reassessment in essay form, Brave New World Revisited (1958), and with his final novel, Island (1962), the utopian counterpart. This novel is often compared as an inversion counterpart to George Orwell 's 1984 (1949). In 1998 and 1999, the Modern Library ranked Brave New World at number 5 on its list of

462-557: A "perfect" world. Utopia A utopia ( / j uː ˈ t oʊ p i ə / yoo- TOH -pee-ə ) typically describes an imaginary community or society that possesses highly desirable or near-perfect qualities for its members. It was coined by Sir Thomas More for his 1516 book Utopia , which describes a fictional island society in the New World . Hypothetical utopias focus on, among other things, equality in categories such as economics , government and justice , with

616-564: A booming voice. Darwin Bonaparte , a "big game photographer" (i.e., filmmaker) who films John flogging himself. Darwin Bonaparte became known for two works: "feely of the gorillas' wedding", and "Sperm Whale's Love-life". He had already made a name for himself but still seeks more. He renews his fame by filming the savage, John, in his newest release "The Savage of Surrey". His name alludes to Charles Darwin and Napoleon Bonaparte . Dr. Shaw , Bernard Marx's physician who consequently becomes

770-526: A buoyant, not to say blatant optimism, which is not our negligent or negative optimism. Much more than Victorian righteousness, or even Victorian self-righteousness, that optimism has driven people into pessimism. For the Slump brought even more disillusionment than the War. A new bitterness, and a new bewilderment, ran through all social life, and was reflected in all literature and art. It was contemptuous, not only of

924-578: A child they both realise is actually his. This fact, scandalous and obscene in the World State, not because it was extramarital (which all sexual acts are), but because it was procreative, leads the Director to resign his post in shame. Linda , John's mother, decanted as a Beta-Minus in the World State, originally worked in the DHC's Fertilizing Room, and subsequently lost during a storm while visiting

1078-546: A coercively persuaded population divided into five castes. Karin Boye 's 1940 novel Kallocain is set in a totalitarian world state where a drug is used to control the individual's thoughts. Anthony Burgess ' 1962 novel A Clockwork Orange is set in a future England that has a subculture of extreme youth violence, and details the protagonist's experiences with the state intent on changing his character at their whim. Margaret Atwood 's The Handmaid's Tale (1985) describes

1232-468: A darker and bitterly ironic resonance as the novel unfolds. John is intensely moral according to a code that he has been taught by Shakespeare and life in Malpais but is also naïve: his views are as imported into his own consciousness as are the hypnopedic messages of World State citizens. The admonishments of the men of Malpais taught him to regard his mother as a whore; but he cannot grasp that these were

1386-469: A form of cloning, but this is not ethically equivalent to germline genome editing, and references to Brave New World may lead some readers to confuse the two technologies.) [...] While it's true that the upper castes in Brave New World are smarter than the others, this is more because of the deliberate impairment of the lower castes than because the upper castes are "perfect". Rather than reducing

1540-590: A future United States governed by a totalitarian theocracy , where women have no rights, and Stephen King 's The Long Walk (1979) describes a similar totalitarian scenario, but depicting the participation of teenage boys in a deadly contest. Examples of young-adult dystopian fiction include (notably all published after 2000) The Hunger Games series by Suzanne Collins , the Divergent series by Veronica Roth , The Power of Five series by Anthony Horowitz , The Maze Runner series by James Dashner , and

1694-466: A future in mind already in 1921. Mr. Scogan, one of the earlier book's characters, describes an "impersonal generation" of the future that will "take the place of Nature's hideous system. In vast state incubators, rows upon rows of gravid bottles will supply the world with the population it requires. The family system will disappear; society, sapped at its very base, will have to find new foundations; and Eros, beautifully and irresponsibly free, will flit like

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1848-465: A gay butterfly from flower to flower through a sunlit world". Huxley said that Brave New World was inspired by the utopian novels of H. G. Wells , including A Modern Utopia (1905), and as a parody of Men Like Gods (1923). Wells' hopeful vision of the future gave Huxley the idea to begin writing a parody of the novels, which became Brave New World . He wrote in a letter to Mrs. Arthur Goldsmith, an American acquaintance, that he had "been having

2002-448: A government that is overprotective of nature or a society that has lost most modern technology and struggles for survival. A fine example of this is the novel Riddley Walker . Another subgenre is feminist utopias and the overlapping category of feminist science fiction . According to the author Sally Miller Gearhart , "A feminist utopian novel is one which a. contrasts the present with an envisioned idealized society (separated from

2156-635: A greater "utopian socialist" movement, due to their shared characteristics. A once common characteristic is an egalitarian distribution of goods, frequently with the total abolition of money . Citizens only do work which they enjoy and which is for the common good , leaving them with ample time for the cultivation of the arts and sciences. One classic example of such a utopia appears in Edward Bellamy 's 1888 novel Looking Backward . William Morris depicts another socialist utopia in his 1890 novel News from Nowhere , written partially in response to

2310-653: A group of followers, the Icarians , to leave France in 1848, and travel to the United States to start a series of utopian settlements in Texas, Illinois, Iowa, California, and elsewhere. These groups lived in communal settings and lasted until 1898. Among the first decades of the 20th century in Russia, utopian science fiction literature popularity rose extremely due to the fact that the citizens wanted to fantasize about

2464-537: A handsome and successful Alpha-Plus lecturer at the College of Emotional Engineering and a friend of Bernard. He feels unfulfilled writing endless propaganda doggerel, and the stifling conformism and philistinism of the World State make him restive. Helmholtz is ultimately exiled to the Falkland Islands —a cold asylum for disaffected Alpha-Plus non-conformists—after reading a heretical poem to his students on

2618-461: A hatchery worker, is popular and sexually desirable, but Bernard Marx, a psychologist, is not. He is shorter in stature than the average member of his high caste, which gives him an inferiority complex . His work with sleep-learning allows him to understand, and disapprove of, his society's methods of keeping its citizens peaceful, which includes their constant consumption of a soothing, happiness-producing drug called "soma". Courting disaster, Bernard

2772-433: A little fun pulling the leg of H. G. Wells" but then he "got caught up in the excitement of [his] own ideas". Unlike the most popular optimistic utopian novels of the time, Huxley sought to provide a frightening vision of the future. Huxley referred to Brave New World as a "negative utopia", somewhat influenced by Wells's own The Sleeper Awakes (dealing with subjects like corporate tyranny and behavioural conditioning) and

2926-414: A modern utopian society built on equality. Other examples include Samuel Johnson 's The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abissinia (1759) and Samuel Butler 's Erewhon (1872), which uses an anagram of "nowhere" as its title. This, like much of utopian literature, can be seen as satire ; Butler inverts illness and crime, with punishment for the former and treatment for the latter. One example of

3080-442: A new space. Utopia is not kind of a free imagination utopia is a matter of inner most urgency, you are forced to imagine it, it is the only way out, and this is what we need today." Philosopher Milan Šimečka said: ...utopism was a common type of thinking at the dawn of human civilization . We find utopian beliefs in the oldest religious imaginations, appear regularly in the neighborhood of ancient, yet pre-philosophical views on

