Editing Brave New World (section)

==Reception==
Upon its publication, [[Rebecca West]] praised ''Brave New World'' as "The most accomplished novel Huxley has yet written",<ref>''[[The Daily Telegraph]]'', 5 February 1932. Reprinted in Donald Watt, "Aldous Huxley: The Critical Heritage. London; Routledge, 2013 {{ISBN|1136209697}} (pp. 197–201).</ref> [[Joseph Needham]] lauded it as "Mr Huxley's remarkable book",<ref>''[[Scrutiny (journal)|Scrutiny]]'', May 1932 . Reprinted in Watt, (pp. 202–205).</ref> and [[Bertrand Russell]] also praised it, stating, "Mr Aldous Huxley has shown his usual masterly skill in ''Brave New World.''"<ref>"We Don't Want to be Happy", in: ''[[The New Leader]]'' (11 March 1932), reprinted in: Donald Watt, ''Aldous Huxley: The Critical Heritage'' (1975), pp. 210–13.</ref>  ''Brave New World'' also received negative responses from other contemporary critics, although his work was later embraced.<ref>Huxley, Aldous. ''Brave New World''. Harper Perennial Modern Classics; Reprint edition (17 October 2006), P.S. Edition, {{ISBN|978-0-06-085052-4}} &nbsp;— "About the Book."&nbsp;— "Too Far Ahead of Its Time? The Contemporary Response to ''Brave New World'' (1932)" p. 8-11</ref>

In an article in the 4 May 1935 issue of the ''[[Illustrated London News]]'', [[G. K. Chesterton]] explained that Huxley was revolting against the "Age of Utopias". Much of the discourse on man's future before 1914 was based on the thesis that humanity would solve all economic and social issues. In the decade following the war the discourse shifted to an examination of the causes of the catastrophe. The works of [[H. G. Wells]] and [[George Bernard Shaw]] on the promises of socialism and a World State were then viewed as the ideas of naive optimists. Chesterton wrote:

{{blockquote|After the Age of Utopias came what we may call the American Age, lasting as long as the Boom. Men like Ford or Mond seemed to many to have solved the social riddle and made capitalism the common good. But it was not native to us; it went with a buoyant, not to say blatant optimism, which is not our negligent or negative optimism. Much more than Victorian righteousness, or even Victorian self-righteousness, that optimism has driven people into pessimism. For the Slump brought even more disillusionment than the War. A new bitterness, and a new bewilderment, ran through all social life, and was reflected in all literature and art. It was contemptuous, not only of the old Capitalism, but of the old Socialism. ''Brave New World'' is more of a revolution against Utopia than against Victoria.<ref>G. K. Chesterton, review in ''The Illustrated London News'', 4 May 1935</ref>}}

Similarly, in 1944 economist [[Ludwig von Mises]] described ''Brave New World'' as a [[satire]] of utopian predictions of [[socialism]]: "Aldous Huxley was even courageous enough to make socialism's dreamed paradise the target of his sardonic irony."<ref>Ludwig von Mises (1944). [https://mises.org/system/tdf/Bureaucracy_3.pdf?file=1&type=document Bureaucracy] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160827134242/https://mises.org/system/tdf/Bureaucracy_3.pdf?file=1&type=document |date=27 August 2016 }}, New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, p 110</ref>

===Common misunderstandings===
{{Human enhancement sidebar}}
{{see also|Fetal alcohol spectrum disorder|Eugenics#In science fiction|Island (Huxley novel)}}
Various authors assume that the book was first and foremost a [[cautionary tale]] regarding [[human genetic enhancement|human genetic ''enhancement'']],<ref>McGee G. (2000). ''The Perfect Baby: Parenthood in the New World of Cloning and Genetics.'' Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield</ref><ref>Elliott C. (2003). ''Better Than Well: American Medicine Meets the American Dream.'' New York: W.W. Norton</ref><ref>Spar D. (2006). ''The Baby Business: How Money, Science and Politics Drive the Commerce of Conception''. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press</ref> indeed about – as an infamous report of [[Presidency of George W. Bush|Bush]] associate [[Leon Kass]] states –: "producing improved [,][...] perfect or post-human" people.<ref>2003. President's Council on Bioethics. Beyond Therapy. Washington, DC: President's Council on Bioethics</ref> In fact, the title itself has become a mere stand-in used to "evoke the general idea of a futuristic dystopia".<ref name="So">So, Derek (2019). "The Use and Misuse of Brave New World in the CRISPR Debate." ''CRISPR J.'' 2(5):316-323. doi:10.1089/crispr.2019.0046. PMID 31599683.</ref>
Geneticist Derek So suggests that this is a misunderstanding, however.{{r|So|p=318}} According to him, a 'more careful reading of the text' shows that:
<blockquote>there does not seem to be any genetic testing in ''Brave New World'', and most of the methods described involve hormones and chemicals rather than heritable interventions. Although Huxley wrote that "<noinclude>[[</noinclude>eugenics<noinclude>]]</noinclude> and [[dysgenics]] were practiced systematically", this seems to refer only to selective breeding and not to any kind of direct manipulation on the genetic level. (The Bokanovsky process does represent a form of cloning, but this is not ethically equivalent to germline genome editing, and references to ''Brave New World'' may lead some readers to confuse the two technologies.) [...] While it's true that the upper castes in ''Brave New World'' are smarter than the others, this is more because of the deliberate impairment of the lower castes than because the upper castes are "perfect". Rather than reducing the number of individuals born with genetic disorders or handicaps, Huxley's dystopia involves dramatically increasing their number. [...] Quite the opposite: Huxley thought that ''Brave New World'' might come about if we ''didn't'' start selecting better children.{{r|So|p=318-9}}</blockquote>
Overall, Derek So notes that "Huxley was much more worried about totalitarianism than about the new biotechnologies per se that he alluded to in Brave New World."<ref name = "So"/><ref>Fletcher J. (1988). ''The Ethics of Genetic Control: Ending Genetic Roulette.'' Buffalo, NY: Prometheus Books.</ref>
Despite claims to the contrary then, Huxley remained a committed eugenicist all throughout his life,<ref>Kevles DJ. (1985). ''In the Name of Eugenics: Genetics and the Uses of Human Heredity.'' New York: Knopf</ref> much like his comparably famous brother [[Julian Huxley|Julian]], and one just as keen on stressing its [[Julian Huxley#Secular humanism|humanistic underpinnings]].<ref>Woiak, Joanne (2007). "Designing a Brave New World: Eugenics, Politics, and Fiction." ''The Public Historian'', 29(3), 105–129. https://doi.org/10.1525/tph.2007.29.3.105</ref>