Brave New World by Aldous Huxley – Episode 2

The Buddies discuss Brave New World by Aldous Huxley. They dive into what life would be like in the dystopian future, unlikeable characters, Judi Dench vs Marisa Tomei, and how to effectively govern your totalitarianism society.

Transcript for SEO Purposes 🙂

All right, everyone, welcome. Second installment of the Buddy Book Club. A big thank you to our buddies, Pace Car Joe for the intro music. I’m Dylan and I’m joined today by my good buddy, the Luscious librarian Keith. Do I get a new nickname every time? Because I kind of like it. I hope so. If I can continue with the same every time, I will need one today we’re going to be discussing Brave New World by Elvis Huxley. Our last episode, we talked about Holes, a classic young adult novel that if you’re not familiar with, go back and check out episode one. But this week we’re really spreading our wings. I’d say with this book, you would mention in the first episode that our reading levels typically in the young adult section. And then we went to this and yeah, that was a step up. I would say, well, I think that’s still considered young adult read the are you serious? People read this in, like, 8th or 9th grade? Well, we did not. And our conversation here is probably going to be a little bit different than your traditional book club. We’re by no means literary scholars, and we’re not here to pretend to be. We just like to read books and have a laugh while we do it, right? Oh, yeah. I guess without further Ado, let’s just dive right into the book. So it’s a Dystopian novel written in 1009 that set 600 years in the future. So quick math. It’s about 500 years in the future. Good math. Totally right. Yeah. So we’re going to have to not only consider the world that Alvis Huxley built, but also the fact that this book was written about the same time as sliced bread became commonplace. I saw the chocolate chip cookie was invented in 1931, so I was like, oh, shit. What the hell are people doing before? I don’t know. Chocolate chip cookies were cookies invented before that because the chocolate of cookies the number one cookie for sure. Right? I want to say yes, but this is going to be way off topic. I don’t want to say yes without having a guarantee on. So, like I said, Brave New World is written by Aldis Huxley. He was born of a well to do family in Surrey, England, his grandfather, Thomas Huxley, keen supporter of Darwin. So you know, this is some serious shit here. And not only that, probably more importantly than that phenomenal set of sideburns. So if you guys want to take a break and Google the guy Thomas Huxley sideburns insane. Aldis, though, was definitely a deep thinker. He enjoyed a good masculine trip. Eventually later wrote a book on it. Is that true? That makes way more sense. Okay. I did not know that that makes any more sense. Overall, the guy seems like a good hang. You get super high and you talk about weird futuristic shit. So I think we should just jump right into the book because this book is interesting in that the first three chapters of it have almost no character development or even introduction of characters whatsoever. We’re introduced to one character. We’ll get into that shortly. The book opens up with the scene of this factory building, this industrial building. Except instead of building computer chips or car parts, they’re building people. People are coming out of test tubes, and it’s basically a 30 story building where every story is part of the growth of a human being. So I guess the society itself is built on a layer of cast where Alphas are at the top and Epsilon is at the bottom. So if you’re familiar with the Greek Alphabet or joined a frat, then fraternity, come on. You don’t call your country Alpha Beta, Gamma, Delta Epsilon. Those are the casts in this society that all is built. And with Alphas being the highest and Epsilon being the lowest. And so the idea is to mass produce the Gammas and the Epsilon. Yeah. I mean, the beginning, which is very different than I would say. Most books, is just exposition for three chapters. It’s like, here’s what the world looks like. To be honest, my favorite parts were this. We’re like, oh, this is really cool in thinking about this whole futuristic society and coming up with this once it gets in the actual story, I think it kind of sucks, but the actual world building I thought was super interesting and, like, for someone to write this in the thirties, I think it was genius. Like, as you mentioned, this guy’s kind of a good time. Okay. So everyone’s kind of set in terms of what they do for their daily life. So they go to work and then they enjoy their leisure. But it’s not leisure. It’s play. There’s no time for yourself to just sit and think. It’s always going to the feelings which are kind of like going to the movies. I guess their whole thing is like, never be alone and always have something to do. And then if you find yourself in that place, you take Soma which is like, the drug they have. Oh, which, by the way, ecstasy. The drink. No, it’s not like ecstasy. I thought it was. Yeah, that basically makes everyone happy. No, it’s like, maybe. And sexualized. Yeah. I think you read it wrong. But you also can just, like, pass out. Yeah. If you take too much of it, it’s just like, no one’s passing out for ecstasy. I’ll tell you that unless they’re dehydrated, let me tell you what’s wrong with this society here’s. The first thing is that they’re conditioned, right? But once you get told that you’ve been conditioned, you now start to question all conditioning. Right? That’s what the first thing I had issues with is like, if you never tell these people they’ve been conditioned and they’re like, no, this is the way to do things. Then it makes more sense. But once you tell someone like, oh, you’ve only taught that that’s the only reason you think that way. Then you start to question everything. Now. I don’t think so. I think because the conditioning occurs from birth. So it’s so ingrained into their psyche that if an Epsilon sees a book, they’re disgusted by it. I feel like most of the characters in this are Alphas that we’re going to talk about shortly. But I don’t think a lot of people are really questioning it. And then when you do question it, you always have a part of that hypnopedic conditioning to kind of revert you back to your level of homeostasis. That was a big word. But yes, I totally know what that means. All right. Yeah. I see you’re saying in today’s society, what are you conditioned to, I guess, is the question because even the things you get conditioned to as a young person, I feel like you still end up questioning. Is this the right thing to do? Do I want to still do this? And if not, like, for instance, setting the table. It’s like, this is how you set the table. I’m like, why did you do that? I’m so upset about that. Why does the fork have to go on the left? Why does the napkin have to go here on the right? Yeah, exactly. Well, yeah. Once you start questioning things the man, then, you’ll know, I will tell you the things I do, like, the promiscuousness of the society. I mean, what? And you don’t age. I think that’s a huge. And that when you people die, there’s likely. Yes, everyone’s happy. It doesn’t matter. I think those three things kind of make the society pretty awesome. I don’t know about you. There’s definitely some positives with that. I think the death part is nice. You just kind of at the end, you take a bunch of Soma and then you die. Really. The worst thing is people saying those cliche catchy sayings or whatever they all have that would drive me insane. I wouldn’t be able to help. So what you’re talking about is, like, the hypnopedia aspect of, like, so that’s why it’s like, if someone’s upset, it’s like, take us so much

