Huxley's Utopia, Ft. Saint Andrew

sort of twins of speculative science fiction. I would say Alice Huxley was, like I said, in English writer and philosopher, and he actually wrote a lot of books, um fifty in his lifetime to be precise. He was also a French teacher who interestingly enough taught George ol But I did not know from yeah, but from what what his past students have said. He wasn't a particularly good teacher, okay,

but he was a good speaker. Um. He was also a very very big fan of psychedelics and mysticism and philosophy, and particularly like Advit. I don't know if I'm pronounced that correctly, but Advoate vendatta, which is like a Hindu spiritual practice. Yeah, I know, he's He's even referenced a lot and like occultist and chaos magic books written like post the sixties. He's yeah, yeah, yeah, he's He's like, um, that guy, it's his name again, Alan Watts. Yeah guy. Yeah.

Also very interestingly, Um Huxley actually had LSD injected into his veins. A basic yes, he was, like he was dying, as you know one does on their deathbed, and that is the traditional thing to do traditionally, Yes, but while in the process of dying, because he had like advanced learning your cancer, he had to write to his wife Laura. He was just like LSD's like, okay, Jackson him fucking muscle,

and she doesn't inject him with one dose. She injects him with two doses and then he dies like several hours later. Incredibly based what away staggeringly based and honestly, if if he was like speaking on the deathbed, I would really love to know, like what that experience was like, Like, are you just like dancing through hell? Like what's going on? I mean it could it could, think I can see of being the most amazing thing. And also extreme plainly terrified.

Right as a general rule, when like Pete, they've done studies on like giving different kinds of psychedelics usually silosiban mushrooms to um cancer people who are in hospice and it it generally reduces their fear of death. Yeah, they go in peace. Yeah, yeah, it just makes them like, ah, you know what, everything is the same as everything else, and we're the imagination of the universe. I'm going to go back into the space, which is fine. Good for them, Yeah, yeah,

good for them, Good for them. If I want my death bed, I probably wouldn't want to be thinking about death either. Yeah. I mean that that assumes that you know, we a death bed, you know, And that's the kind of wild thing about death. You don't know when it's going to happen. But to return into the topic of discussion, Brief New World and Ireland right to summarize the plots of both, I guess I'll start with Brief New Wild

It is the more famous of the two. I don't think a lot of people have food of Island compared to Brief New World, because I mean briefew with New World and high School. But I have not read Island exactly, and it's like it's released as a lot about society that that that we read about the dystopias, but not the youtubeias. But anyway, Brief New World, you know, it's really up there with like in terms of um, you know, it's it's notoriety. Um. It is like one of the

quintessential dystopias. It's set like several hundred years into the future, like which you know, to place which is several decades ago. Brave New World was set in two thousand and fifty four, two thousand and five and forty see, so several times. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But however, in the book, it isn't called two thousand five. It's called six three to a F a F standing for after Ford. Because in this world, and I'm sure we'll get into this a bit, Henry Ford, the assembly

lying guy, the model t guy. He is basically god. He is the god of their world. You know, yeah, that wouldn't be ideal. They say things like by Ford's name and that kind of thing, you know, and his school sort of assembly line structure. Um, it's basically it's

chopolated to society as a whole. Right, there's this world state where emotions and individuality a conditioned out of children and everyone belongs to everyone else, and you know there's children are created in like factories and generated to be part of specific classes, whether it be alpha, beta, gamma, delta, or epsilon. So it's like it's kind of like what's what,

what's what's happening today? You know, in terms of the Greek alphabet um, we have the alphas who are bred to be like the leaders and stuff, and you're the apsilons who are bred to be like the menial libras, and you have the folks in between, and like they're literally conditioned, you know, so like in the factory, in the baby making factory, which is in this case literal

and not a euphemism for the womb um. You know, they like hold back on oxygen or they apply Cittain chemicals or Cittain hormones in order to like condition people. So they don't do like genetic um like coding or whatever. They just they do a chemical concoctions in those sort of test tubes. And yeah, I mean the story of the world is really how it's affecting, Like that's the top level of people within it and sort of contrasted with sort of reservations that exist in their world where

