Chris Baker

I've been wondering why Peacock's Brave New World is leaving me so cold. Then it hit me. Maybe the problem isn't the show. Maybe, just maybe, Aldous Huxley simply doesn't have anything to say in today's dystopian landscape. There is an intimate relationship between utopia and dystopia. Any attempt to create a utopia for some will concurrently create a dystopia for others. Just as freedom for some is purchased with the bondage of others, happiness for some is purchased with the misery of others. But for a work of dystopian fiction to work, it must deconstruct a viable utopian ideal, a fantasy that people on some level believe in. Is the utopia Huxley's dystopia warns us against such a fantasy any more? I'm sure someone smarter than me could write an essay connecting neo-liberalism and big pharma, toss in some existentialism, some vague mysticism, take a few digs at technocrats who conflate technological and social progress, assuming that every social problem has a technological solution, and call it a day. I'd even be interested in reading that essay if you'd like to write it. It's been a long time since I've read Huxley. I was a different person back then. I'll have to pick up the book again, I guess. I wonder, however, if it will be worth the effort. Anyway, as far as I can tell, the cast is great and no cost was spared on production values. It looks gorgeous on my TV. And I'm just not that into it.