Participant #1:

up. And Adam may be my least favorite one when someone’s like, hey, get up an Adam, I’m like, no, that still angers me to this day. Think about it. But, yeah, that’s kind of the idea. But it’d be like if everyone was conditioned for that since birth. So that’s pretty much the world we’re going to. We’re going to dive into a little bit of the characters here. Yeah. I think the best way to describe these people is to just assign movie characters or people who you saw them as just as a way to like, I know we did that at the end last time, but I think it’d be a good way to be like, hey, if you haven’t read the book here’s who they basically are. Yeah. Well, I guess our main characters are really Bernard Levin and John go through who you have for those. Yeah. Well, I want to give a prequalifier here is that I really did not like any of these characters other than Lennon, who I think was the one person that was actually good. So we got Bernard, who I saw as at the beginning. I thought he’s the hero, and we’ll get into that, obviously. But then eventually he just turns into the worst person. He reminded me of the guy from Lost, the bad guy who’s kind of a social misfit. But then he gets his power at the island and he becomes thrives with it and loves it. That’s Bernard, like, weird mouse looking guy. Yeah, exactly. His name is Michael Emerson, and I apologize for him for calling him weird looking. But you see, I’m saying he’s like this guy. That’s like a misfit. Once he gets an ounce of respectability or power, he takes every single advantage of it, and he’s the quickest one to ditch a friend or ditch any person. Everything is for himself. One of the most hateful characters who started out being like, oh, this is the guy that’s going to overthrow this society type thing, right? That’s what I thought when I first totally agree. When I first read him, I was like, oh, so when his character first comes in, he’s an Alpha or an Alpha plus, but people make jokes about him because he’s a little smaller in statue. Most Alphas are taller and more beautiful looking, and he’s also a little sad and no one’s sad in this society. So he seems to have been a bit unconditioned, which seems we’ll get into this as well, but it seems like it’s pretty easy to become unconditioned in this society. So it seems like he’s going to make the breakthrough of realizing that there’s more out there. What did you have around? Because this is a British novel written by someone British. I went with British characters. Okay, that’s how you do it. I had Daniel Radcliffe as him. I like that I was actually looking at British characters as well, and I was thinking about that. He’s too likable now from Harry Potter, but, yeah, I could definitely see him playing that. You should see some of his other movies. They’re actually pretty good, but yeah, he’s small in stature. He’s kind of greasy looking or could be in this role. So I could see him kind of being like the pouty of the bunch. Who do you have for John the Savage? Okay. So for John the Savage, I had Daniel Kaluya, who’s the guy from Get out as John the Savage, and then just to jump ahead, his father, the director being Hedra Salva. Well, I thought John the Savage, after Bernard let me down, was going to be the next neighbor. And instead he’s out here quoting Shakespeare, playing the martyr complex left and right, and then just beating up kids and women. I was like, Wait, what? Yes, that’s just the background. So I gave it to Elijah Wood. And you know how, like, kind of in The Lord of the Rings, where he’s playing like the martyr the whole time. Like, oh, I’m the only one that can handle this. That’s the kind of whininess that I was expecting out of anti does a great British accent. So I appreciate it. Does he? Okay. Did you see Lord of the Rings? I thought that was the Hobbit accent. Now what? No. British accent. Yes, they’re in a different world. I don’t know what British accent you’re talking about. That doesn’t make sense. Okay, so Elijah Wood, I could see it. And then for Lena, I thought that’d be a perfect Elizabeth Banks, like, free loving, Happygolucky, very redeemable, very likable. That’s what I thought. Oh, interesting. Elizabeth Banks. It’s a 40 year old Virgin version of her. Pretty much. Yeah, I don’t hate that at all. I actually think that’s pretty good. The only problem is that she’s not volumptuous enough because Lena is supposed to be kind of curvy and hot and blonde. So with those in mind, I went with Heather Graham. I’m talking like both sides. Heather Graham? Yeah, I think they’re both very similar. So I’d agree with that. Yeah. Okay. And any other characters? Yeah, the two quick ones for Helmholtz. I would have done Benedict Cumberbatch for your British, like, the intelligent, too smart for society type guy. And then Linda Marisa Tome. I thought that would be a good, older, flirty mom type. Okay, so Hemholtz, I think I win. Colin Firth duh. They’re both British superiors. Come on. But he’s supposed to be a little bit older, so, yes, Linda Marisa Tome. That’s just not going to cut it. Linda is supposed to be, like, overweight. And this is actresses. We’re not going to put someone that’s actually ugly in a book. Okay, they’re going to have less makeup on than they usually would. That’s what the actress would do. That’s there’s nothing. I guess that’s fair. But I went with the Dame Judy Dench. I have to look that up. She’s a James Bond girl. Yeah, please. Am in James Bond. Our British listeners are not going to be happy with that. You’re calling her fat and toothless Jeez. No, I’m just saying she’s an older. She’s supposed to be older and die with that. Can she play the promiscuous? Like she’s like, more of a serious. They call her mom. Is it ma’am or mom in James Bond? Ma’am? It’s Ma’am, but it says it comes across as mum. Okay, well, that’s what I think of her as I disagree with