people are a bit less restricted. Um. And it ends pretty tragically. But the next book also ends a bit tragically the extra for being Island, which is like the utopian twin for a Brief New World in a lot of ways in terms of memory, mirroring a lot of the same themes that Brief New World explores. Right. So, in Ireland there's this specific island called Parlor, which is

um fictional. I mean, there was an area in India cold Parlor, but the island of Parlor in this world is like it doesn't exist, right, And it's basically seen as this oasis of happiness and freedom and where it's

inhabitants of resisted capitalism and consumerism and technology. Right then, this journalist, another British guy named Will Farnaby Um pulls up on their island and he's basically trying to scoop out the island for exploitation because he is friends with this industrialist who was trying to like extract oil from

the region. And while he's going through the island and really going through the society going through the book, there are a lot of monologues and stuff I mean, this book is kind of heavy on the monologues and the discussions. It's kind of like Alice Hucksley's soup box for all his ideas, just laying them all out there. Right. So Will enters Palace a cynic, but by the time he comes out, he's like he's had like layers on layers of epiphanies. And I don't know for those who have

been reading to one of everything recently. Um. In chapter two there the authors David when growing David group, but they sort of outline some of the discussions that were happening that were happening between Europeans and Indigenous Americans at the time of arrival, and how those discussions were shaping

both um apparently Europeans view of society. Interestingly, it's kind of like reflected here because you know, have this white man who pulls up with all his English ideas, and it's basically these indigenous inhabitants and parlor basically deconstructing his ideas through dialogue, um, and through debate and discussion, and

unfortunately doesn't end very well. Despite you know, being convinced of the purity and brilliance of the poloniese we have lived in um he already made the deal with the industrialist and pala um Is has basically been sold by any by neighboring country and so it's downfall is now sadly inevitable and that's how it ends. Oh and also um will want to be kind of as like an LSD. Well sound really LSD, But it's like a psychedelic trip. Yeah, it's like a combination like and almost yeah yeah and

true how that sucks lee fashion. Yeah. Yeah, there's like a lot of the tropes and like its themes that were president Brave New World exists in island, but as like their inversion, so like in terms of like it showed like the like Brave New World has written before Huxicalley had of psychedelics. It was so like his his version of drug use is so different in that book. It's more like a pacifying drug um, whereas the drug use in Ireland it's more like an like an enlightening drugs.

But there's a whole bunch of themes that like parallel but are also inverted on each other. Yeah, exactly exactly, And we're gonna get into those themes just now. But to summarize, for your New World is basically humans becoming less than human because of all these technological and sociological um efforts, where as Ireland is like the opposite we had, you know, humans are able to come into the fullness of the humanness um while still using science, except in

a way to enhance their quality of life. I don't know if I missed any aspect of either plots that and if you want to like touch on a real quick no, no, no reallyy okay, yeah, I mean I will say the one thing is interested because Brave New World also has this sort of like weird like going to a reservation plot that's like, yeah, kind of a b plot, but you see, sort of it's another one of those things instead of like I don't know if inverteds the right word, but the sort of context of

it is very, very different in Island than it isn't Brave New World. Yeah, yeah, because I mean, in a sense, you have this outside of protagonist who is introduced to this alternate way of living um and is transformed by it, you know, except in Brave New Wild, you know, he ends up killing himself and in Island, well, he already sold out the island, you know, I will say one criticism that I want to get out of the way before we get into like the concepts and you know

how they might apply to politics as a whole. Really is Huxley, like a lot of authors and thinkers and ideologues of his time, has this very unsettling h fixation on overpopulation. It's kind of like what we were talking about UM with the last book we discussed here UM, this sort of weird fixation and over population and you know, people dying out and that kind of thing. UM In in Parlia and in Ireland there's a sort of acceptance of um over population as something that needs to be

you know, avoided. And to guess that brings us to the first theme, which is the use of contraception in both books. Right, Like, on one hand, you have in Brief New World where there's like mandatory contraception and people are literally not allowed to like naturally give birth, you know, they have to have baby's through test you Whereas in Parlor, you know, there's reproductive education and reproductive choice and expressive sex.