3234-474: A period of turbulent development of capitalism that highlighted antagonisms of capitalist society ( Saint-Simon , Fourier , Owen , Cabet , Lamennais , Proudhon and their followers). Famous quotes from writers and characters about utopia: Utopian socialist Étienne Cabet in his utopian book The Voyage to Icaria cited the definition from the contemporary Dictionary of ethical and political sciences : Utopias and other models of government, based on

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3388-629: A reforming elite having complete control of education throughout the world. In the future depicted in Wells' book, posterity remembers Huxley as "a reactionary writer". The scientific futurism in Brave New World is believed to be appropriated from Daedalus by J. B. S. Haldane . The events of the Great Depression in Britain in 1931, with its mass unemployment and the abandonment of the gold standard, persuaded Huxley to assert that stability

3542-459: A rigorous 50-year-long educational program to be benign oligarchs, the "philosopher-kings." Plato stressed this structure many times in statements, and in his published works, such as the Republic . The wisdom of these rulers will supposedly eliminate poverty and deprivation through fairly distributed resources, though the details on how to do this are unclear. The educational program for the rulers

3696-487: A small number of works depicting what might be called eco-utopia, or eco-utopian trends, have also been influential. These include Ernest Callenbach 's Ecotopia , an important 20th century example of this genre. Kim Stanley Robinson has written several books dealing with environmental themes, including the Mars trilogy . Most notably, however, his Three Californias Trilogy contrasted an eco-dystopia with an eco-utopia and

3850-404: A social framework characterized by vigorous competition between alternative philosophies. The English political philosopher James Harrington (1611–1677), author of the utopian work The Commonwealth of Oceana , published in 1656, inspired English country-party republicanism (1680s to 1740s) and became influential in the design of three American colonies. His theories ultimately contributed to

4004-430: A sort of middling-future. Robinson has also edited an anthology of short ecotopian fiction, called Future Primitive: The New Ecotopias . Another impactful piece of Robinson's is New York 2140 which focuses on the aftermath of society after a major flooding event, and can be seen through both a utopian and dystopian lens. There are a few dystopias that have an "anti-ecological" theme. These are often characterized by

4158-539: A species to become extraordinarily cooperative and capable of creating culture . The Book of Revelation in the Christian Bible depicts an eschatological time with the defeat of Satan , of Evil and of Sin . The main difference compared to the Old Testament promises is that such a defeat also has an ontological value: "Then I saw 'a new heaven and a new earth ,' for the first heaven and

4312-529: A utopia, dystopia is a concept which surpassed utopia in popularity in the fictional literature from the 1950s onwards, chiefly because of the impact of George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four . In 1876, writer Charles Renouvier published a novel called Uchronia ( French Uchronie ). The neologism , using chronos instead of topos , has since been used to refer to non-existent idealized times in fiction, such as Philip Roth 's The Plot Against America (2004) , and Philip K. Dick 's The Man in

4466-523: A utopia; the others have significant dystopian aspects. In ecotopian fiction , the author posits either a utopian or dystopian world revolving around environmental conservation or destruction. Danny Bloom coined the term "cli-fi" in 2006, with a Twitter boost from Margaret Atwood in 2011, to cover climate change-related fiction , but the theme has existed for decades. Novels dealing with overpopulation , such as Harry Harrison 's Make Room! Make Room! (made into movie Soylent Green ), were popular in

4620-423: A while it seems that John might be left alone, after the public's attention is drawn to other diversions, but a documentary maker has secretly filmed John's self-flagellation from a distance, and when released the documentary causes an international sensation. Helicopters arrive with more journalists. Crowds of people descend on John's retreat, demanding that he perform his whipping ritual for them. From one helicopter

4774-534: A writer and social satirist. He was a contributor to Vanity Fair and Vogue magazines and had published a collection of his poetry ( The Burning Wheel , 1916) and four satirical novels, Crome Yellow (1921), Antic Hay (1923), Those Barren Leaves (1925) and Point Counter Point (1928). Brave New World was Huxley's fifth novel and first dystopian work. A short passage in Crome Yellow foreshadows Brave New World , showing that Huxley had such

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4928-445: A young man. She, too, visited the reservation on a holiday many years ago, but became separated from her group and was left behind. She had meanwhile become pregnant by a fellow holidaymaker (who is revealed to be Bernard's boss, the Director of Hatcheries and Conditioning). She did not try to return to the World State, because of her shame at her pregnancy. Despite spending his whole life in the reservation, John has never been accepted by

5082-411: A young woman emerges who is implied to be Lenina. John, at the sight of a woman he both adores and loathes, whips at her in a fury and then turns the whip on himself, exciting the crowd, whose wild behaviour transforms into a soma-fuelled orgy. The next morning John awakes on the ground and is consumed by remorse over his participation in the night's events. That evening, a swarm of helicopters appears on

5236-555: Is Held in Common' Tianxia weigong( Chinese : 天下爲公 ; pinyin : Tiānxià wèi gōng ) influenced modern Chinese reformers and revolutionaries, such as Kang Youwei . It is said, once Maitreya is reborn into the future kingdom of Ketumati , a utopian age will commence. The city is described in Buddhism as a domain filled with palaces made of gems and surrounded by Kalpavriksha trees producing goods. During its years, none of

5390-418: Is a Beta who enjoys being a Beta. She is a vaccination worker with beliefs and values that are in line with a citizen of the World State. She is part of the 30% of the female population that are not freemartins (sterile women). Lenina is promiscuous and popular but somewhat quirky in her society: she had a four-month relation with Henry Foster, choosing not to have sex with anyone but him for a period of time. She

5544-465: Is a perfectly conventional Alpha male, casually discussing Lenina's body with his coworkers. His success with Lenina, and his casual attitude about it, infuriate the jealous Bernard. Henry ultimately proves himself every bit the ideal World State citizen, finding no courage to defend Lenina from John's assaults despite having maintained an uncommonly longstanding sexual relationship with her. Benito Hoover , another of Lenina's lovers. She remembers that he

5698-424: Is actually a reward. The islands are full of the most interesting people in the world, individuals who did not fit into the social model of the World State. Mond outlines for John the events that led to the present society and his arguments for a caste system and social control. John rejects Mond's arguments, and Mond sums up John's views by claiming that John demands "the right to be unhappy". John asks if he may go to

5852-425: Is an urbane and hyperintelligent advocate of the World State and its ethos of "Community, Identity, Stability". Among the novel's characters, he is uniquely aware of the precise nature of the society he oversees and what it has given up to accomplish its gains. Mond argues that art, literature, and scientific freedom must be sacrificed to secure the ultimate utilitarian goal of maximising societal happiness. He defends

6006-575: Is basically happy and well-conditioned, using soma to suppress unwelcome emotions, as is expected. Lenina has a date with Bernard, to whom she feels ambivalently attracted, and she goes to the Reservation with him. On returning to civilisation, she tries and fails to seduce John the Savage. John loves and desires Lenina but he is repelled by her forwardness and the prospect of pre-marital sex, rejecting her as an " impudent strumpet ". Lenina visits John at

6160-465: Is bolstered by the title of the book and nation and its apparent confusion between the Greek for "no place" and "good place": "utopia" is a compound of the syllable ou-, meaning "no" and topos, meaning place. But the homophonic prefix eu-, meaning "good," also resonates in the word, with the implication that the perfectly "good place" is really "no place." In many cultures, societies, and religions, there