that one. Okay, that’s fair. So let’s get into the actual book itself. Like we said, we’re first introduced to Bernard and Lennon up because this is kind of like after the intro of the society itself. Bernard obviously has something for Lena. And Lennon seems to be interested in Bernard. Bernard is the outcast. Lena is hot to trot. People seem to like her. And we’re introduced to some of the like, you know what the society looks like? Everyone drives around in helicopters. They go to work, then they go play and usually play involves obstacle golf or usually some kind of sport, golf or tennis or squash. And then they go to the Phillies, and then they bang. It’s pretty much like you bang. You take. Soma, yeah. So Bernard, Lena decide to go on a date. He takes her out on her helicopter, and Bernard takes her to the ocean because he says, makes him feel like himself or like a person, which is like, complete blasphemy that someone could feel like a person in this thing. And Lennon is just like, when are we going to go back and bang? Because that’s what we do. This is the real story here, D man. So, first off, short people in this society. Jesus Christ, if you’re, like, under 510 in reading this book, I’d almost put it away because they basically just shit all over. Sort of like, oh, my God. People that are shorter, grotesque. They’re ugly. They’re little cats I can put in my hand. I’m like, oh, that was the most offensive part of this book. In my opinion. It’s really like the entire book is like a typical Bumble profile. If you’re under 61, don’t talk to me. She’s like, you know what? I like this guy. I don’t care that he’s shorter, and all her friends are like, oh, wow. Okay, go with that with them. And she’s like, let’s go get fucked up on all these drugs. Let’s have a good time. And then let’s go back and bang. And he’s like, how about you go watch the ocean? That’s literally the date. That’s all that was. Bernard is the one. See, I get Bernard in this situation. I’m like, hey, Where’s the chase? The chase is always the best. It’s not about when everything is laid out in front of you. Is that fun? No, he’s like, he wants this girl to have feelings for him. Which the idea of having feelings for someone is absurd in this society. The dates over. Bernard Begrudgingly takes somas and banks her. He wakes up the next morning. He’s like, oh, that was gross. I wish I didn’t do that. Yeah, she made the ten, bro. Enjoy yourself. But Bernard’s big goal here is to try to get to one of the reservations, invites Lenin there, and she’s down because she wants to see what the Savages are like. So they head on to the reservation. And at this reservation, it’s what you, I guess, would envision a typical Native American tribe to be like, there they meet our other main character, John, who’s also named the Savage in this. And Linda, his mother. And John grew up in this Native American society, knowing that his mother came from somewhere else. And really, the only thing that John knows about English or anything about the past is Shakespeare, because Linda’s Pimp, I guess Linda’s Pimp gave him a Shakespeare book, and so he pretty much just read all of Shakespeare’s works. So John meets Bernard, and then Bernard immediately realizes this is the director’s kid, and he knows the director has it out for him. So he’s like, I got to bring John back to society. Yeah, a couple of points here. First off, that’s super convenient. You’re about to get kicked out of the society, sent to Iceland. And then you happen to meet what are your chances of meeting? The one thing that could save you from this, which I thought was very immediate. Yeah, it’s like, okay, it’s lazy writing, in my opinion. No, this drives the narrative. But go, we start with John here. He immediately starts whining about not being the person who got whipped, like, okay, weird. All right. And then he’s the guy that shows up and starts quoting Shakespeare. That’s like, the guy that shows up with the guitar, the party. You guys are Wonderwall. Yes. I read the Journal today. Did you guys read the Journal? That’s that guy, the guy that has to tell you about everything that he’s done. That’s so smart. He’s this guy right here the whole time. He’s just the worst. I’m going to disagree. I’m going to disagree. I find John to be an extremely sympathetic character. Like, he’s a man with no home. Really? Like, he was born in this Native American village. Every single character in this book, though it doesn’t fit into society. He’s the only one that’s being this pompous. Oh, like, if things don’t fit my way, then one, I’ll use violence. Two, I’ll quote Shakespeare. Those are the only two. Only two resolutions to things that don’t work for his way. Everyone else has the same issues that he does. See, I’m going to say that John longs for love. He’s read all these Shakespeare books about love and struggle, and he’s felt the struggle in his Native American place because he’s an outcast there. And now he longs for some sort of meaning, some love in his life. And he sees London, and he’s like, oh, this is Roller girl from Bogey Nights. I’m into that. You’re still describing the guy that shows up the guitar, and he’s like, and someone’s like, oh, I really like your guitar. You’re good at singing. He’s like, no, don’t talk to me. You haven’t practiced. Like, I have. This needs to be harder than this is. And you’re like, hey, what? You know what’s? Crazy chicks dig that guy. I know, but dig that guy. I’m just saying, he’s just the worst. I don’t know how you like it. Well, I like him because he’s fallible. You know what I mean? In a real way, as opposed to where all these other characters are just like automatons, like they have the same. They’re tomatoes. They are pieces of a machine. They just do whatever they need to do throughout the day. He at least has some sort of sense of self. And he’s a person. You know what I mean? He’s struggling. He’s trying to be something. If you show up at Rome, kids do the Romans, you don’t just show up there and say, I don’t like any of this. And I’m just going to fuck everything up because it’s not the way I like it. That’s not how the world works. Just because you don’t want to stand in line for something doesn’t mean you can cut the line because that’s what you believe is right. Well, I agree with that. The worst people in the world are line cutters. Well, this is what this guy’s doing. He’s like, well, I view the world this way, and my way is right. And the vast majority of people are wrong. That’s what he’s saying is like, my view is right. Everyone else is wrong. We’ll kind of get into the ideas that he poses later once he talks to the controller, Mustafa Monde later in the book. But for now, after Bernard and Lenina go to visit him on the reservation, Bernard wants to bring him back to society so that he can expose