Oversimplification

Page 215, Brave New World:

“But I don’t want comfort. I want God, I want poetry, I want real danger, I want freedom, I want goodness, I want sin.”

“In fact,” said Mustapha Mond, “you’re claiming the right to be unhappy.”

“All right then,” said the Savage defiantly. “I’m claiming the right to be unhappy.”

---

When I read this, I immediately thought of a quote from one of my favorite books, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close: “You cannot protect yourself from sadness without protecting yourself from happiness.” I think it’s quite fitting, because the society here has given up individuality, science, religion, and art for the sake of comfort. After all, ignorance is bliss, Mustapha Mond implies. Could it really be that simple?

If you read this quote specifically, it certainly looks like there’s incompatibility between happiness and truth. The happiest people tend to be in the lower castes, which begs the correlation between the two. Mustapha Mond himself is one of the most informed people in the world, but at the loss of his own happiness (or so he claims). And due to the way this passage is worded, it seems as though the Savage must choose directly between his own happiness and God/poetry/danger/freedom/goodness.

However, I don’t think Huxley would agree that it’s that simple (though there IS some relation). For example, on page 217, Huxley creates a sort of paradox by saying: “In spite of their sadness --because of it even; for their sadness was the symptom of their love for one another--the three young men were happy.” Happiness can clearly exist with knowledge--in this case, the acquired knowledge of how disturbing and at times necessary their society is. Happiness itself is a paradox.

Discussion: Do you agree? Is ignorance bliss? Or is that too much of a simplification?