And it's really like a complete contrast. So I guess I want to do something like I like speculating and thinking about how anarchy would operate. UM, I think there needs to be a lot more of that in terms of um creative works and discussions. I mean, like there was at the Coffee by mal Tester, and there are some like utopian fictions out there, but I like less than utopian, but still interesting explorations of anarchist society. It's

like there's lucky of the quins that is possessed. It is interesting to me that even in mainstream sort of imagining, whenever there's an attempt to envision a utopia, there's nearly always a lot of anarchist principles involved in that. It's basically impossible to imagine a utopia without aspects of anarchist theory making it into it exactly. And it tends to be like some elements of anti work in there, and like you know, like to post work, post hierarchy, freedom

of association. Yeah yeah, yeah, as I kind of want to look at that, look at these works through that

lens as well. Here mostly Island considering Island is a bit closer acty than Free New World is just a little bit a little bit yeah yeah, Like when you look at how sexual liberation is treated in Ireland, it is pretty much an echo of what anarchists were saying about free love in like nearly twenty like late nine century, you know, because I feel like I'm a good one, like free choice and contraceptive access and that sort of thing,

reproductive choice, free love. It's really in Paula, I would see, UM they have this sort of elements as well of like communal child rearing, I mean in UM, which is another thing I spoke about that and like my video in December on the family, like the fact that humans basically the evolved in an alo parental arrangements, in a

corporative reading arrangement. Yeah, because from that, Yeah, there's a lot of if you if you study how kind of different societies that were not capitalists handled child rearing, there's a lot of like very interesting. I think my favorite is and it was some indigenous group in Um, South America who's like cultural belief was that, um, you didn't you didn't have like one man have sex with a woman, and that like leads conceiving child. It starts the process.

And so once you've started the process of making a child, the woman then is going to pick out all of the guys that she thinks have traits that she wants to be like part of the child she's making, and has sex with them because you're like gradually building the child by having like adding additional sperm to it, which means that when they have the kid, all of those guys that she had sex pregnant have a responsibility to rear the child and teach it things. I think is

objectively the best way to treat kids. I mean, even on like, it's that's such an interesting metaphysical concept in terms of like what constitutes like even like the the idea of genetic makeup, because even though it's not like literally true, it's still like if you can convince yourself of that in your head, then it kind of is physically true, and it will it will be true enough for the kid because like, because most of these fathers, fathers treats are gonna like manifest in the child anyway

because they were raised by them. Therefore, I think we should all agree to just act like it works that way. Yeah, But I mean like and also like in terms of like the group living in Island versus like Brave New World, but everywhere else it's always like you don't you have group living because you've lost like the idea of individuality

right versus groups. Living in Island is more like you know how like anarchists have like group homes and that's it's it's very similar to living a allows you to be the best version of yourself because the best version of yourself exists in the community. Yeah, exactly. There's like there's like a barista or whatever. There's a kind of

like like a jokey fruition fist. I think about a lot where it's like if you see a block and like you're looking at it like a black block, right, It's like the way you can tell that there are moose involved is if you see a bunch of people

actually like legitimately wearing all the same thing. It's like like it's it's it's like it's it's really like it's it's it's extremely rare that like, even even when you're doing this for security reasons, that you can get a bunch of anarchists who actually literally all wear exactly the

same thing. Because it's like it's like, yeah, you have this sort of like I mean, okay, this is this is not like always true, but like it's it's I don't know, you you you have this thing where even when you're like even when anarchists are like trying to sort of like fade into a single mass, it's like like like they literally can't do it because everyone has this sort of like because individual street definitely seeing people be at it block more often than I've seen them

