Aldous Huxley wants you to delete Netflix

In this essay Pleasures, Huxley, the author of Brave New World, argues that modern pleasures are making people weak. For Huxley, pleasure should not be an escape from effort. In fact, pleasure should be unavailable without effort.

Huxley: “There was a time when people indulged themselves with distractions requiring...a certain intellectual effort.” Theological debates were arranged as entertainment at royal weddings. Lord Williams and Cambridge logicians hashed it out at Prince Palatine’s engagement party.

In Elizabethan times, commoners “could be relied upon” to break into complex musical acts like madrigals or motets. People had to “exert their minds to an uncommon degree” to entertain themselves. This kept their minds supple.

Writing almost 100 years ago, Huxley rails against contemporary mass-produced distractions “which demand from pleasure-seekers no personal participation and no intellectual effort of any sort.”

This is how he describes movies: “Countless audiences passively soak in the tepid bath of nonsense. No mental effort is demanded of them, no participation; they need only sit and keep their eyes open.”

In the past, entertainment was a consequence of active, and intense, collaboration between friends, family, and neighbors. Today, these very groups of people sit in darkness and silently stare up at something that strangers made halfway across the world.

With mobile phones, mass-produced distractions grew feet. Now we jive to the same music, laugh at the same Netflix specials, and get our dose of socialization through the same outrageous headlines on Twitter.

In The World Until Yesterday, Jared Diamond writes about African kids who make model airplanes from sticks and stones by looking at a newspaper picture. Kids in rich societies buy airplane sets from the mall. Is it progress if kids’ entertainment becomes passive and readymade?

Bottom line: The big lesson from Pleasures is to not live vicariously. Don’t just watch Romcoms - seek romance and humor in your real life. Don’t just gush over The Avengers - find a real adventure to pursue.