Huxley on Happiness and Comfort Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Huxley on Happiness and Comfort - Essay Example Soma is a very one-dimensional euphoriant. It gives rise to only a shallow, unempathetic and intellectually uninteresting well-being. Apparently, taking soma doesn't give Bernard Marx, the disaffected sleep-learning specialist, more than a cheap thrill. The drug is said to be better than promiscuous sex - the only sex brave new worlders practice. Huxley implies that by abolishing nastiness and mental pain, the brave new worlders have got rid of the most profound and sublime experiences that life can offer as well. The clear implication of Brave New World is that any kind of drug-delivered happiness is "false" or inauthentic. Brave New World is a utopia conceived on the basis of species-self-interest masquerading as a universal paradise. Social stratification is institutionalized in a five-way genetic split. There is no social mobility. Alphas invariably rule, Epsilons invariably toil. Huxley' Brave New World does not encourage romantic love whereas they are conditioned to be sexually promiscuous; as such everyone belongs to everyone else. [www.huxley.net] In Current Issues and Enduring Questions, Sylvan Barnet in his Chapter 31 has presented a brief overview about happiness and thoughts of various experts relating to happiness. Happiness, anciently termed as "eudaimonia" by the Greeks was subscribed to a particular type of eudaimonism in which the notion of virtue is central despite the difference between Socrates, Plato, Aristotle and the Stoics. [Juha Sihvola, 1] Epictetus has stressed to win happiness by wishing for the good things among those that are truly our own, i.e., in our power, and not to wish for things that are not truly in our power. Compared to the good things in our power, things that most people take to be good but are not in their power are indifferent. The most succinct statement on Epictetus view of the best possible condition for a human being to be in is: "Do not seek to have events happen as you want them to, but instead want them to happen as they do happen, and your life will go well." [www.echeat.com] S. B arnet has stressed to live a happy and solitary, natural life and die alone, as mentioned in the last stanza of Ode on Solitude by Alexander Pope. Further he has also stated the strong message taken from Rubaiyat of Oman Khayyam which tells that every boy who read the Koran or studies the traditions in his presence would assuredly attain to honor and happiness.[Sylvan Barnet and Hugo Bedau] Bertrand Russell belief that the success of a journey depends on knowledge of the destination, that happiness is not a figment of the mind, that there is no such thing as perfect happiness, that happiness is dependent on a combination of internal and external causes, that fear hinders the good life and that benevolence is a disposition towards helping other people.[www.findarticles.in] From the Alice James point of view, even wealth or being born in a highly intellectually family or even the best luxurious living can't give guaranteed happiness. In From the Diary of Alice James, Alice James wrote that she found her only happiness in form of affection received from Katherine, her constant companion and her brother Henry who visited daily. [Frank Albrecht] The Dalai Lama quoted that there is a definite, commensurate