Posted on 04/18/2025 5:45:50 AM PDT by karpov
Thirty years before the fall of communism, Karol Wojtyła began to see that if a successful defense of the “metaphysical sense and mystery” of the human person were not mounted and then embodied in the institutions of society and culture, the results would be terrible indeed: Bad ideas would have awful consequences. And the result would not be George Orwell’s totalitarian dystopia, described in the novel 1984; the result would be the soft-totalitarian dystopia of manufactured and genetically manipulated humanity described in the other great mid-20th-century dystopian novel, Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World.
Huxley, it must be admitted, was not a very distinguished novelist; no one reads Brave New World for its literary elegance, the depth of its characterizations, or the subtleties of its plot. But Aldous Huxley was a genius at seeing into the darker possibilities of a dystopian future created by a science unhinged from the “metaphysical sense and mystery” of the human person—a science that would be guided by a distorted morality derived from the collapse of metaphysics.
Thus, Huxley’s genius was not just that, in the late 1920s, he foresaw the possibility of a new and dehumanizing biotechnology, three decades before the discovery of the double helix structure of DNA by James Watson, Francis Crick, and Rosalind Franklin made modern genetics possible. Huxley also saw how this new power, detached from the deep truths about the dignity of the human person—including those deep moral truths embedded in the world and in us, and accessible to reason—would inevitably lead to a culture of manufactured, chemically induced “happiness,” manipulated socially by a seemingly benign but in fact totalitarian political system.
(Excerpt) Read more at jamesgmartin.center ...
Aldous’ family were famed scientist so he didn’t really” miraculously “ see into the future! Also he was a good writer, so I disagree with the author of this article’s premise.
DARPA'S synthetic biology is beyond possibility. mRNA vaxx test on the world is proof enough of that.
Why would anybody think there was an acceptable reason to develop synthetic biology?
This book is fiction; a flight of fancy! The arty is quite strange , I didn’t write it, so I am unable to to answer your query.
Having not read the book you mentioned, nor even heard of it and that author, I really can’t offer any kind of opinion.
Myself, not being of science, I don't see any worthwhile need.
“Elites would retain their moral standards, while the hoi polloi would be allowed to degenerate.”
The way it seems to be working out is the elites have completely abandoned moral standards and virtue. They live hedonistic lives and work actively to dismantle the guardrails of a civil society. Their war on civilization has been particularly effective in urban areas.
Christianity still survives in flyover country where the schisms in some of the large protestant denominations are resulting in diminishing congregations and closures of churches. Drive through small towns across the US and you will see old church buildings repurposed or abandoned. One of the worst side effects of the Covid 19 pandemic was a precipitous decline in church attendance which has not been reversed.
What happened?
Nor can one expect any different from the people who habituated "droit du seigneur."
Christianity still survives in flyover country where the schisms in some of the large protestant denominations are resulting in diminishing congregations
As planned. Methinks it was "a thing" among the Masonic hierarchy. Witness Joseph Smith.
One of the worst side effects of the Covid 19 pandemic was a precipitous decline in church attendance which has not been reversed.
I'm working on a foundational thesis toward that end. Unfortunately, the Church will have to abandon some long-held central tenets based in what I regard is an errant interpretation of the Torah to get there. It's more likely the work will PO just about everybody regardless of its relative accuracy.
Many in the Huxley family were scientists and IIRC, one of them wrote something about Darwin's theories.
Aldous was a member of the rather BOHEMIAN, but all of them mostly aristos and wealthy BLOOMSBURY GROUP, in his younger years.So the ideas of "free love", dope ( which during the years following WW I were rampant amongst THE GAY YOUNG THINGS set, in London, the introduction of "soma" was not all that startling, all things considered. And neither was the ELITES ruling, as well as the descriptions of the class system in the book, any different from the way those people saw the world!
I had to read BRAVE NEW WORLDS as required SUMMER READING, just before I went to boarding school ( yes, I was 13 ), and though I was a bit too young and perhaps sheltered to "get" all of it, at that time, I liked it and so...then read EVERYTHING he ever wrote.
Many of Huxley's fiction is just based on life and people whom he knew. And in BNW...he just assumed that that's how things would still be in the future!v
Take contraceptives...at that time, they were NOT easy for most women to get...in BNW...EVERYONE not only has them, but wears a belt to hold them, all the time.
Just as Orwell based 1984 on what he knew only too well about stinking Commies, he used what he knew, wrote the book as an explicit WARNING, but set it all in the future.
You do understand I’m referring to DARPA’s modern day interests and not Huxley?
Oh, okay. I was just trying to give some background and facts. THis article is just dumb.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.