6314-555: Is essential for the improvement of the human condition. But if used wrongly, it becomes dangerous. Utopia has an inherent contradictory nature here. The opposite of a utopia is a dystopia . Utopian and dystopian fiction has become a popular literary category. Despite being common parlance for something imaginary, utopianism inspired and was inspired by some reality-based fields and concepts such as architecture , file sharing , social networks , universal basic income , communes , open borders and even pirate bases . The word utopia

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6468-518: Is not chosen until maturity, and gender has no bearing on social roles. In contrast, Doris Lessing 's The Marriages Between Zones Three, Four and Five (1980) suggests that men's and women's values are inherent to the sexes and cannot be changed, making a compromise between them essential. In My Own Utopia (1961) by Elisabeth Mann Borgese , gender exists but is dependent upon age rather than sex — genderless children mature into women, some of whom eventually become men. Marge Piercy 's novel Woman on

6622-519: Is not realized or feasible, but has the ideal that is somewhere beyond the horizon, a lighthouse to which it may seek to approach if it considers that ideal socially valid and generally accepted." Chronologically, the first recorded Utopian proposal is Plato 's Republic . Part conversation, part fictional depiction and part policy proposal, Republic would categorize citizens into a rigid class structure of "golden," "silver," "bronze" and "iron" socioeconomic classes. The golden citizens are trained in

6776-429: Is often angry, resentful, and jealous. At times, he is also cowardly and hypocritical. His conditioning is clearly incomplete. He does not enjoy communal sports, solidarity services, or promiscuous sex. He does not particularly enjoy soma. Bernard is in love with Lenina and does not like her sleeping with other men, even though "everyone belongs to everyone else". Bernard's triumphant return to utopian civilisation with John

6930-566: Is often called) is an outsider both on the Reservation—where the natives still practise marriage, natural birth, family life and religion—and the ostensibly civilised World State, based on principles of stability and happiness. He has read nothing but the complete works of William Shakespeare , which he quotes extensively, and, for the most part, aptly, though his allusion to the "Brave New World" (Miranda's words in The Tempest ) takes on

7084-416: Is on her deathbed. He rushes to Linda's bedside, causing a scandal, as this is not the "correct" attitude to death. Some children who enter the ward for "death-conditioning" come across as disrespectful to John, and he attacks one physically. He then tries to break up a distribution of soma to a lower-caste group, telling them that he is freeing them. Helmholtz and Bernard rush in to stop the ensuing riot, which

7238-477: Is particularly hairy when he takes his clothes off. The Director of Hatcheries and Conditioning (DHC) , also known as Thomas "Tomakin" , is the administrator of the Central London Hatchery and Conditioning Centre, where he is a threatening figure who intends to exile Bernard to Iceland. His plans take an unexpected turn when Bernard returns from the Reservation with Linda (see below) and John,

7392-466: Is revered as the creator of their society but not as a deity, and characters celebrate Ford Day and swear oaths by his name (e.g., "By Ford!"). In this sense, some fragments of traditional religion are present, such as Christian crosses, which had their tops cut off to be changed to a "T", representing the Ford Model T . In England, there is an Arch-Community-Songster of Canterbury, obviously continuing

7546-450: Is some myth or memory of a distant past when humankind lived in a primitive and simple state but at the same time one of perfect happiness and fulfillment. In those days, the various myths tell us, there was an instinctive harmony between humanity and nature. People's needs were few and their desires limited. Both were easily satisfied by the abundance provided by nature. Accordingly, there were no motives whatsoever for war or oppression. Nor

7700-447: Is the central notion of the proposal. It has few laws, no lawyers and rarely sends its citizens to war but hires mercenaries from among its war-prone neighbors. These mercenaries were deliberately sent into dangerous situations in the hope that the more warlike populations of all surrounding countries will be weeded out, leaving peaceful peoples to remain. During the 16th century, Thomas More's book Utopia proposed an ideal society of

7854-399: Is this old notion of imagining this ideal society we know will never be realized, the other is the capitalist utopia in the sense of new perverse desire that you are not only allowed but even solicited to realize. The true utopia is when the situation is so without issue, without the way to resolve it within the coordinates of the possible that out of the pure urge of survival you have to invent

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8008-544: Is to remove men, either showing isolated all-female societies as in Charlotte Perkins Gilman 's Herland , or societies where men have died out or been replaced, as in Joanna Russ 's A Few Things I Know About Whileaway , where "the poisonous binary gender" has died off. In speculative fiction, female-only worlds have been imagined to come about by the action of disease that wipes out men, along with

8162-476: Is vocal and arrogant about his criticisms, and his boss contemplates exiling him to Iceland because of his nonconformity. His only friend is Helmholtz Watson, a gifted writer who finds it difficult to use his talents creatively in their pain-free society. Bernard takes a holiday with Lenina outside the World State to a Savage Reservation in New Mexico , in which the two observe natural-born people, disease,

8316-632: The Uglies series by Scott Westerfeld . Video games often include dystopias as well; notable examples include the Fallout series, BioShock , and the later games of the Half-Life series. The history of dystopian literature can be traced back to the reaction to the French Revolution of 1789 and the prospect that mob rule would produce dictatorship . Until the late 20th century, it

8470-664: The 100 Best Novels in English of the 20th century . In 2003, Robert McCrum , writing for The Observer , included Brave New World chronologically at number 53 in "the top 100 greatest novels of all time", and the novel was listed at number 87 on The Big Read survey by the BBC . Brave New World has frequently been banned and challenged since its original publication. It has landed on the American Library Association list of top 100 banned and challenged books of

8624-742: The Archbishop of Canterbury , and in America The Christian Science Monitor continues publication as The Fordian Science Monitor . The World State calendar numbers years in the "AF" era—"After Ford"—with the calendar beginning in AD 1908, the year in which Ford's first Model T rolled off his assembly line. The novel's Gregorian calendar year is AD 2540, but it is referred to in the book as AF 632. From birth, members of every class are indoctrinated by recorded voices repeating slogans while they sleep (called "hypnopædia" in

8778-861: The Shakers , who originated in England in the 18th century and arrived in America in 1774. A number of religious utopian societies from Europe came to the United States in the 18th and 19th centuries, including the Society of the Woman in the Wilderness (led by Johannes Kelpius (1667–1708), the Ephrata Cloister (established in 1732) and the Harmony Society , among others. The Harmony Society

8932-488: The idyllic state of affairs they describe is not irretrievably and irrevocably lost to mankind, that it can be regained in some way or other. One way might be a quest for an "earthly paradise" – a place like Shangri-La , hidden in the Tibetan mountains and described by James Hilton in his utopian novel Lost Horizon (1933). Christopher Columbus followed directly in this tradition in his belief that he had found

9086-403: The "Unwanteds" series by Lisa McMann, a paradox occurs where the outcasts from a complete dystopia are treated to absolute utopia. They believe that those who were privileged in said dystopia were the unlucky ones. In another literary model, the imagined society journeys between elements of utopia and dystopia over the course of the novel or film. At the beginning of The Giver by Lois Lowry ,

