| | Brave New World The book is about a fundamental conflict in human societies. This conflict can be framed from different angles: between civilization and savages, high tech and base instinct, government and family. Civilized, high tech and government dominated societies are more powerful. They often expand and crush savage, low tech and tribal systems. However, once they are unable to make new conquests, their energy will turn inward. Being large and diverse, they have great difficulty resolving internal conflicts. This greatly increased costs of operating in this type of society. How to resolve this issue? The author provide an ingenious solution. In Brave New World, babies are hatched and raised in government labs, much like chickens are hatched and raised in farms. This eliminates the need for family and parenting, with which eliminates the conflict between government and family. But Huxley was wrong about the economics of raising kids in hatcheries. It is extremely costly to raise a child. Only with passion and devotion that is typically only reserved to their own children, adults are tempted into this enormous task of raising kids. Just think about the enormous cost of the foster family system in Canada. One can easily conclude Brave New World is not viable over long term. Similar, modern welfare systems, in which the working pays for the non working, will not be viable over long term. In Brave New World, savages are reserved a romantic, but minor role. But simple systems, such as societies based on families and tribes, being more homogeneous, have lower internal cost. With the retreat of large complex systems, these simple or savage systems will expand rapidly, as we witness today. It all comes down to economics, not economics of money, but economics of life, which is much more fundamental. While Huxley was wrong in vision a dominant society where babies are hatched from labs, he got many things right. The civilized society will be highly promiscuous to keep people from forming strong and long term bonds that will threaten the authority of the government. The educational system and the media will be actively engaged in propaganda and brainwashing. Great and unorthodox ideas will be suppressed. The following two passage sounds like the society's attitude toward me and my theory today. No offense is so heinous as unorthodoxy of behavior. Murder kills only the individual --- and after all, what is an individual? ... We can make a new one with the greatest ease --- as many as we like. Unorthodoxy threatens more than the life of a mere individual; it strikes at the society itself. (P 176) "A New Theory of Biology" was the title of the paper which Mustapha Mond (the big boss) had just finished reading. He sat for some time, meditatively frowning, then picked up his pen and wrote across the title page: "The author's mathematical treatment of the conception of purpose is novel and highly ingenious, but heretical and potentially subversive. Not to be published." He underlined the words. "The author will be kept under supervision. His transference to the Marine Biological Station of St. Helena may become necessary." ... It was a masterly piece of work. But once you began admitting explanations in terms of purpose --- well, you didn't know where the result might be. It was the sort of idea that might easily de-condition the more unsettled minds among the higher castes --- make them lose their faith in happiness as the Sovereign Good. (P 211) My theory is a mathematical theory about biological systems, which include human societies. My theory replaces happiness (utility) with purpose (return) [2,3]. Huxley had some further observation about happiness and stability. People are happy; they get what they want and they never want what they can't get. (P. 264) Actual happiness always looks pretty squalid in comparison with the over-compensation for misery. And, of course, stability isn't nearly so spectacular as instability. And being content has none of the glamour of a good fight against misfortune, none of the picturesqueness of a struggle with temptation, or a fatal overthrow by passion or doubt. Happiness is never grand. (P. 265) The stability of civilized life robs great excitement from our life. However, having lost our ability to survive as a wild animal, we, especially the intellectuals, couldn't survive and dread a life of real freedom. Brave New World is more relevant today than when it was first published more than eighty years ago. After all, it was supposed to be a prophecy. References 1. Huxley, Aldous, 1960, Brave New World, Harper & Brothers. 2. Chen, Jing, 2005, The Physical Foundation of Economics: An Analytical Thermodynamic Theory, World Scientific, Hackensack, NJ 3. Chen, Jing 2015, The Unity of Science and Economics: A New Foundation of Economic Theory, Springer
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