the director because this is his son. John is his son. And John wants to go back to the society because his mom has told him about it. That’s where she’s from. She wants to go back. And also, he wants to spend more time with Flynn because she’s gorgeous. So they bring him back to England real quick. We can’t skip over the part where he sneaks into Lennon’s room, and so it starts sniffing all the shit she has and is like, yeah, I’m into this like, that. Was that not weird? If you haven’t sniffed a seat that someone has, then you haven’t really lived. All right, we’ll throw that one out. We’ll score that one year. So Bernard’s doing this also for Fame because Bernard is a loser. All right. So Bernard wants to bring John back to be like, oh, look, I have a nice new toy, and I’m going to show everyone my nice new toy. And then all these chicks are going to want to bang me because none of the chicks want to bang it. So we got the two guys we got the guy that shows up with, like, the Mustang that’s revving the engine really annoyingly. And then we got the sad loner that shows up the guitar to get attention and says he doesn’t want the attention. That’s where these two characters are right now. You agree with that? Yeah. I mean, I think we can simplify it even more and just say, Bernard’s, the guy who brings the guy with the guitar to the campfire on the beach and tells them about the engine. No, he brings the guy to the beach, and then the chicks are like, wow, he plays such a great guitar, and then you’re like, yeah, you want to talk to him? I know him. He’s my friend. I’m Bernard. I’ll give you that. So he brings him back. And he just starts introducing John to everyone. But after Bernard first introduces John to the director, and those people right. As the director is about to send him being Bernard to Iceland, the director finds out John is his kid huge blow up. Everyone laughs at the director like, Wait, what? This has to be a huge joke. Complete defamatory thing. I can’t imagine in our celebrity structure what this would be like, kind of like, the OBJ liking being shit on. Then it’s probably like, yeah, or like, Des Bryant getting liking to get peed on. Nothing wrong with that. We’ll deal with that. So it’s like, that happening. But everyone is seeing it happen. And then everyone laughing at him hysterically. So Linda’s there. She’s like, oh, I know the director. Yeah, this is your baby. Director has to take, like, 10,000, Soma and just go off into oblivion. We don’t hear about him after that. So luckily, though, for Bernard, for the time being, doesn’t have to go back to Iceland or does not have to get sent to Iceland. And then John somehow just has a free rein in the society. So he’s, like, going around doing his thing. Lena is now super attractive to John. She wants John, but she wants John in her very basic. I just want to bang mentality where John wants her in his Romeo and Juliet idea. He wants to love her, and she doesn’t understand what love is and is so weirded out by him. But she ends up like getting naked in front of him. And he’s like, Whoa, you’re a slut. Get out of here again. My girl Lennon just gets absolutely shit on probably the most shit on character I’ve ever seen. Person. He’s like, yeah, I really like you. And then she gets naked and he’s like, gross, get out of here and then starts beating her up, right? He starts physically attacking her because she wanted to have sex with him, which is like, weird because human nature just animalistically. We’re not conditioned. You can get conditioned out of that. But this guy’s conditioned himself out of that primal instinct. Like, if you’re 20 and a Virgin, there’s no way you’re not ready to go there, right? You’re doing that? Yeah. It wasn’t clear whether John was a Virgin or not. I had the same idea when I read this, I was like, Bro, get up in that. Are you crazy? Like, she’s a smoke. What are you doing? Also, he stabbed Pepe when he sorry. Pepe being his mom’s. Yeah. When they had a monogamous. Monogamous. What’s the word monogamous? Yeah. Relationship. So I don’t really get he’s such a wildcard. He’s so unlikeable in my mind. Okay, well, let’s be clear. There’s nothing monogamous about Linda. Well, yeah, but he popped or Pepe or whatever his name is, is trying to have that, and he goes up and stabs them, but we’re getting behind. How is that? Yeah. Sorry. Go ahead. I’m just trying to establish this fact that the Savage John is just the worst. So John is now kind of like the bearded woman in the circus kind of thing. And he doesn’t like that because people just want to see him to be like seeing with the Savage and see what the Savage is. And all he sees when he looks at these people is they’re all idiots. He doesn’t see a bunch of Alpha. Pluses, he just sees a bunch of stupid people who don’t realize that there’s more to life than waking up, going to work, going to the Feelies, playing obstacle golf and then taking Soma and fucking yourself to sleep. He’s a celebrity that wants all the attention, but only on his terms. So someone comes up and get the cell phone. He’s pissed off at them. That’s who he is. He’s walking Phoenix. Yeah, like, oh, I want all the Fame, and I want all the money, but don’t ever come up to me and don’t even address me. He doesn’t want the Fame, though. I don’t feel like he’s like, if he just wanted a normal life, he could just go back to the reservation. He definitely enjoys the house. He left the reservation for Lenin to try to fall in love. I mean, he asked her to marry him, and she doesn’t even know what that means and just freak the fuck out by it. And that’s when he decides to beat her today, he just beats her into a closet. That kind of ends our second Act, I guess, because then John gets a call about his mom. Yeah, awfully convenient timing again for this. Where it’s just like, all right, let’s shift to the next story. Linda is going to die. Now. It’s like, wait, what? Like, you just get the phone call mid beating her up to be like, all right, I got to go. Now. That’s super good. Whatever phone calls happen at all times, man, I just got one right now. Fair enough. Carry on. It’s not divine intervention or, like, driving a narrative. But either way, it does drive the narrative anyway. So the next act after this phone call. Surprisingly, so, he goes to see his mom, who’s in a hospital pretty much. Although there’s no such thing as a real hospital. She’s just in, like, a dying room. And part of childhood conditioning is that death is not a big deal. Like we talked about the society. So he goes there. And while he’s watching her die, all these kids are running around, like, laughing and joking, because that’s what they’re conditioned to do. They are conditioned to think death is no big deal, which is kind of chill. And again, there are societies that do that that celebrate