be good at it. Yeah, it's like I mean like the actual hiding part of it. Yeah, yeah, but I don't know, like it's it's it's it's there's, there's there there. There's a way of sort of egalitarianism in sociality where like you treat everyone as if they were exactly the same and like and you know, and there there's models of this word. It's like, yeah, it's like okay, you actually try to like force everyone to be exactly the same, where like everyone to be exactly the same in the class,

and like that sucks and you shouldn't do it. And the alternative to that is everyone is just sort of like in a group, but they're all like I don't I remember entirely. Sure doesn't make any sense, but it's I don't know, there are yeah. Yeah, it's like like the purpose of the group is to like maintain like you know, maybe like maintain the differentiation sheet of the individual. Yeah, to foster what makes the dividence really good at being like their own person and give them the tools that

can you can set that up. Yeah, I think it's like culturally we have like problems thinking about that because like the sort of American version of individuality has to do with like no, no no, no, you're you're an individual because you have no connections to anyone else, And it's like, well this sucks. It is bad because and that kind of goes back to the whole spoon building a baby concept.

I didn't think I would ever use that freeze because individuals only individuals, because their combination of influences are unique to them. Yeah, well not just that. I mean obviously it's not's a component and I'll know a lot, but I think key aspect of it is that, you know, because we are reason needs different environments surrounded by different people,

we have different experiences. That's what builds us up. You know, Like I can I can already name off the top of my head, like a bunch of like defining movements from my childhood you know that basically changed my course, you know, like the one time I got cyber bullied in that fas like shifted my perspective and my approach the internet to that kind of thing. You know. It's like it really, I really can't imagine how someone could come away with the idea that an individual is just

an individual on their own. Yeah, they just they just pop out and are that thing. Yeah, I mean yeah, because like a large portion of you was built up of previous you, and previously like exists, Like your previous existence is what makes a large portion of yourself. And like sure you can say you have a little bit of like ego from the start, like your actual self self that that you know, contributed to the way you interpret events, which then will in turn build your personality.

But I think these things are not opposing. These things work in tandem. But yeah, yes, it is like the whole group living components. And also in that group of components, you notice in at one point in the book, Um, one of the children like basically in passing mentions that you know, they don't want to go by a certain person because they're mad at them or whatever, and so they basically have that freedom to remove themselves from that situation and go on, um sleep at another house or

another space until that sort of situation is resolved. And I think that also would really be a crucial element of society, particularly for children having that freedom of association and freedom of movement, because imagine how many abusive situations could be avoided over him. Indeed, if children had the

ability to come out of it. You know, we strict children of choice, and that's what allows these sorts of dynamics to persist, which then leads to dynamics that persist in the next generation and so on and so on.

It's this thing that's having a resurgence in the United States right now, and it's like at the core of all of the book banning and the anti trans legislation, which is this idea that like kids shouldn't have a choice because that would interfere with parents having absolute control over the life of their child, and then includes the control to like, if a child says I'm this or

I'm that, the parent can say absolutely not. Yeah, exactly if you had like this, U if you sort of like too with like someone from from the past or someone who lives in like a corpsive reading arrangement that the pear and the child is the pearance property entirely. It would look at you like real funny because the child is part of the community, doesn't belong to anyone, you know, if it belongs to anything, It just belongs to the community as a whole, as as we all do. Yeah.

But yeah, another element I think I find, um, I find really interesting and the way that probably society operates is that. And I guess in comparison to Brief New World, Unlike in Brief New World, where drugs are used like UM likes and like all drugs are used for pacification and control and self medication, that kind of thing to sort of like chill you out and prevent you from basically going mad in a mad society. Um in parlor, you know, drug is used for bonding and for enlightenment

and for social connection and social cohesion. And it is really really using that that he changes what drugs do

in his books, like after he starts doing them. Yeah, exactly, exactly. Yeah. Now, I actually don't know, you know, I used to have because I had the opposite arc with with drugs, where I started doing them when I was very young and had the belief that like they were kind of inherently this mind opening tool that could be used to expand the borders of reality within human beings and as an adult um in part through some of the research I've done on the far right, come to understand like, no,