9240-470: The 1970s, reflecting the widespread concern with the effects of overpopulation on the environment. The novel Nature's End by Whitley Strieber and James Kunetka (1986) posits a future in which overpopulation, pollution, climate change, and resulting superstorms, have led to a popular mass-suicide political movement. Some other examples of ecological dystopias are depictions of Earth in the films Wall-E and Avatar . While eco-dystopias are more common,

9394-535: The 19th century, providing a critique of the British class structure at the time. Post World War II , even more dystopian fiction was produced. These works of fiction were interwoven with political commentary: the end of World War II brought about fears of an impending Third World War and a consequent apocalypse. Modern dystopian fiction draws not only on topics such as totalitarian governments and anarchism, but also pollution, global warming, climate change, health,

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9548-492: The 20th century. This increase is partially associated with the rise in popularity of science fiction and young adult fiction more generally, but also larger scale social change that brought awareness of larger societal or global issues , such as technology, climate change, and growing human population. Some of these trends have created distinct subgenres such as ecotopian fiction, climate fiction , young adult dystopian novels, and feminist dystopian novels. The word utopia

9702-445: The Director and calls him his "father", a vulgarity which causes a roar of laughter. The humiliated Director resigns in shame before he can follow through with exiling Bernard. Bernard, as "custodian" of the "savage" John who is now treated as a celebrity, is fawned on by the highest members of society and revels in attention he once scorned. Bernard's popularity is fleeting, though, and he becomes envious that John only really bonds with

9856-519: The Edge of Time keeps human biology, but removes pregnancy and childbirth from the gender equation by resorting to assisted reproductive technology while allowing both women and men the nurturing experience of breastfeeding . Utopic single-gender worlds or single-sex societies have long been one of the primary ways to explore implications of gender and gender-differences. One solution to gender oppression or social issues in feminist utopian fiction

10010-441: The Edge of Time . In Starhawk 's The Fifth Sacred Thing there is no time-travelling observer. However, her ideal society is invaded by a neighbouring power embodying evil repression. In Aldous Huxley 's Island , in many ways a counterpoint to his better-known Brave New World , the fusion of the best parts of Buddhist philosophy and Western technology is threatened by the "invasion" of oil companies. As another example, in

10164-599: The Garden of Eden when, towards the end of the 15th century, he first encountered the New World and its indigenous inhabitants. The Peach Blossom Spring ( Chinese : 桃花源 ; pinyin : Táohuāyuán ), a prose piece written by the Chinese poet Tao Yuanming , describes a utopian place. The narrative goes that a fisherman from Wuling sailed upstream a river and came across a beautiful blossoming peach grove and lush green fields covered with blossom petals. Entranced by

10318-617: The Greek historian and biographer of the 1st century, dealt with the blissful and mythic past of humanity. From Sir Philip Sidney 's prose romance The Old Arcadia (1580), originally a region in the Peloponnesus , Arcadia became a synonym for any rural area that serves as a pastoral setting, a locus amoenus ("delightful place"). The Biblical Garden of Eden as depicted in the Old Testament Bible 's Book of Genesis 2 ( Authorized Version of 1611 ): And

10472-580: The High Castle (1962) . According to the Philosophical Dictionary , proto-utopian ideas begin as early as the period of ancient Greece and Rome, medieval heretics , peasant revolts and establish themselves in the period of the early capitalism, reformation and Renaissance ( Hus , Müntzer , More , Campanella ), democratic revolutions ( Meslier , Morelly , Mably , Winstanley , later Babeufists , Blanquists ,) and in

10626-480: The Lord God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die. [...] And the Lord God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; [...] And the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam and he slept: and he took one of his ribs and closed up

10780-450: The Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden; and there he put the man whom he had formed. Out of the ground made the Lord God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden and the tree of knowledge of good and evil . [...] And the Lord God took the man and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it. And

10934-523: The New Mexico Savage Reservation with the Director many years before the events of the novel. Despite following her usual precautions, Linda became pregnant with the Director's son during their time together and was therefore unable to return to the World State by the time that she found her way to Malpais. Having been conditioned to the promiscuous social norms of the World State, Linda finds herself at once popular with every man in

11088-496: The Savage from the Reservation precipitates the downfall of the Director, who had been planning to exile him. Bernard's triumph is short-lived; he is ultimately banished to an island for his non-conformist behaviour. John , the illicit son of the Director and Linda, born and reared on the Savage Reservation ("Malpais") after Linda was unwittingly left behind by her errant lover. John ("the Savage" or "Mr. Savage", as he

11242-442: The absence of death and suffering ; changes in human nature and the human condition . Technology has affected the way humans have lived to such an extent that normal functions, like sleep, eating or even reproduction, have been replaced by artificial means. Other examples include a society where humans have struck a balance with technology and it is merely used to enhance the human living condition (e.g. Star Trek ). In place of

11396-453: The actual text, he argues, shows us that: there does not seem to be any genetic testing in Brave New World , and most of the methods described involve hormones and chemicals rather than heritable interventions. Although Huxley wrote that " eugenics and dysgenics were practiced systematically", this seems to refer only to selective breeding and not to any kind of direct manipulation on the genetic level. (The Bokanovsky process does represent

11550-545: The ageing process, other languages, and religious lifestyles for the first time. The culture of the village folk resembles the contemporary Native American groups of the region, descendants of the Anasazi , including the Puebloan peoples of Hopi and Zuni . Bernard and Lenina witness a violent public ritual and then encounter Linda, a woman originally from the World State who is living on the reservation with her son John, now

11704-504: The beauty, he continued upstream and stumbled onto a small grotto when he reached the end of the river. Though narrow at first, he was able to squeeze through the passage and discovered an ethereal utopia, where the people led an ideal existence in harmony with nature. He saw a vast expanse of fertile lands, clear ponds, mulberry trees, bamboo groves and the like with a community of people of all ages and houses in neat rows. The people explained that their ancestors escaped to this place during

11858-647: The book My Life and Work by Henry Ford on the boat to America and he saw the book's principles applied in everything he encountered after leaving San Francisco.</ref> The novel opens in the World State city of London in AF (After Ford) 632 (AD 2540 in the Gregorian calendar ), where citizens are engineered through artificial wombs and childhood indoctrination programmes into predetermined classes (or castes ) based on intelligence and labour. Lenina Crowne,

12012-495: The book was first and foremost a cautionary tale regarding human genetic enhancement , indeed about – as an infamous report of Bush associate Leon Kass states –: "producing improved [,][...] perfect or post-human" people. In fact, the title itself has become a mere stand-in used to "evoke the general idea of a futuristic dystopia". And yet, all this appears to be one big misunderstanding of Huxley's much more nuanced motives, as geneticist Derek So notes. A more careful reading of

12166-402: The book) to believe their own class is superior, but that the other classes perform needed functions. Any residual unhappiness is resolved by an antidepressant and hallucinogenic drug called soma. Utopian and dystopian fiction#Dystopian fiction More than 400 utopian works in the English language were published prior to the year 1900, with more than a thousand others appearing during

12320-475: The caste system, behavioural conditioning, and the lack of personal freedom in the World State: these, he says, are a price worth paying for achieving social stability, the highest social virtue because it leads to lasting happiness. Fanny Crowne , Lenina Crowne's friend (they have the same last name because only ten thousand last names are in use in a World State comprising two billion people). Fanny voices