death. If you showed up there and just started destroying the place because you were pissed that people weren’t being sad, you’d look like a complete psychopath, right? Which is what he does. He looks like a complete psychopath because as his mum’s dying and all these kids are laughing, he starts feeding kids off, and he starts hitting. But at the same time, you have to also think that these kids are all Gammas and Epsilon. So in this dying area is all, like, the low level workers. Yeah. So they’re like, mentally challenged kids. Essentially, he’s beating them up. They’re all twins. They’re all like, twins, which is scary. I imagine them a bunch of MBred people, right? That’s what they are right now. Yeah. I don’t know. He’s not beating up on the disease. Yeah, pretty sure he is. But either way, he’s pretty fucking pissed about all these kids and his mom dies, and then he just needs to get out of there. So on his way out of there, he goes to the lobby and in the lobby is all these Gammas and Epsilons that are getting off of work. And so at the end of the day, when everyone’s getting off work, they’re trying to get their Somal ration, because that’s what you do at the other day, right? Yeah. You go to the bar, and this guy doesn’t want anyone to have a good time. Let’s go to a happy hour. No, fuck your happy hour. He snaps and decides to throw everyone’s Soma rations out the window and all the people revolt on him and basically try to tear him apart. But Hemholtz gets word of what’s happening, as does Bernard. And they rush down there and Hemholtz goes all in. He’s all in with John. Hemholtz is like, yeah, let’s fucking fight the good fight my brother. And they go down like, the 300 at thermopoli and they’re just fighting off. I think they were midgets. I think they were midgets in the book. So he’s just fighting off hordes of midgets. And Bernard is the biggest pussy ever. This is where you hate Bernard the most because he wants to help those guys, but also doesn’t want to look bad. So he’s just like, I’ll just kind of pretend he’s like, up in Saving Private Ryan. He’s an ammo guy. Yeah. He’s like, can’t do anything. So he’s acting like he’s doing something, but really isn’t. And then when eventually the police come in and they start spraying everyone down with Soma, like, aerosol. Soma which sounds fucking phenomenal. Get me a fucking gun of aerosol. Soma I would love that. Give me a CPAP machine of aerosolsoma every night because of that, everyone gets quelled down. But then Bernard, John, and Hemholtz get taken to the top. They get taken away to Mustafa Man’s office. That is the controller, only one of ten in the world. And Mustafa Man turns out to be like a pretty chill dude. Yeah. So he’s obviously the big controller of the whole society, and his job is to keep society in order for his section. And he sympathizes with John and Hemholes. Bernard’s scared the whole time that he’s being sent to Iceland because he’s a pussy, immediately turns on his friends and throws them out of the box instantly instantly the worst person a fucking rat in comparison to our last book. He’s zigzag cross eye. But it turns out Mustafa Mon. He knows Shakespeare, which immediately John is floored because he thought everyone in this society was a bunch of automatons. Like I said before, and he’s like, Whoa, wait. You know Shakespeare, then we have this really deep. This is probably if you’re just going to read one chapter in this book, I think this tells a lot and just read this chapter at least chapter 16. And the idea of a lot of it is pretty much happiness. And he’s pretty much saying Mustafaan is saying that we’ve created happiness here. Everyone is happy. There’s no strikes. There’s no issues, nothing is going on between these people. They enjoy what they’re doing. And John’s idea of happiness is that happiness has to come from something like happiness without suffering isn’t happiness. If everyone started off with this happiness, they’re not in Musafama’s mind. They’re not actually happy. It’s just like they’re just machines. Yeah, there’s no baseline for what happiness isn’t exactly happiness is that baseline? So it’s just blah. But I feel like you do need those down moments in life. It’s like working for something to achieve. It’s like when you play team sports. No one likes practice, no one likes the running, but all that turns into W. And then if it comes ecstatic. But if you get WS just by doing nothing, it’s like why child stars are so fucked up is because they have to find a new barometer for happiness, right? Because they’re basically given every possible thing everyone else is trying to achieve when they’re twelve years old. Let’s say so. What do you do now? What’s the next thing you can do to actually surpass that? It was like nothing. So they get all fucked up on drugs and other shit like that. Maybe Soma whatever. Yeah, definitely get some. Somas. Yeah. I mean, I would truthfully say that anyone that hasn’t read this book and just like, wants to learn a little bit of philosophy or think about stuff. Just read this chapter and you don’t even have to know the characters. But the conversation between the two is so interesting. Science is a big factor here, too, because science is what this society is built on. But no one knows how science works. They just push the buttons and something else using a computer. I don’t know how fucking computer works. I don’t know how our voices are being carried over the airwaves, but I know how to do it which is also interesting for other Dystopian ideas when people see in other books and stuff like that. When people see these old technologies and they’re like, what was that? It reminds me of when Rome was obviously, the Roman Empire was taken all the way out. At least the Western Roman Empire was taken all the way out to England and then reverted back. And then the Barbarians took down Rome. And then people saw these roads like, these Roman roads in these aqueducts. And this is hundreds of years later. And they’re like, what are these? What is this? These are plumbing structures, like, Whoa, what is this? And it’s just so crazy to think, like, now we feel like everything is going to be this way forever. But if anything was to happen and someone found a computer, you would have no idea what it was. Yeah, for sure. That’s a good point. Yeah, it’s pretty crazy. So basically, at the end of this conversation, we stop him on good guy. Like we said, he gives John a bunch of literature, which is awesome. It’s all pornography according to them, because you can’t have this stuff. But what does he say? He says, Ford on the shelf and religion in the safe or something like that, which I found was funny. It was kind of like, whatever in the streets and a Hoe in the sheep. That’s probably where it came from. Something feels bad for these guys. And so he offers