you can also use them to reinforce the very limited, terrible things you already believe. And there are folks who do that quite effectively, like that sort of appeel you esotericism kind of Yeah, I don't know if I just made up that too. I like, I like that term. It's thinking of it's an accurate it's an accurate term

to describe the thing we're talking about. I'm taking it, okay, Well yeah, yeah, I mean that that is absolutely correct, because I mean, yeah, like those sort of psycho psychedelic substances and stuff, Yeah, they can open your mind, but they are they're ultimately drawing from your mind, drawing from

your pastis drances and believes in some capacity. The way I always describe it is that like psychedelics are an accelebrant to the fire that you've already built, and they can make it flare up, and it can be really cool and awesome, and it can flare up and be utterly terrified and be like oh no, no, no, no, no, no no, But it's always kind of amplifying the things that are you've already built through like the kindling of yourself. Yeah.

It Psychedelics do not create things um within you, but they can lead you to realize things you wouldn't already realize, or they can lead you to reinforce things that you're already doing. And it kind of depends on what you go into it with. It's like, you know, Leary said, it's I think it was Leary set setting in dose and like your mind set is one of the most important things for what's actually going to happen when you

when you take psychedelics. Yeah, and if you're a Nazi, you can get better being a Nazi from taking as if you're not, so you're gonna see Hitler pull up, Yes, my son, continue the good work. That's That's the thing a lot of people don't understand when I've tried to, like when I tried to talk to people who are like really obviously like pro psychedelics and like, yeah, they're so like freeing that you think about new ways, And then I explained to them, there's like, well this isn't

This is an easy segue. But if somehow the conversation goes to the point to be talking about all the Nazis who do psychedelics and and then like do like weird esoteric rituals while doing like like psycho drugs, they can confuse these people because like how could you be a Nazi? Well, you're you know, in that mindset, and like, well it's actually for all of yeah, for all these reasons that we've discussed, it can actually assist within that

like like fantastical, genocidal, conspiratorial thinking. It can really can really give that a lot, a lot of credence in someone's brains, because especially if you've spoken to someone who is taking psycho like and I've had a specific kind of experience, you can't talk them all to that experience. Yeah, as far as they consume that is that is solidified in mind. You know, this is reality. I just had a glimpse at the reality kind of thing, you know. Yeah, absolutely, Yeah.

It's one of those like if you want, if you want an illustration of how psychedelics do not work the way some people claim, just make a note of the fact that at every street fight between fascists and anti fascists in Portland, both sides, every single person had fucking weed on them, like the fucking the far right like smoking pot as much as everybody else. Um, they just

also do cocaine. Whereas whereas Antifa does yeah yeah, and Tia does ketamine, the Proud Boys do cocaine and they both have everybody's got joints and both people and people on both sides have dropped acid and taken shrimps. Yeah

I can. I can say this from a point of journalistic certainty because during one of the rallies where there was a permitted event at the federal part, the police were there and telling people they could not take weed onto the Federal park because it was federally illegal, and every like both sides, people were like all right, ship Michael, turning back because they couldn't walk on with the weed

in their pockets. That's gonna open up a whole kind of wound to me, because I don't know if you all saw this tweet I put on recently, like there's still this resistance the drugs and to particularly to like cannabis, and you would think that, you know, after decades of research and decades of understanding and really decades, not even decades, it's centuries of its use in various you know, religious and spiritual practices that by now, you know, in a

post colonial country would reach the point where you know, we let it go and we determinalized it. But although the we're kind of in the process of it, we still have this situation where the police are like constantly burning down like fields of cannabis. Like they pull up and they're like, we just seized and burned down like one million dollars worth of cannabis and arrested this than the others. Like, why are we still at this point where um, basic basic like plants and herbs and medicines