12474-590: The catastrophe. The works of H. G. Wells and George Bernard Shaw on the promises of socialism and a World State were then viewed as the ideas of naive optimists. Chesterton wrote: After the Age of Utopias came what we may call the American Age, lasting as long as the Boom. Men like Ford or Mond seemed to many to have solved the social riddle and made capitalism the common good. But it was not native to us; it went with

12628-404: The causes and meaning of natural events, the purpose of creation, the path of good and evil, happiness and misfortune, fairy tales and legends later inspired by poetry and philosophy ... the underlying motives on which utopian literature is built are as old as the entire historical epoch of human history. ” Philosopher Richard Stahel said: ...every social organization relies on something that

12782-502: The civil unrest of the Qin dynasty and they themselves had not left since or had contact with anyone from the outside. They had not even heard of the later dynasties of bygone times or the then-current Jin dynasty . In the story, the community was secluded and unaffected by the troubles of the outside world. The sense of timelessness was predominant in the story as a perfect utopian community remains unchanged, that is, it had no decline nor

12936-590: The classrooms, and the Hypnopaedic Control Room (used for behavioural conditioning through sleep learning). John asks if the students read Shakespeare but the Provost says the library contains only reference books because solitary activities, such as reading, are discouraged. Miss Keate , Head Mistress of Eton Upper School. Bernard fancies her, and arranges an assignation with her. These are non-fictional and factual characters who lived before

13090-445: The contrary then, Huxley remained a committed eugenicist all throughout his life, much like his comparably famous brother Julian , and one just as keen on stressing its humanistic underpinnings . The World State is built upon the principles of Henry Ford's assembly line : mass production, homogeneity, predictability, and consumption of disposable consumer goods. While the World State lacks any supernatural-based religions, Ford himself

13244-424: The conventional values of her caste and society, particularly the importance of promiscuity: she advises Lenina that she should have more than one man in her life because it is unseemly to concentrate on just one. Fanny then warns Lenina away from a new lover whom she considers undeserving, yet she is ultimately supportive of the young woman's attraction to the savage John. Henry Foster , one of Lenina's many lovers,

13398-409: The decade since the association began the list in 1990. The title Brave New World derives from William Shakespeare 's The Tempest , Act V, Scene I, Miranda 's speech: O wonder! How many goodly creatures are there here! How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world , That has such people in 't. Shakespeare's use of the phrase is intended ironically, as the speaker is failing to recognise

13552-497: The development of a technological or mystical method that allows female parthenogenetic reproduction . The resulting society is often shown to be utopian by feminist writers. Many influential feminist utopias of this sort were written in the 1970s; the most often studied examples include Joanna Russ's The Female Man and Suzy McKee Charnas 's The Holdfast Chronicles . Such worlds have been portrayed most often by lesbian or feminist authors; their use of female-only worlds allows

13706-532: The development of such a utopia. In his book Deep Utopia: Life and Meaning in a Solved World , philosopher Nick Bostrom explores what to do in a "solved world", assuming that human civilization safely builds machine superintelligence and manages to solve its political, coordination and fairness problems. He outlines some technologies considered physically possible at technological maturity, such as cognitive enhancement , reversal of aging , self-replicating spacecrafts , arbitrary sensory inputs (taste, sound...), or

13860-477: The early-19th century also centred on economic considerations, but with a view to preserving class distinctions; Wakefield influenced several colonies founded in New Zealand and Australia in the 1830s, 1840s and 1850s. In 1905, H. G. Wells published A Modern Utopia , which was widely read and admired and provoked much discussion. Also consider Eric Frank Russell 's book The Great Explosion (1963),

14014-541: The economy and technology. Modern dystopian themes are common in the young adult (YA) genre of literature. Many works combine elements of both utopias and dystopias. Typically, an observer from our world will journey to another place or time and see one society the author considers ideal and another representing the worst possible outcome. Usually, the point is that our choices may lead to a better or worse potential future world. Ursula K. Le Guin 's Always Coming Home fulfills this model, as does Marge Piercy 's Woman on

14168-745: The events in this book, but are of note in the novel: The limited number of names that the World State assigned to its bottle-grown citizens can be traced to political and cultural figures who contributed to the bureaucratic, economic, and technological systems of Huxley's age, and presumably those systems in Brave New World . Upon its publication, Rebecca West praised Brave New World as "The most accomplished novel Huxley has yet written", Joseph Needham lauded it as "Mr. Huxley's remarkable book", and Bertrand Russell also praised it, stating, "Mr. Aldous Huxley has shown his usual masterly skill in Brave New World. " Brave New World also received negative responses from other contemporary critics, although his work

14322-482: The evil nature of the island's visitors because of her innocence. Indeed, the next speaker—Miranda's father Prospero—replies to her innocent observation with the statement " 'Tis new to thee." Translations of the title often allude to similar expressions used in domestic works of literature: the French edition of the work is entitled Le Meilleur des mondes ( The Best of All Worlds ), an allusion to an expression used by

14476-730: The exploration of female independence and freedom from patriarchy . The societies may not necessarily be lesbian, or sexual at all — Herland (1915) by Charlotte Perkins Gilman is a famous early example of a sexless society. Charlene Ball writes in Women's Studies Encyclopedia that use of speculative fiction to explore gender roles has been more common in the United States than in Europe and elsewhere. Utopias imagined by male authors have generally included equality between sexes rather than separation. Étienne Cabet 's work Travels in Icaria caused

14630-408: The first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea...'He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death' or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away" and no longer just gnosiological ( Isaiah : "See, I will create/new heavens and a new earth./The former things will not be remembered,/nor will they come to mind". Narrow interpretation of

14784-635: The flesh instead thereof and the rib, which the Lord God had taken from man, made he a woman and brought her unto the man. According to the exegesis that the biblical theologian Herbert Haag proposes in the book Is original sin in Scripture? , published soon after the Second Vatican Council , Genesis 2:25 would indicate that Adam and Eve were created from the beginning naked of the divine grace , an originary grace that, then, they would never have had and even less would have lost due to

14938-578: The future instead of just the fact that it was a new, up and coming genre of literature. During the Cold War , however, utopian science fiction became exceptionally prominent among Soviet leaders. Many citizens of the Soviet Russia became dependent on this type of literature because it represented an escape from the real world which was not ideal at the time. Utopian science fiction allowed them to fantasize about how satisfactory it would be to live in

15092-408: The genre of dystopian fiction, both in [the] vividness of their engagement with real-world social and political issues and in the scope of their critique of the societies on which they focus." Another important figure in dystopian literature is H.G. Wells , whose work The Time Machine (1895) is also widely seen as a prototype of dystopian literature. Wells' work draws on the social structure of

15246-592: The horizon, the story of last night's orgy having been in all the papers. The first onlookers and reporters to arrive find that John is dead, having hanged himself. Bernard Marx , a sleep-learning specialist at the Central London Hatchery and Conditioning Centre. Although Bernard is an Alpha-Plus (the upper class of the society), he is a misfit. He is unusually short for an Alpha; an alleged accident with alcohol in Bernard's blood-surrogate before his decanting has left him slightly stunted. Unlike his fellow utopians, Bernard

