Brave New World

I was reading a CNN article today about a children's book, "And Tango Makes Three" that has again topped the American Libriaries Association's list of Challanged Books. It's about two male penguins hatching a baby penguin in the Central Point Zoo in New York. I'm not making any comment on that here, but I clicked over the ALA's website to read more on the subject and found their Top Ten list of Frequently Challenged Books for 2010:

1.“And Tango Makes Three” –– Peter Parnell and Justin Richardson.
2.“The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian” –– Sherman Alexie.
3.“Brave New World” –– Aldous Huxley.
4.“Crank” –– Ellen Hopkins.
5.“The Hunger Games” –– Suzanne Collins.
6.“Lush “–– Natasha Friend.
7.“What My Mother Doesn’t Know” –– Sonya Sones.
8.“Nickel and Dimed” –– Barbara Ehrenreich.
9.“Revolutionary Voices” –– edited by Amy Sonnie.
10.“Twilight” –– Stephenie Meyer

And I'm not going to comment about this list either, but hasn't every American teenaged girl read "Twilight"?

ANYWAY, I was considering "Brave New World", wondering if I had read it. I don't recall. I do remember there being controversy about it "way, back when" so then I checked Wikipedia to see if they could enlighten me as to the reason for upset and what the hoopla is about. You can look that up if the question plagues you.

I DID, however, find this on the Wiki site:

Social critic Neil Postman contrasts the worlds of Nineteen Eighty-Four and Brave New World in the foreword of his 1985 book Amusing Ourselves to Death. He writes:

What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one. Orwell feared those who would deprive us of information. Huxley feared those who would give us so much that we would be reduced to passivity and egoism. Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from us. Huxley feared the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance. Orwell feared we would become a captive culture. Huxley feared we would become a trivial culture, preoccupied with some equivalent of the feelies, the orgy porgy, and the centrifugal bumblepuppy. As Huxley remarked in Brave New World Revisited, the civil libertarians and rationalists who are ever on the alert to oppose tyranny "failed to take into account man's almost infinite appetite for distractions." In 1984, Orwell added, people are controlled by inflicting pain. In Brave New World, they are controlled by inflicting pleasure. In short, Orwell feared that what we fear will ruin us. Huxley feared that our desire will ruin us.


THIS, I find extemely interesting. So, according to where we are now, today, 25 years later... whose point of view of the future was more correct? Comments?

Hmmm... :)