to send Hamilton to an island, which this whole time we thought Islands have been horrible. But he’s like, hey, Islands is where we send all these smart people that are thinkers like you. So you actually might have some good conversations there. And Hamilton’s like, yeah, that’s actually a good point. I’m going to go write my book, so he sends him away. Bernard, also, luckily, gets a similar treatment, and John asked for it, but instead they’re like, no, we want to keep you here for science experiment, to see the Savage in our society. And he’s like, oh, hell no. I’m headed to some Lighthouse in the middle of nowhere, which kicks off act for and in that, John heads to this island, and he kind of just reverts to what he remembered from the Native American tribes slash, like, a little bit of Silas from Angels and demons. It’s dimension code. I haven’t read Angels demons yet. This is kind of just, like, sad to me. And I don’t really get it because he’s, like, chastising himself for loving a harlot. This is where the martyr syndrome comes in, where he thinks he knows better than everyone else, and he can’t deal with society instead of just, like, going out figuring out a new way to live. He’s like, no, fuck everyone else. I don’t know if you tell my animosity towards that. Yeah, you have some animosity, and we’ll finish this up quickly here because there’s not really a lot left in terms of the book itself before we break into the things we liked and didn’t like. But he basically goes and does this until people hear about it. And then he becomes a sideshow again. People want to see him. They fly out there. They’re like, oh, come on, whip yourself again. Whip yourself again. He doesn’t like being a creature in a cage. Basically, Lennon comes and he starts to beat her. And then basically. And then he doesn’t want to live in a society. And then the way it’s written, too, I’m the only one probably ever that didn’t realize he hanged himself. But I didn’t learn that until I looked it up after. But the way it’s written is like, then he sees his shoes and they’re like, Savage, what are you doing? And then he swings left and then right or northwest. I’m like, what does the Compass have to do with anything right now? And then the book ends. I was like, what the fuck this had to do with him earlier when he was saying when he first got to the Lighthouse and he was like, I look southwest and I see the fields and I look northwest and I see the city. Our characters at the end is Johnstead. Hemholtz is probably having a great time on the Islands, enjoying himself. Bernard’s probably sad, like he always is. Lennon. Nothing has changed. She’s still out there. She’s just putting herself out there and getting rejected and beat up by abuse of people like Sabbath or John. She’s stromitting around. So in terms of Dystopian worlds, I thought this one was pretty interesting. Where does this rank in your Dystopian world? Yes, it’s a good question. We have some reader emails or listener emails right there, too. We can go into this too, while I’m pulling that up. I would say that this, I think, and probably letting the cat of the bag. But I would not recommend this one. But I would say this could have been much better if had we got thrown in chapter to chapter four, basically, start the book where you’re introduced to society. You don’t know anything about it. And now you meet this guy, Bernard, who’s like, this malcontent, blah, blah, like society. You don’t know anything about conditioning. And then you kind of find that out at the end where it’s like, oh, this makes sense. Why everyone’s like this. You just think like, oh, it must be summer. Must be something going on here, but that I think if you reordered the structure of the book and kind of made that so you didn’t understand what was going on. Much more desire to figure out what’s going on in society rather than just be like, here’s a society. Here’s a shitty story here’s. More of a society. That’s kind of how I read it. Yes. I think you could definitely write a better book than all the Soxley. I agree. First of all, I’m here to critique things. All right, I’m trying to make him better. I’ll talk to all this. First of all, great name Aldis. Yeah. So his name came from I think his aunt wrote a book, and one of the characters in her book was named Aldis, and his mom decided to name him after his aunt’s character from that book. Okay, this is an email from Miko from New Hampshire. I believe he said, hey, guys, love the pod. Great listening. I’ve been listening for this whole time. For the first episode. I might have made that first part up. You’re both awesome. Anyways, he said, here’s my list of favorite Dystopian books and movies. Let me get what you guys think. After reading this one, he listed Minority Report, Blade Runner, Planet of the Apes, which I don’t know if he meant the new one or the old 119 84 and then Terminator or RoboCop. So, yeah, I think that was a pretty good start. What do you have on your top list? Well, I guess my bottom list, my bottom list is one, and it’s The Matrix. That would be awesome. All right. The second and third movie is fine. No, the movies are phenomenal. I think the movies themselves are pieces of art. Okay. What do you mean, bottom list then? In terms of living in that society. Okay. Got you. Okay. Yeah. In terms of living in that society, just keep me in the Matrix. I’m good. Yeah, you’re in the steak and you’re like, I know this isn’t real, but whatever. I’ll continue when Cyrus or whatever that guy is doing that I’m like, yeah, give me that. I agree with that. Did you see the new behind the scenes clip of Dwight with The Matrix saying, yeah, I saw that exactly. I was the same way. I was like, yeah, I’m pretty chill here. I just got promoted. I’m good. In terms of Dystopian futures. I’m into total recall is up there for me. Minority reports are no, because I’d be arrested, like, a hundred times. What’s more, please? Indulge. I don’t know. Ask the precogs. All right. But, yeah, I’m out on that. And one of the other ones he said was pretty good too, but I can’t remember. But thank you, Miko. We appreciate that. And we also think you’re awesome as well. What about you? I just listed my favorite in the genre, but I guess best societies. I think the worst society would also be V for Vendetta, which would be kind of more of a probably potential real life situation. Yeah. I mean, these are all totalitarian societies. Yeah, as far as it comes, which I’m going to get into shortly about the difference between these two, because on top of my mind, but yes, that is all. I also think we are living currently with the situation we’re in now and ready, player one, at least for me, basically sitting at home all day doing work and then playing video games for the rest of the day and watching movies and TV. That’s literally