15400-433: The hospital. He then withdraws himself from society and attempts to purify himself of "sin" (desire), but is unable to do so. He finds himself gathering a lot of trouble for both his body and mind. He soon does not realise what is real or what is fake, what he does and what he does not do. Soon, everything he thinks about or feels just becomes blurred and unrecognizable. Finally he hangs himself in despair. Helmholtz Watson ,

15554-549: The idealistic principles of the American Founders. The colonies of Carolina (founded in 1670), Pennsylvania (founded in 1681), and Georgia (founded in 1733) were the only three English colonies in America that were planned as utopian societies with an integrated physical, economic and social design. At the heart of the plan for Georgia was a concept of "agrarian equality" in which land was allocated equally and additional land acquisition through purchase or inheritance

15708-550: The inhabitants of Jambudvipa will need to take part in cultivation and hunger will no longer exist. In the 21st century, discussions around utopia for some authors include post-scarcity economics , late capitalism , and universal basic income ; for example, the "human capitalism" utopia envisioned in Utopia for Realists ( Rutger Bregman 2016) includes a universal basic income and a 15-hour workweek , along with open borders . Scandinavian nations , which as of 2019 ranked at

15862-505: The inhabitants of Erewhon see as natural and right, i.e., utopian (as mocked in Voltaire 's Candide ). Dystopias usually extrapolate elements of contemporary society, and thus can be read as political warnings. Eschatological literature may portray dystopias. The 1921 novel We by Yevgeny Zamyatin portrays a post-apocalyptic future in which society is entirely based on logic and modeled after mechanical systems. George Orwell

16016-445: The islands as well, but Mond refuses, saying he wishes to see what happens to John next. Jaded with his new life, John moves to an abandoned hilltop lighthouse, near the village of Puttenham , where he intends to adopt a solitary ascetic lifestyle in order to purify himself of civilization, practising self-flagellation . This draws reporters and eventually hundreds of amazed sightseers, hoping to witness his bizarre behaviour. For

16170-478: The last section of which details an economic and social utopia. This forms the first mention of the idea of Local Exchange Trading Systems (LETS). During the " Khrushchev Thaw " period, the Soviet writer Ivan Efremov produced the science-fiction utopia Andromeda (1957) in which a major cultural thaw took place: humanity communicates with a galaxy-wide Great Circle and develops its technology and culture within

16324-410: The lighthouse but he attacks her with a whip, unwittingly inciting onlookers to do the same. Her exact fate is left unspecified. Mustapha Mond , Resident World Controller of Western Europe, "His Fordship" Mustapha Mond presides over one of the ten zones of the World State, the global government set up after the cataclysmic Nine Years' War and great Economic Collapse. Sophisticated and good-natured, Mond

16478-543: The literary-minded Helmholtz. Considered hideous and friendless, Linda spends all her time using soma, which she craved for so long, while John refuses to attend social events organised by Bernard, appalled by what he perceives to be an empty society. Lenina and John are physically attracted to each other, but John's view of courtship and romance, based on Shakespeare's writings, is utterly incompatible with Lenina's freewheeling attitude to sex. She tries to seduce him, but he attacks her, before suddenly being informed that his mother

16632-755: The longest-running financially successful communes in American history. The Oneida Community , founded by John Humphrey Noyes in Oneida, New York , was a utopian religious commune that lasted from 1848 to 1881. Although this utopian experiment has become better known today for its manufacture of Oneida silverware, it was one of the longest-running communes in American history. The Amana Colonies were communal settlements in Iowa , started by radical German pietists , which lasted from 1855 to 1932. The Amana Corporation , manufacturer of refrigerators and household appliances,

16786-747: The majority of the secular communes failed within 8 years. Sosis cites anthropologist Roy Rappaport in arguing that rituals and laws are more effective when sacralized . Social psychologist Jonathan Haidt cites Sosis's research in his 2012 book The Righteous Mind as the best evidence that religion is an adaptive solution to the free-rider problem by enabling cooperation without kinship . Evolutionary medicine researcher Randolph M. Nesse and theoretical biologist Mary Jane West-Eberhard have argued instead that because humans with altruistic tendencies are preferred as social partners they receive fitness advantages by social selection , with Nesse arguing further that social selection enabled humans as

16940-616: The method and structure of proposed implementation varying according to ideology. Lyman Tower Sargent argues that the nature of a utopia is inherently contradictory because societies are not homogeneous and have desires which conflict and therefore cannot simultaneously be satisfied. To quote: There are socialist, capitalist, monarchical, democratic, anarchist, ecological, feminist, patriarchal, egalitarian, hierarchical, racist, left-wing, right-wing, reformist, free love, nuclear family, extended family, gay, lesbian and many more utopias [ Naturism , Nude Christians , ...] Utopianism, some argue,

17094-585: The myth does not take place towards the remote past but either towards the future or towards distant and fictional places, imagining that at some time in the future, at some point in space, or beyond death, there must exist the possibility of living happily. In the United States and Europe, during the Second Great Awakening (ca. 1790–1840) and thereafter, many radical religious groups formed utopian societies in which faith could govern all aspects of members' lives. These utopian societies included

17248-565: The mythological tradition (the poem Works and Days ), explained that, prior to the present era , there were four other progressively less perfect ones, the oldest of which was the Golden Age . Perhaps the oldest Utopia of which we know, as pointed out many years ago by Moses Finley , is Homer 's Scheria , island of the Phaeacians . A mythical place, often equated with classical Corcyra , (modern Corfu / Kerkyra ), where Odysseus

17402-477: The narrator of Utopia' s second book, Raphael Hythloday. The Greek root of the name "Hythloday" suggests an 'expert in nonsense'. An earlier example of a Utopian work from classical antiquity is Plato 's The Republic , in which he outlines what he sees as the ideal society and its political system . Later, Tommaso Campanella was influenced by Plato's work and wrote The City of the Sun (1623), which describes

17556-501: The need to improve. Eventually, the Chinese term Peach Blossom Spring came to be synonymous for the concept of utopia. Datong ( Chinese : 大同 ; pinyin : dàtóng ) is a traditional Chinese Utopia. The main description of it is found in the Chinese Classic of Rites , in the chapter called "Li Yun"( Chinese : 禮運 ; pinyin : Lǐ yùn ). Later, Datong and its ideal of 'The World Belongs to Everyone/The World

17710-508: The number of individuals born with genetic disorders or handicaps, Huxley's dystopia involves dramatically increasing their number. [...] Quite the opposite: Huxley thought that Brave New World might come about if we didn't start selecting better children. Overall, Derek So notes that "Huxley was much more worried about totalitarianism than about the new biotechnologies per se that he alluded to in Brave New World." Despite claims to

17864-433: The old Capitalism, but of the old Socialism. Brave New World is more of a revolution against Utopia than against Victoria. Similarly, in 1944 economist Ludwig von Mises described Brave New World as a satire of utopian predictions of socialism : "Aldous Huxley was even courageous enough to make socialism's dreamed paradise the target of his sardonic irony." Chemical Neurological Various authors assume that

18018-576: The philosopher Gottfried Leibniz and satirised in Candide, Ou l'Optimisme by Voltaire (1759). The first Standard Chinese translation, done by novelist Lily Hsueh and Aaron Jen-wang Hsueh in 1974, is entitled "美麗新世界" ( Pinyin : Měilì Xīn Shìjiè , literally " Beautiful New World "). Huxley wrote Brave New World while living in Sanary-sur-Mer , France, in the four months from May to August 1931. By this time, Huxley had established himself as

