Pleasures by Aldous Huxley Summary of the Essay In English

अनुक्रम (Contents)

Pleasures by Aldous Huxley Summary of the Essay In English

Pleasures by Aldous Huxley Summary of the Essay In English – In the modern times we witness the growth of pleasures organized for the masses. In every field of entertainment we are presented with organized display of games and sports, drama and theatre, boxing and tennis. The author regards them as a greater danger to our civilization than the dangers of war, prohibition and other kinds of menaces to civilization which it has survived. These organized pleasures are a deadly menace to the civilization. The author regards them as much more dangerous than the German Militarism which was responsible for the outbreak of the First World War. It is more dangerous than the unequal peace treaty of Versailles after the War.

The greatest danger to modern civilization comes from within, the menace which threatens the mind rather than the body and estate of contemporary man. It comes from the organized pleasures provided the people. It is more ruinous than the drudgery and mechanical work which the mechanization of production which deprived man of creating some thing. Man does not make things and has no ‘joy of making’. He merely watches machines produce things. The author would prefer the drudgery to being subjected to modern mindless distractions which are offered in the name of ‘pleasure’ or entertainment of the multitude.

These pleasures are becoming more and more imbecile. They require no participation from the people whom they ‘entertain’. In the past people invented their own means of ‘entertainment and participated in them. There was variety in them. Elizabethan audience had to make some mental effort to understand and enjoy the plays of Shakespeare and other dramatists. They made and sang their music, “Their pleasures were intelligent and alive, it was they who, by their own efforts entertained themselves.”

All this has come to an end today. People have become passive recipient of manufactured pleasures. The inventions of the scenario-writers from Los Angeles go out across the whole world. Countless audiences soak passively in the tepid bath of nonsense. No mental effort is demanded of them, no participation; they need only sit and keep their eyes open.

The same is true of literature. It is provided very cheap by the newspapers. One reads them cursorily and casually without much attention. Their eye merely skips over the printed columns. It pays little attention to what it reads and makes no mental effort to comprehend it. The games and sports are not played but merely watched by the people. Dances have been reduced to the same monotony. They have lost variety and local color.

These effortless pleasures are the same for everyone all over the world. They are a greater menace than the Germans ever were. Mechanical work and mechanical passive pleasures are killing initiative variety and interest. Thus they are breeding a kind of poison which will gradually atrophy our minds. Human race will die of listlessness and ennui.

By watching scenes of bloodshed and violence, people will lose their sensitivity. They would need more and more violent and brutal scenes to titillate their dying sensitivity. Romans in their decline indulged in such violent and brutal pastimes. They enjoyed gladiators killing beasts or getting killed by them. We shall demand similar violent stimulants to rouse us from apathy and boredom. We are doomed to perish, self-poisoned by organized pleasures.

Pleasures by Aldous Huxley Summary In Hindi

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