Civilization has no need of nobility and herosim. These things are symptoms of political inefficiency.

The book club pick this last month was Brave New World by Aldous Huxley. Some of us had this as required reading in high school but I had never read it, nor had most of the people who had it assigned.

The story is your classic dystopian tale centered around the 'savage' John who was raised in what we would consider the traditional way of having a parent, free will, and social freedoms who is then brought back into a completely socially fabricated society.

Set in London, the Brave New World society is one where children are born in test tubes from only a handful of DNA combinations so they all look the same. From day one they are divided up and given status levels that dictate their socialization and indoctrination process. The children go through rigorous rounds of conditioning as prescribed by the doctors of society so that they grow up only knowing how to do one thing and being adverse to all others. Alpha's run society and are taught that beta's and everyone else in society are below them while the lowest of society are trained in a way that makes their meager status seem completely fulfilling. Every child is conditioned to fulfill whatever need the society has at that time.

If I went into all the detail that this book warrants here I am afraid this post would go on forever. Instead I will put this question to you to consider. If from the beginning of your life you were raised in a way that everyday, every action and every decision you made was inherently right and brought you nothing but contentment would you prefer that over a life of rampant free will that can lead to failure, heartache, disappointment but potentially love and happiness? I find in my life a lot of my anxieties come from discontentment as opposed to unhappiness. I have a hard time trying to decide whether I would sacrifice happiness for contentment...makes for interesting pondering.

Is the old adage of 'you cannot appreciate happiness unless you've known sadness' true?

Remember whichever you choose, you have known nothing different so you would not long for intimate relationships because you would not know what those were, you would not long for choices because you've never had them. Just something to think about.

I will confess at the start of the book I was one minded and felt as though I had made a firm conclusion but toward the end, I was questioning whether the other method would be so bad. This classic cautionary tale of what society can become is probably more poignant now than it ever has been before. If you are interested in this book I suggest you pick up George Orwell's 1984, both will hit home in a scary and very real way.