18172-476: The physician of both Linda and John. He prescribes a lethal dose of soma to Linda, which will stop her respiratory system from functioning in a span of one to two months, at her own behest but not without protest from John. Ultimately, they all agree that it is for the best, since denying her this request would cause more trouble for Society and Linda herself. Dr. Gaffney , Provost of Eton, an Upper School for high-caste individuals. He shows Bernard and John around

18326-519: The police quell by spraying soma vapor into the crowd. Bernard, Helmholtz, and John are all brought before Mustapha Mond, the "Resident World Controller for Western Europe", who tells Bernard and Helmholtz that they are to be exiled to islands for antisocial activity. Bernard pleads for a second chance, but Helmholtz welcomes the opportunity to be a true individual, and chooses the Falkland Islands as his destination, believing that their bad weather will inspire his writing. Mond tells Helmholtz that exile

18480-465: The present by time or space), b. offers a comprehensive critique of present values/conditions, c. sees men or male institutions as a major cause of present social ills, d. presents women as not only at least the equals of men but also as the sole arbiters of their reproductive functions ." Utopias have explored the ramification of gender being either a societal construct or a hard-wired imperative. In Mary Gentle 's Golden Witchbreed , gender

18634-569: The public good, may be inconceivable because of the disordered human passions which, under the wrong governments, seek to highlight the poorly conceived or selfish interest of the community. But even though we find it impossible, they are ridiculous to sinful people whose sense of self-destruction prevents them from believing. Marx and Engels used the word "utopia" to denote unscientific social theories. Philosopher Slavoj Žižek told about utopia: Which means that we should reinvent utopia but in what sense. There are two false meanings of utopia one

18788-445: The pueblo (because she is open to all sexual advances) and also reviled for the same reason, seen as a whore by the wives of the men who visit her and by the men themselves (who come to her nonetheless). Her only comforts there are mescal brought by Popé as well as peyotl . Linda is desperate to return to the World State and to soma, wanting nothing more from her remaining life than comfort until death. The Arch-Community-Songster ,

18942-399: The real world. Dystopian literature serves to "provide fresh perspectives on problematic social and political practices that might otherwise be taken for granted or considered natural and inevitable". Some dystopias claim to be utopias . Samuel Butler 's Erewhon can be seen as a dystopia because of the way sick people are punished as criminals while thieves are "cured" in hospitals, which

19096-597: The religion-based Twelve Tribes , which started in the United States in 1972. Since its inception, it has grown into many groups around the world. Similarly, a commune called Brook Farm established itself in 1841. Founded by Charles Fourier's visions of Utopia, they attempted to recreate his idea of a central building in society called the Phalanx. Unfortunately, this commune could not sustain itself and failed after only six years of operation. They wanted to stay open for longer, but they could not afford it. Their goal, however,

19250-650: The same men who continually sought her out despite their supposedly sacred pledges of monogamy. Because he is unwanted in Malpais, he accepts the invitation to travel back to London and is initially astonished by the comforts of the World State. He remains committed to values that exist only in his poetry. He first spurns Lenina for failing to live up to his Shakespearean ideal and then the entire utopian society: he asserts that its technological wonders and consumerism are poor substitutes for individual freedom, human dignity and personal integrity. After his mother's death, he becomes deeply distressed with grief, surprising onlookers in

19404-474: The same name. Readers, including Utopian socialists, have chosen to accept this imaginary society as the realistic blueprint for a working nation, while others have postulated that Thomas More intended nothing of the sort. It is believed that More's Utopia functions only on the level of a satire, a work intended to reveal more about the England of his time than about an idealistic society. This interpretation

19558-440: The secular equivalent of the Archbishop of Canterbury in the World State society. He takes personal offense when John refuses to attend Bernard's party. The Director of Crematoria and Phosphorus Reclamation , one of the many disappointed, important figures to attend Bernard's party. The Warden , an Alpha-Minus, the talkative chief administrator for the New Mexico Savage Reservation. He is blond, short, broad-shouldered, and has

19712-415: The setting and characters in his science fiction novel to express widely felt anxieties, particularly the fear of losing individual identity in the fast-paced world of the future. An early trip to the United States gave Brave New World much of its character. Huxley was outraged by the culture of youth, commercial cheeriness, sexual promiscuity and the inward-looking nature of many Americans; he had also found

19866-492: The similarity of the word to eutopia , meaning "good place", from Greek : εὖ ("good" or "well") and τόπος ("place"), which ostensibly would be the more appropriate term for the concept in modern English. The pronunciations of eutopia and utopia in English are identical , which may have given rise to the change in meaning. Dystopia , a term meaning "bad place" coined in 1868, draws on this latter meaning. The opposite of

20020-412: The static perfection of a utopia, libertarian transhumanists envision an " extropia ", an open, evolving society allowing individuals and voluntary groupings to form the institutions and social forms they prefer. Mariah Utsawa presented a theoretical basis for technological utopianism and set out to develop a variety of technologies ranging from maps to designs for cars and houses which might lead to

20174-533: The subject of several poems, one of which, an early translation of a 13th-century French work, is given in George Ellis' Specimens of Early English Poets . In this, "the houses were made of barley sugar and cakes, the streets were paved with pastry and the shops supplied goods for nothing." London has been so called (see Cockney ) but Boileau applies the same to Paris. Schlaraffenland is an analogous German tradition. All these myths also express some hope that

20328-489: The subsequent events narrated. On the other hand, while supporting a continuity in the Bible about the absence of preternatural gifts ( Latin : dona praeternaturalia ) with regard to the ophitic event , Haag never makes any reference to the discontinuity of the loss of access to the tree of life. The Land of Cockaigne (also Cockaygne, Cokaygne), was an imaginary land of idleness and luxury, famous in medieval stories and

20482-439: The text depicts Heaven on Earth or a Heaven brought to Earth without sin . Daily and mundane details of this new Earth, where God and Jesus rule, remain unclear, although it is implied to be similar to the biblical Garden of Eden. Some theological philosophers believe that heaven will not be a physical realm but instead an incorporeal place for souls . The Greek poet Hesiod , around the 8th century BC, in his compilation of

20636-560: The top of the World Happiness Report , are sometimes cited as modern utopias, although British author Michael Booth has called that a myth and wrote a 2014 book about the Nordic countries . Particularly in the early 19th century, several utopian ideas arose, often in response to the belief that social disruption was created and caused by the development of commercialism and capitalism . These ideas are often grouped in

20790-606: The top-down ( bureaucratic ) nature of Bellamy's utopia, which Morris criticized. However, as the socialist movement developed, it moved away from utopianism; Marx in particular became a harsh critic of earlier socialism which he described as "utopian". (For more information, see the History of Socialism article.) In a materialist utopian society, the economy is perfect; there is no inflation and only perfect social and financial equality exists. Edward Gibbon Wakefield 's utopian theorizing on systematic colonial settlement policy in

