Up until today, I thought Aldous Huxley's Brave New World was a creation in which he did not want the world to exist as such. Where there is some truth in this, I just recently found out Huxley took drugs such as LSD. This is quite a shocker, especially from seeing how seemingly disproving Huxley is of drugs in the World State with the use of soma. Ironically, as we see in Brave New World how Linda dies while having large amounts of soma in her body, this type of death points to Huxley's death. Huxley was nearing death with his case of laryngeal cancer. On his deathbed, he asks his wife for 100 milligrams of LSD which she obliges with two doses with an hour in between. To me, this questions the validity of Huxley's works, particularly Brave New World in the sense that Huxley's views of the society at his time are questionable due to his lack of consistency.
If anyone is curious to see the letter from Huxley's wife after his death which states his use of LSD the link is right here: http://www.lettersofnote.com/2010/03/most-beautiful-death.html
Wow. I didn't know that about Aldous Huxley's live. That is pretty interesting because he did write disapprovingly about everything that society did in a Brave New World. But maybe he wrote it as a warning to other people before he fell into its illusional trap. Remember that even John the Savage couldn't escape society's trap as he fell into it near the end after lusting for Lenina for so long. Maybe Aldous Huxley stayed too long in that optical illusional world that he too became convinced maybe the World State wasn't such a bad idea. I mean he was dying and probably in a large amount of pain that he needed relief. Maybe that is why he decided to think drugs was the answer so he could escape the pain, reality, and to die peacefully. I don't think his views of society are questionable because some things he wrote about does have some parallel to our society today.
ReplyDeleteRandall, you are thinking about this as a modern guy who has never known LSD as anything as an illegal drug. Read the Wikipedia article about LSD. It was not declared illegal until 1966 -- long after Huxley's Doors of Perception.
ReplyDeleteI heard a Christian minister tell a fascinating story about his experience with LSD at Harvard in the late 1950s/early 1960s. It was not illegal; he was not taking it recreationally. He was using it to explore his consciousness, and during his experience, he came to understand that he was put on this earth to serve God.
Finally, students frequently think about soma literally, as a parallel to illegal, recreational drugs. I think about soma as a metaphor. Our drug is technology. Our drug is media. Anytime we get the tiniest bit bored, we reach for our device. Anytime we don't like our lives, we plug in to our digital pacifiers.
Another way to think about soma: how many young people and adults are taking drugs every single day to stifle their symptoms of AD/HD. We prescribe drugs to our children quite regularly, legally, and we don't seem to think this is a problem.