Brave New World

The novel Brave New World, written by Aldous Huxley, was first published in 1932. It is set about 600 years in the future, in a world of genetic engineering, social conditioning, mass electronic entertainment and tranquilizer drugs. This world is experienced through the eyes of John, a man who has lived outside it and is regarded as a stone-age savage, though he is in fact a lot like us.

The title of the novel was taken from a line in William Shakespeare's final play The Tempest, first performed in 1613. In this play, the wizard Prospero and his daughter Miranda live alone on a remote island and Miranda, meeting other humans for the first time, exclaims 'How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world that has such people in it!' Her father's dismissive response is '`Tis new to thee', implying that all might not be as wonderful as it first seems. ('Brave' here does not mean 'heroic' or 'courageous', but has an older meaning of 'fine' or 'splendid')

Prospero's feelings of cynicism and unease are also expressed in Huxley's novel, and its title has made its way into the language as an expression of these feelings, usually towards new things that are seen as threatening, especially new technology. For example we have the brave new world of 'designer babies and laboratory-grown human organs', of 'disease-resistant crops and genetically engineered animals' or of 'cyber-banking and one-stop shopping'.

Because the phrase has become so familiar it is often altered, giving us 'Sky TV's efforts to create a brave new era of sport for all', or 'the brave new face of local government', or 'the brave new frontiers of health care'.

Expressing a more optimistic outlook, the British statesman Sir Thomas More published a book called Utopia in 1516 in which he described an imaginary island containing his idea of the perfect society. 'Utopia' is Greek for 'nowhere'.

This title is now used to refer to imagined worlds that might be desirable but are also perhaps unrealistic, for example 'a Utopia in which humanity will enjoy peace and prosperity', or 'a dream of a socialist utopia'. It can also be used as an adjective, as in 'a utopian vision of a world in which social problems can be solved without conflict'.

Taking the opposite view around 400 years later, the 19th century philosopher John Stuart Mill coined the word 'dystopia' to refer to a future in which things were about as bad as they could be. So Jeff Noon is described as 'author of the science fiction dystopias Vurt and Pollen'. This word can also be used as an adjective: the comic 2000 AD has been described as 'a dystopian vision of the future full of strange alien races, flying pods and powdered food'.

Of course, one of the best known dystopias, or dystopian novels, is Brave New World, which brings us back to Aldous Huxley again.

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