20944-627: The utopian genre's meaning and purpose is described in Fredric Jameson 's Archeologies of the Future (2005) , which addresses many utopian varieties defined by their program or impulse. A dystopia is a society characterized by a focus on that which is contrary to the author's ethos , such as mass poverty, public mistrust and suspicion, a police state or oppression. Most authors of dystopian fiction explore at least one reason why things are that way, often as an analogy for similar issues in

21098-707: The villagers, and his and Linda's lives have been hard and unpleasant. Linda has taught John to read, although from the only book in her possession—a scientific manual—and another book John found: the complete works of Shakespeare. Ostracised by the villagers, John is able to articulate his feelings only in terms of Shakespearean drama, quoting often from The Tempest , King Lear , Othello , Romeo and Juliet and Hamlet . Linda now wants to return to London, and John, too, wants to see this "brave new world" that his mother so often praised. Bernard sees an opportunity to thwart plans to exile him, and gets permission to take Linda and John back. On their return to London, John meets

21252-475: The virtues of solitude and helping John destroy some Deltas' rations of soma following Linda's death. Unlike Bernard, he takes his exile in his stride and comes to view it as an opportunity for inspiration in his writing. His first name derives from the German physicist Hermann von Helmholtz . Lenina Crowne , a young, beautiful foetus technician at the Central London Hatchery and Conditioning Centre. Lenina Crowne

21406-462: The works of D. H. Lawrence . For his part Wells published, two years after Brave New World , his Utopian Shape of Things to Come . Seeking to rebut the argument of Huxley's Mustapha Mond—that moronic underclasses were a necessary "social gyroscope" and that a society composed solely of intelligent, assertive "Alphas" would inevitably disintegrate in internecine struggle—Wells depicted a stable egalitarian society emerging after several generations of

21560-464: The world is described as a utopia. However, as the book progresses, the world's dystopian aspects are revealed. Jonathan Swift 's Gulliver's Travels is also sometimes linked with both utopian and dystopian literatures, because it shares the general preoccupation with ideas of good and bad societies. Of the countries Lemuel Gulliver visits, Brobdingnag and Country of the Houyhnhnms approach

21714-536: The world organized and built intentional communities with the hope of developing a better way of living together. Many of these intentional communities are relatively small. Many intentional communities have a population close to 100, with many possibly exceeding this number. While this may seem large, it is pretty small in comparison to the rest of society. From the small populations, it is apparent that people do not prefer this kind of living . While many of these new small communities failed, some continue to grow, such as

21868-511: The world. Anthropologist Richard Sosis examined 200 communes in the 19th-century United States, both religious and secular (mostly utopian socialist ). 39 percent of the religious communes were still functioning 20 years after their founding while only 6 percent of the secular communes were. The number of costly sacrifices that a religious commune demanded from its members had a linear effect on its longevity, while in secular communes demands for costly sacrifices did not correlate with longevity and

22022-737: Was a Christian theosophy and pietist group founded in Iptingen , Germany , in 1785. Due to religious persecution by the Lutheran Church and the government in Württemberg , the society moved to the United States on October 7, 1803, settling in Pennsylvania . On February 15, 1805, about 400 followers formally organized the Harmony Society, placing all their goods in common . The group lasted until 1905, making it one of

22176-657: Was coined in 1516 from Ancient Greek by the Englishman Sir Thomas More for his Latin text Utopia . It literally translates as "no place", coming from the Greek : οὐ ("not") and τόπος ("place"), and meant any non-existent society, when 'described in considerable detail'. However, in standard usage, the word's meaning has shifted and now usually describes a non-existent society that is intended to be viewed as considerably better than contemporary society. In his original work, More carefully pointed out

22330-456: Was first used in direct context by Thomas More in his 1516 work Utopia . The word utopia resembles both the Greek words outopos ("no place"), and eutopos ("good place"). More's book, written in Latin , sets out a vision of an ideal society . As the title suggests, the work presents an ambiguous and ironic projection of the ideal state. The whimsical nature of the text can be confirmed by

22484-487: Was influenced by We when he wrote Nineteen Eighty-Four (published in 1949), a novel about Oceania , a state at perpetual war, its population controlled through propaganda . Big Brother and the daily Two Minutes Hate set the tone for an all-pervasive self-censorship. Aldous Huxley 's 1932 novel Brave New World started as a parody of utopian fiction, and projected into the year 2540 industrial and social changes he perceived in 1931, leading to industrial success by

22638-475: Was later embraced. In an article in the 4 May 1935 issue of the Illustrated London News , G. K. Chesterton explained that Huxley was revolting against the "Age of Utopias". Much of the discourse on man's future before 1914 was based on the thesis that humanity would solve all economic and social issues. In the decade following the war the discourse shifted to an examination of the causes of

22792-544: Was originally started by the group. Other examples are Fountain Grove (founded in 1875), Riker's Holy City and other Californian utopian colonies between 1855 and 1955 (Hine), as well as Sointula in British Columbia , Canada. The Amish and Hutterites can also be considered an attempt towards religious utopia. A wide variety of intentional communities with some type of faith-based ideas have also started across

22946-606: Was prohibited; the plan was an early step toward the yeoman republic later envisioned by Thomas Jefferson . The communes of the 1960s in the United States often represented an attempt to greatly improve the way humans live together in communities. The back-to-the-land movements and hippies inspired many to try to live in peace and harmony on farms or in remote areas and to set up new types of governance. Communes like Kaliflower , which existed between 1967 and 1973, attempted to live outside of society's norms and to create their own ideal communalist society. People all over

23100-514: Was the "primal and ultimate need" if civilisation was to survive the present crisis. The Brave New World character Mustapha Mond, Resident World Controller of Western Europe, is named after Sir Alfred Mond . Shortly before writing the novel, Huxley visited the Billingham Manufacturing Plant , Mond's technologically advanced factory near Billingham , north-east England, and it made a great impression on him. Huxley used

23254-414: Was there any need for hard and painful work. Humans were simple and pious and felt themselves close to their God or gods. According to one anthropological theory, hunter-gatherers were the original affluent society . These mythical or religious archetypes are inscribed in many cultures and resurge with special vitality when people are in difficult and critical times. However, in utopias, the projection of

23408-501: Was usually anti-collectivist. Dystopian fiction emerged as a response to the utopian. Its early history is traced in Gregory Claeys' Dystopia: A Natural History (Oxford University Press, 2017). The beginning of technological dystopian fiction can be traced back to E. M. Forster 's (1879–1970) " The Machine Stops ." M Keith Booker states that "The Machine Stops," We and Brave New World are "the great defining texts of

23562-503: Was very similar to that of Utopia: to lead a more wholesome and simpler life than the atmosphere of pressure surrounding society at the time. It is clear that despite ambition, it is difficult for communes to stay in operation for very long. Though Francis Bacon 's New Atlantis is imbued with a scientific spirit, scientific and technological utopias tend to be based in the future, when it is believed that advanced science and technology will allow utopian living standards ; for example,

23716-513: Was washed ashore after 10 years of storm-tossed wandering and escorted to the King's palace by his daughter Nausicaa . With stout walls, a stone temple and good harbours, it is perhaps the 'ideal' Greek colony , a model for those founded from the middle of the 8th Century onward. A land of plenty, home to expert mariners (with the self-navigating ships), and skilled craftswomen who live in peace under their king's rule and fear no strangers. Plutarch ,

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