all ready play ones. About right. That’s relatable. All you need is the drone Domino’s, the what when they send the pizza via drone. That’s coming soon, though, I’m sure. So that society is very relatable. I don’t think there’s really any Dystopia that you would really like. I don’t know the total recall one, right? Isn’t that like it’s kind of like the feelings, except you just go into a place and you can just like it’s like VR. It’s like Super Immersive VR. That’s kind of like the Inception thing where you start to not know what real life is, which would kind of be kind of scary. Yeah. Okay. That’s fair. Did you see while you read this book? I thought there were so many parallels to today’s society. Did you see anything that you thought was a note? Yeah. I think this guy did a really good job with, I think, a point of consumerism drugs to basically make you happy. Obviously, these are things that are probably happening in the 20s, too. So things are quite cyclical, if you will. I thought the author himself is genius. I just think the story wasn’t as captivating as I wanted it to be. Yeah. I thought the story was going to be more I just expected. I think we’ve also been conditioned for these distinctive hero story. Exactly. I hear that. And there was no real hero in this. And so the idea of like, oh, this guy’s going to kind of break down the entire structure and free people 1984, I thought was great. It ended with them him losing. Right. Like, there’s no hero on that either. But I thought that was a much better spoiler alert, but that’s another Dystopia where at the end he breaks and becomes part of the society, which I thought was a good ending of the book there’s no, he breaks everything. Well, I just thought it was so interesting, especially in the Internet age, that we’re in how much of this society is us in the sense of we all go to work, especially now with during the pandemic, when everyone’s just, like, on their computer. The idea of a cubicle monkey is pretty much my job and a job that a lot of people have where you don’t really know exactly what you’re doing, but you’re doing it. And then how do you deal with that? At the end of the day, you go to the feelings for me. I watch movies, I read books and I take my Soma, which is either a couple of drinks, puff of a joint, and then I use that to go to sleep. The only thing that’s missing is the proscurity. Ladies hit me up. It did kind of stick me a little bit with, like, what the hell am I doing? And for a book written in 1931 that has nothing to do with anything that I’m doing today. It’s about assembly line people. It was fascinating to me that kind of struck home. So the book in general, where are you calling BS? Because that’s really what I’m interested in, I guess from what angle are you taking the BS side of things? All right, well, here’s mine. I’ll leave you with this. My BS is that this site has been around. Well, for starters, a quick one. He references that the New York Times came out to see him. This is 650 years in the future. The New York Times is already on its last leg. There is 0% chance 650 years. Just make up a fucking random newspaper or whatever. But my main BS is that for this society to exist and to continue to exist, the idea that you need people to maintain condition into what you’ve created them to be seems to be of the utmost importance. Yet they are often letting people go unconditioned and not do anything about it. The worst thing that happens is they send them to some island somewhere, like Iceland or whatever, and they just forget about them. But they’ve already talked about how killing people, aka, like putting them into the Crematorium creates phosphorus, which helps fuel the society. Why aren’t you killing more people? More people should be dying. Yeah. Where is the Gestapo? Especially since they don’t think death is that big of a deal. So then therefore you could just easily kill off people. Yeah, I agree exactly. The individual doesn’t matter. Yeah. So when someone like Bernard starts having these weird ideas, don’t Hoo and humble. The only person that gets informed is his direct boss. Like, no, you called the Gestapo and they come in and they kill this guy in your society. That’s what happened. Also, they just let John, who’s a Savage and has these radical ideas that can easily decondition mass amounts of people. They just let him roam around society. What? Why is John even existing? Why is this reservation even existing? They anthrax millions of people. Why wouldn’t you just anthrax this whole reservation? It just doesn’t make any sense to me. Why are not more people being you want more people murdered? Yeah. Okay. More mass genocide. I want it to be done. I want this to be the creation of Communist China. I want fucking pole pot in Cambodia. I don’t want that in real life, but this society to function. I just don’t get why they’re not killing more people. It makes sense when they’re talking to him in chapter 16. He’s very cavalier about. Hey, guys, what’s going on? This is what we do. This is how we do it. And he even mentioned, oh, we could kill you all. But why would we do that? We can just send you to an island. It’s like, why wouldn’t you? I feel like the sequel to this would be an island revolt. Yeah, that was my big deal. Yeah, I had the same issue with the conditioning thing. Again, once you learn about conditioning, you then become unconditionaled, in my opinion, like, Sesame Street, right? That conditions kids. The guy, the narrator in the actual book had the Sesame Street voice when he was talking about the conditioning. So it really hit home with me with that. But once you learn, those are just fucking puppets that really kind of takes away the mystique right. Wait, hold on. Do you listen to the audiobook, right? Yeah. Bbc version. Do you know who narrated that? No. Austin, no, it’s Basel expedition. Are you serious? Yeah, bro. It was Basil Expedition that narrated that book. All right. We didn’t talk about it, but during the origin scene, he went to another. I had to turn the volume down because I was listening on speaker mode. I was brushing. It was very aggressive. That’s my mother. All right. I got to relisten almost now. I did not know that exactly. I found out early, and I was like, dying. Just wait for you to text and be like, hey, that’s the biggest reveal that always changes the whole book for me. I did not know that. No, it’s a daughter, Vanessa. All right, let’s get into the would you recommend the book? Yes or no? Yes. I would recommend the book, but it was very good. It was way better than Station Eleven. That’s the bottom. I just don’t need to take a shot off the side. Jesus. Okay. Yeah. So it’s definitely a classic. I think the parallels to today are super interesting. I don’t think like you said, the story is phenomenal, but I think the ideas