[Sisyphus]

(10-24-2017 11:24 AM)blck Wrote:  

Oddly enough the Huxley side has a picture of pills but doesn't talk about it at all. In BNW the drug Soma was doled out and used to pacify the populous, putting them into a stupor which made them content with their lot in life and toil.

While we could argue about which drugs in our society fulfill this function I'd have to go with anti-depressants. I assume that when you're prescribed these your therapist tells you to just relax and not get so worked up over politics, avoid informing yourself about things that upset you, etc. I doubt you'll see many people on these drugs taking up arms against the government.

By contrast the character raised on the Indian reservation (John) is used to traditional substances like peyote (Huxley wrote the Doors of Perception about his experiences with mescaline) which have some kind of nausea and unpleasantness associated with them and are therefore not taken every day and don't have the stupefying effect of Soma. He causes a riot by interrupting distribution of Soma to some wretched low-caste people.

We haven't reached "orgy-porgy" yet but maybe we're on our way.

I also recommend reading "Island" which is meant to portray the opposite type of society. In that book the people take Moksha, an entheogen that helps them meditate on important existential concepts.