''Hug me till you drug me, honey;
Kiss me till I'm in a coma;
Hug me, honey, snuggly bunny;
Love's as good as soma."
One part of Brave New world that I found particularly interesting is the consumption of the drug ‘soma’. It is some sort of narcotic/ hallucinate, much like an opiate. It acts like a tranquilizer, or an anesthetic. Every body in the world state uses it, and is given out with weekly paychecks. People can take small amounts and feel happier, or can take more and completely check out on a mental vacation. Bernard is considered unusual and suspect for not wanting to use it. The people have been conditioned to think that emotions are distasteful and so detrimental – totally not worth dealing with. But to the reader it really isn’t as great as they claim. Linda ends up dying on it, and John the Savage commits suicide on it. Soma is actually pretty unappealing, as it is only a vacuous escapism. The people in the world state love and worship it, but that only plays into the total consequence of behavioral conditioning and scientific utopianism. Soma is a form of stability and persuasion and religious- replacement. Even in the world state, people naturally want religion of some kind. Karl Marx called religion the opium of the people; in Huxley's Brave New World Soma is substituted for religion.
But is the idea that pleasure enhancing drugs in such ubiquity be something of fiction? While Prozac wasn’t invented in the 30’s, I think Huxley was on to something. Substances seem to be the only way people are getting ahead these days. Tranquilizers, steroids, and anti-depressants are so normal now.
We all are pretty aware of what substances can do. We’ve all seen people zombied-out on something or another. Whether they are prescribed or not, they do mess with you. How widely prescribed these SSRIs are prescribed, they might as well be handed out with our pay checks. What Huxley shows is a very political side to what we put in our bodies. These drugs are designed to make our lives better, but who is to say what is better? Often times they aren’t really our conscious decision to better ourselves, but rather to sedate us into accepting the world as we know it.
The ubiquity of comfort drugs is undeniable. I think Americans are extremely overmedicated. Similar to the Brave New World population, they are taking drugs too readily and carelessly. Of course, some people truly need medicine to escape harmful and sometimes fatal diseases, but the majority of drug use is treat common, livable conditions. People all too often relay on drugs as the first method of treatment; ignoring the power of diet, exercise or behavior changes. I think to some degree the pharmaceutical companies have become our god and we accept their drugs as our religion.
ReplyDeleteThis is a subject in which I have myself often been torn about. I believe there is something in the world to cure everything, finding it is the problem though. I do agree that sometimes prescription drugs are handed out all too quickly, I mean honestly, any kid (grade school, high school, college) can walk into the doctor's office, pretend like they can't pay attention for 45 minutes and there they are with a prescription of aderol that they're giving out to their friends and in some cases selling to others. On the other hand, I do believe there is an enormously large group of people in the world who are not being helped correctly, especially those with depression and anxiety issues. Sometimes the medications they are given that are suppose to try and make them better actually end up making them suicidal instead. It's like gambling, taking the risk that hopefully leads you to the rewarding happiness in the end. Overall I think like everything in life there is a right and wrong way, a way to use and a way to abuse, and I think drugs are just another one of these groups in existence.
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