A thread on 'Brave New World' and the link between #hedonism & #eugenics:
Aldous Huxley was right: eugenics and hedonism are inextricably linked. 'Brave New World' is about a eugenic society that designs human beings for specific social stations and jobs. 1/10
Aldous Huxley was right: eugenics and hedonism are inextricably linked. 'Brave New World' is about a eugenic society that designs human beings for specific social stations and jobs. 1/10
Everyone has a genetic destiny and a pre-ordained role in the labor force. 'Brave New World' is also, in equal measure, about a hedonistic society in which people only care about pleasure, sex, material things, 'feelies,' doing drugs, and having orgies. 2/10
They don't care about relationships, art, philosophy, ethics, or love. Those things go hand in hand. When you are genetically designed to fill a certain social role, you're not a person, you're a thing. You're a cog in the machine. 3/10
You belong to a society that treats people as objects. As a result, you see yourself and others as objects, things, accessories. You don't care about relationships, love, community. 4/10
You care about orgies and fashion and drugs and cheap entertainment - anything to distract you from the reality of your situation as a scientific apparatus, a useful tool. 5/10
A eugenic society is a society of objectification and hedonism, in which people are reduced to things, deprived of autonomy, creativity, compassion, hopes and dreams. This is the path we're heading down right now. 6/10
We can genetically edit embryos, we're eliminating disability, and it's just a matter of time until we create designer babies. 7/10
Our society already believes in genetic destinies and genetic differences between groups, and it already values status, money, and pleasure above humanistic pursuits. We are losing our humanity and we won't get it back. 8/10
Many philosophers, including transhumanists and mainstream bioethicists, are gleefully enthusiastic about this descent into Huxley's nightmarish dystopia. 9/10
On a side-note: Aldous Huxley's brother, Julian Huxley, was a famous eugenicists who was (early in his career) racist and supported anti-immigration policies to keep out racialised immigrants. He was also persistently ableist. Which Huxley are we going to choose to follow?? 10/10
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