and whatnot are still hey saying this stigma. It's not grounded in any sort of reality or logic. You know, it's just colonially re prejudice. But that was brief aside. Yeah, yeah, I the only thing I have much left to see, both island and brief world. Well, you know, listeners, go home, put on some Hitler speeches, drop some as absolutely absolutely not that is the worst idea. Do not do that, Go to the woods, go do basically literally anything else,

besides that specific thing. It's that specific thing that is different. Different people can can disagree. No, like that is like one of the worst things to do to your own brain and psyche. Absolutely not. Yeah, just do whatever, whether literally anything else. Watch Star Trek, put On put On off the air I have. I've watched a lot of Star Trek while tripping. There's there's so many better things to do that that thing you said. Mm hm, go

watch the movie Conspiracy starring Kenneth brand Off. That could be funny. They are what mascaline is. Neither instructions compute if if acid made time different? What? Yeah, that's kind of mescaline. I mean, mescaline is like the the active thing inside pet. Yeah, mescalin is is a psychedelic the most intense time dilation I've ever experienced, where like you will feel like weeks have passed and it's been like

seven hours. Um, it's pretty dope. I definitely recommend mescal and everybody go take mescaline even where at um, well you if you, if you. There is a way to get the cacti, which are legal pretty much everywhere because they're just cactuses and a lot of people use them decoratively and then using a what do you call the pressure cooker, you can you can get the mescal and out of the cacti. I've known people who have done it. I have not personally done it. Obviously, that would that

would that would be a criminal. We would never we would never advocate that. Yeah, but but there are ways too. There are ways that like a person with minimal resources can get mescal and out of out of the right cactus. And people have done it, you know. So there's the criminals have done bad people. There's this thing called anyway. Yeah, alright, Saint Andrew. That was awesome. I'm gonna go to read

Island now. Um It's it's a good and I haven't read this bummed, I guess at the end of this, I am kind of bummed that as as imaginative a guy as he was, his this was his final story. Well in his utopian story had to end with it being crushed essentially by industrial expansion. Yeah, and like co option, I mean like it is it is it is interesting. Yeah, this this was his final book. This was like his like send off, like in a way that's a that's

an interesting component though, right, because like in Ireland. Yet it's like the utopian society, but there is a king, yeah, and a queen mother, but not they don't have like the kind of power that you know, we were typically um we still upon kings and queen mothers. You know, they're still they're still able to destroy the society ultimately by collaborating with the military dictator enable and the industrialist

oil guy. But I mean they are not really that involved in the day to the run into their society. You know, like Parla would be the same with without them. And interestingly, the reason they were taking part in the destruction of party society is because they were educated in Europe by Christians and then went back to parlor. Yeah,

it's interesting because he's kind of playing with it. Sounds like the same thing Token was, because like Jared Token at the end of his life kind of identified himself as like this weird sort of monarchist anarchist where he wanted there to be that the ideal society was one in which people, you know, there was people could not exercise power over each other, but there was a little hierarchy, and that you had a king who couldn't actually do anything,

whose purpose was to act as a figurehead. Um and I I don't entirely get what he was going through here. He wrote a lot on the subject himself, and it's interesting that Huxley is kind of playing with the same idea, but is is obviously being like, well, this is a bad idea. You know, it could only work for so long. Um, YadA, YadA. I don't know. I find that compelling. Again, I want to read this, and that's something I may dig into more.

Is kind of like how Token conceived of the ideal sort of monarchy versus how how Huxley was thinking about it. I think that's kind of interesting. Yeah, well that's gonna do it for us here, and it could happen here. Uh. Garrison tour dot com to sponsored to dot com. No, just drop some acid and google Hitler. Okay, I get seriously, don't don't, don't literally do anything else. Don't do that. The woods are lovely, the beach is magnificent. Talk to

the ocean. It's so much bupper mountain, Google mountain, Yeah like you or something? Yeah yeah, go to a to go to a comic con. Uh literally my suggestions. I will talk about that experience at a later date. All right, that is, That is the show. It Could Happen Here is a production of cool Zone Media. For more podcasts from cool Zone Media, visit our website cool zone media dot com, or check us out on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts.

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