>It is better to live consciously than unconsciously even when, as is
>often the case, conscious living results in suffering that the
>unconscious do not experience or do not experience as accutely.
>
>That's why I wouldn't want to live in Huxley's Brave New World. Avenues
>of cognitive exploration that lead to dissatisfaction and unhappiness
>are suppressed in that society. The citizens are healthy, have jobs that
>match their aptitudes and abilities, are free of the guilt and negative
>programming concerning sexuality that St. Augustine and his posse have
>managed to inflict on us, and yet they live in a largely unconsious
>fashion.
>
>- -KMO
I have a question. If you had never suffered any frustation, would you value art? I think this consciouness thing is kind of a consolation prize for putting up with the bullshit of life. It's like building a taste for spicy foods...once you have it, you can never imagine going back but before you have it, you could never imagine why anyone would want it.
<I> wouldn't want to live in the Brave New World, either. But <I> wouldn't ever exist there...all the pain and suffering of my life would never have happened. Or, if it had, I would be on one of those islands. I think I'd like a nice sub-tropical one.
But, even as you an I wouldn't live in BNW...don't we as a culture try to preserve innocence into ever and ever longer periods of life. We invent childhood, and then adolecence, and then college. The tend seems to be an attempt to alleviate frustration, suffering...to offer a longer period of innocence.
Reed
Reed Konsler konsler@ascat.harvard.edu ---------------------------------------------------------------------