I found Brave New World interesting as fiction but actively unhelpful as an point about the merits of utilitarianism.
Brave New World is intended as a critique of utilitarianism: the Fordian society’s willingness to treat people as specialized components may not be as immediately terrifying as 1984, but it’s still intentionally disutopian. My apologies if I’m misreading your statement, but many folk don’t get that from reading the book in a classroom environment.
I guess the main thing here is that if poly relationships worked… I’d expect to see an established tradition of polyamory somewhere in the world, and I don’t (maybe I’m not looking hard enough).
Some subcultures have different expectations of exclusivity, which may be meaningful here even if not true polyamory.
Is there some technological innovation that makes polyamory more practical now than it was in the past? I guess widespread contraception and cheap antibiotics might be such a thing...
Communication availability and different economic situations, as well. The mainstream entrance of women into the work force as self-sustaining individuals is a fairly new thing, and the availability of instant always-on communication even more recent.
EDIT: I agree that there are structural concerns if a sufficient portion of the leadership are both poly and in a connected relationship, but this has to do more with network effects than polyamory. The availability and expenditures of money are likely to trigger the same network effect issues regardless of poly stuff.
Brave New World is intended as a critique of utilitarianism
Yes. I thought it would be clear that I knew that, since I don’t think my statement makes any sense otherwise?
I found Brave New World, in so far as it is taken as an illustration of a philosophical point, actively unhelpful; that is, its existence is detrimental to the quality of philosophical discussions about the merits of utilitarianism (basically for all the usual reasons that fictional evidence is bad; it leads people to assume that a utilitarian society would behave in a certain way, or that certain behaviors would have certain outcomes, simply because that was what happened in Brave New World).
(Independently, I found it interesting and enjoyable as a work of fiction).
Brave New World is intended as a critique of utilitarianism: the Fordian society’s willingness to treat people as specialized components may not be as immediately terrifying as 1984, but it’s still intentionally disutopian. My apologies if I’m misreading your statement, but many folk don’t get that from reading the book in a classroom environment.
Some subcultures have different expectations of exclusivity, which may be meaningful here even if not true polyamory.
Communication availability and different economic situations, as well. The mainstream entrance of women into the work force as self-sustaining individuals is a fairly new thing, and the availability of instant always-on communication even more recent.
EDIT: I agree that there are structural concerns if a sufficient portion of the leadership are both poly and in a connected relationship, but this has to do more with network effects than polyamory. The availability and expenditures of money are likely to trigger the same network effect issues regardless of poly stuff.
Yes. I thought it would be clear that I knew that, since I don’t think my statement makes any sense otherwise?
I found Brave New World, in so far as it is taken as an illustration of a philosophical point, actively unhelpful; that is, its existence is detrimental to the quality of philosophical discussions about the merits of utilitarianism (basically for all the usual reasons that fictional evidence is bad; it leads people to assume that a utilitarian society would behave in a certain way, or that certain behaviors would have certain outcomes, simply because that was what happened in Brave New World).
(Independently, I found it interesting and enjoyable as a work of fiction).