are really interesting. Okay. I think, you know, I would not recommend I think you have great appreciation for classics where I like classics. But I also then think like, oh, they could be made better, in which they think they have a lot of the Dystopian movies now steal from this, but I think they make it a better story than this one does. So, you know, for me on this one, unfortunately. Yeah. I think it’s also, like, time and place. I wonder what Dystopian novels were being created before this, because this is so out there. But to us, it doesn’t seem like it’s that out there because, right. I watch this stuff all the time. You brought this to a publisher today. They throw it out the window because the first three chapters and how he writes it is. So there’s no reason for it. Usually there’s some mechanism behind, like, weird writing. You kind of figure that out down the line. And this one is just like, I’m just throw this weird fucking writing in for the first three chapters and you’re like, okay, you know what? I appreciate that stuff because I feel like so much that we read today is like, movies today where it has to be. You don’t wait 45 minutes to see Jaws in Jaws. It’s like, I need to show the bad guy. There’s no alien anymore. I’m not trying to be too old timey and talk for my rocking chair, but I just like the idea that something different. Okay, just that waste. Okay, that’s fair. I did have a pop quiz for you. If you want to do that, I know it’s going to be all right. Well, the first three chapters, I had to stop multiple times and look up words. I made a list of the best five or that I didn’t know. I’m very interested to see if you will know them. I’m going to fail. You know how I read these also. So the first one viscosity viscosity. It’s like a thick fluid, right. That is correct. Ding, Ding, Ding. One for one. Sent editiously. Pardon me. Did I read that incorrectly? Sentitiously? Like being thoughtful. Like saying it from a thoughtful form of mind being sent? Yes. Okay. Given to moralizing in a pompous or affected manner, which I think that you said. Okay. Yeah. I guess. Suffuse. Suffuse. Yeah. I can use it, like suffuse it to say it being obvious. I don’t know. Right. Gradually spread through or over suffuse. I might have said it wrong, but her cheeks were suffused with color.

Participant #1: Okay. I could have used it. Give me a user sentence. Pneumatic, which is used very often. Yeah. Pneumatic is used very often. It’s a mechanical thing. So I would say it’s just like, I don’t know. Like using it within a piston. I don’t really know. It is contained or operated by air, gas or under pressure. Oh, piston. There we go. Yeah, that spot on. And I shout out to touluma great song, but that has nothing to do with that word, apparently because that’s the virtual spirit or soul or creative force of a person. So I thought it was the same thing. I kept on reading it like that. I think it is the same thing, but it’s just a person as opposed to right. It’s one philosophy. Okay. And then the last one, which is used a lot too, is viviparis viviparis. It means like having a child, like normally, through a vaginal connection. Wow. What do you get on your SAT’s? English. Jesus. Must be nice. I don’t know. 700. Oh, wow. We got a smack guy here. Yeah. Is that what it means? Yeah. Having vaginal children, bringing forth life through the development inside the body, but with the parents. So that was more of a. Yeah. There you go. Kids through a vagina. Do you want to touch on anything else on your end or you want to touch on the next book before we touch the next book, I want to know your favorite sport. I was having a tough time. I only mentioned, like, two sports. There was like golf, optical golf and also something macro energy golf or magnetic energy golf. Yeah. Do they really describe them? Right. They’re kind of just like so my problem with obstacle golf is obstacle golf. Is that what golf is? Yeah, that’s obstacle golf. My favorites were the bathroom calcium blaster, which basically after you get out of the shower, it just sprays you with talcum powder. We now know that talcum powder leads to cancer, so I wouldn’t suggest doing that, but the idea is phenomenal. So don’t put any more of that false stuff on sex hormone chewing gum. Yeah. Love that. What’s the stuff that guys use to get their Dicks hard. What’s it called Viagra Viagra? Like Viagra chewing gum? Yeah, that’s awesome. Don’t mind if I do a vibrant vacuum massage machine, which they say they need and suck. So it’s basically a mixture of, like, a massage wand and a Dyson vacuum. So it seems phenomenal, but it’s a good thing they don’t exist because it would pretty much make men obsolete. This guy pretty much talked about televisions before television has existed. He talked about televisers, which did they not exist then? No, they didn’t exist in the future. Okay, good enough. And then in terms of sports, we have Escalator squash centrifugal Bumble puppy, which is funny because it’s a kids game, but it really sounds more like a dog game. It’s basically like that thing that people have for their dog. We throw a ball into and it shoots the ball out, but kids play it okay. It seems like the worst game of it’s, like 360 degree game of 500, but it’s too random. It seems more like a dog toy than a real game. We already talked about Oxford golf. Well, women’s heavyweight wrestling was the thing that people really like to watch. So for me, that’s what I want to bet on in the society. Women’s heavyweight wrestling. I think we’re going to kind of reel it in a little bit for the next book and do something more topical to today and something that is probably more of a fun beach read, wouldn’t you say for sure. Next book, The Hunting Party by Lucy Foley. It’s a murder mystery. I actually read her book after this one, which I thought was pretty good. It should be an easy read, should not have as much deep thought and philosophy in it and be more of a do you like this person? Do you not like them? Who do you think the murderer is type, which is going to be more up my alley? I would say, yeah, I’m excited. Cool. Anything else? Wrap up. I’m glad we did this book, and I think that it takes to the point of this podcast we’re trying to create here is just mix it up random, do something different and explore different ideas and different themes and different genres. But no matter what we’re doing, we’re having a good time with it. So it’s always good to talk to you, buddy. And I’m excited for our next one. Agreed. And quick shout out. The TV show actually is pretty good. Watch. The first episode liked it. I think they did really good take on in today’s society what it would look like. And there’s massive amounts. Promiscuity if you will get it yet. Monkeys got him. All right. Good to talk to you. Take care, everybody. Love you.