shane123's review against another edition
challenging
hopeful
informative
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
itmelilia's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
emotional
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
relaxing
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.0
oskhen's review against another edition
4.0
While perhaps not a review per-se, I wrote an essay in the spirit of this book which I will share here.
If Aldous Huxley’s The Brave New World was a literary exposition on the dystopia he saw us heading towards, his Island lies at the other end of the spectrum. Although disguised as a novel that is nothing more than the medium in which Huxley tries to communicate his picture of a utopia. It is a lot more pragmatic than most, it truly seems like an achievable world rather than wishful thinking in that it accounts for humanity.
At the foundation of the society lies religion. In fact, the entire society could be summarized as the merging of western science and eastern philosophy. Science applied to a society focusing on the health and betterment of humans rather than economic growth. We tend to view science and religion as polar opposites, which makes the merging of these quite fascinating. It seems to require a shift in perspective on what religion actually entails. Rather than being fundamentally based on belief, religion is for them materialistic. In other words, religion is nothing more than an attempt to reflect, with symbols, reality. There is no barrier between the individual and the religious experience, no church claiming monopoly on God. Religion is found in everyday experiences, it’s at the very core of life itself. In the process there seems to be a condensing of religion, stripped of the thousands of years of tradition found in the major religions of today. While tradition obviously has its benefits, it often acts as a major barrier in communicating and educating outsiders. In contrast we have what is found in this utopia, along with the arguments for it that amounts to the novel Island, which is Concrete Spiritualism.
Concrete Spiritualism is identified by viewing religion as an experience. It rejects the analytical distance that religion is often viewed with and instead focuses on first-hand experiences. Religious doctrines and teachings are viewed as secondary sources, helpful in many ways but as pointers that can’t live up to the real thing. The teachings help in trying to navigate the experiences but must always be seen as trying to reflect just that, your own experience and feelings. There is no way to explain a feeling, the word anger doesn’t mean anything to someone who hasn’t experienced it for himself. All knowledge must come from within. In the process, God ceases to become an abstract idea and becomes a concrete feeling, one might say that God is born.
One must adopt a specific kind of view on reality in order to get past the common gut-reaction of mystical voodooism that is often taken in response to religion. Because of the shroud of mystery that surrounds it, there is all the more reason to be skeptical. This is not a bad thing. However, there is a certain requirement of suspending one’s disbelief and diving head first into the experience. There is a need to bridge the gap, the analytical distance. Afterwards, there is a very sensible question that arises which goes ”Was it real?”
This is where the shift in perspectives comes into play. The question wonders whether anything external actually happened, or if it was all in one’s head. The point, however, is that it makes no difference. Whether God is actually just one’s own subconscious and doesn’t at all exist externally to the subject, even if there is no transcendental knowledge, the experience and its consequences are all the same. This is faith, putting trust in one’s own experiences.
Ironically, this is all a very abstract way of explaining something extremely concrete. Concretely, the ’experience’ is nothing external but simply the increase of awareness. Often practiced with meditation as it acts as a cleansing of your senses, the point is nothing mystical or more than to heighten your awareness. Clear the brain-fog, shutdown the auto-pilot, get out of your head, the metaphors are endless. Awareness transforms life itself into a spiritual experience.
If Aldous Huxley’s The Brave New World was a literary exposition on the dystopia he saw us heading towards, his Island lies at the other end of the spectrum. Although disguised as a novel that is nothing more than the medium in which Huxley tries to communicate his picture of a utopia. It is a lot more pragmatic than most, it truly seems like an achievable world rather than wishful thinking in that it accounts for humanity.
In framing an ideal we may assume what we wish, but should avoid impossibilities – Aristotle
At the foundation of the society lies religion. In fact, the entire society could be summarized as the merging of western science and eastern philosophy. Science applied to a society focusing on the health and betterment of humans rather than economic growth. We tend to view science and religion as polar opposites, which makes the merging of these quite fascinating. It seems to require a shift in perspective on what religion actually entails. Rather than being fundamentally based on belief, religion is for them materialistic. In other words, religion is nothing more than an attempt to reflect, with symbols, reality. There is no barrier between the individual and the religious experience, no church claiming monopoly on God. Religion is found in everyday experiences, it’s at the very core of life itself. In the process there seems to be a condensing of religion, stripped of the thousands of years of tradition found in the major religions of today. While tradition obviously has its benefits, it often acts as a major barrier in communicating and educating outsiders. In contrast we have what is found in this utopia, along with the arguments for it that amounts to the novel Island, which is Concrete Spiritualism.
- But what you can get out of a book is never it. At bottom, all of you are still Platonists. You worship the word and abhor matter!
- Tell that to the clergymen, they’re always reproaching us with being crass materialists.
- But crass precisely because you’re such inadequate materialists. Abstract materialism – that’s what you profess. Whereas we make a point of being materialists concretely – materialistic on the wordless levels of seeing and touching and smelling, of tensed muscles and dirty hands. Abstract materialism is as bad as abstract idealism, it makes immediate spiritual experience almost impossible. Sampling different kinds of work as concrete materialists is the first, indispensable step in our education for concrete spirituality.
Concrete Spiritualism is identified by viewing religion as an experience. It rejects the analytical distance that religion is often viewed with and instead focuses on first-hand experiences. Religious doctrines and teachings are viewed as secondary sources, helpful in many ways but as pointers that can’t live up to the real thing. The teachings help in trying to navigate the experiences but must always be seen as trying to reflect just that, your own experience and feelings. There is no way to explain a feeling, the word anger doesn’t mean anything to someone who hasn’t experienced it for himself. All knowledge must come from within. In the process, God ceases to become an abstract idea and becomes a concrete feeling, one might say that God is born.
Our religion stresses immediate experience and deplores belief in unverifiable dogmas and the emotions which that belief inspires. Along with transcendental experience we systematically cultivate skepticism. Discouraging children from taking words too seriously, teaching them to analyze whatever they hear or read.
One must adopt a specific kind of view on reality in order to get past the common gut-reaction of mystical voodooism that is often taken in response to religion. Because of the shroud of mystery that surrounds it, there is all the more reason to be skeptical. This is not a bad thing. However, there is a certain requirement of suspending one’s disbelief and diving head first into the experience. There is a need to bridge the gap, the analytical distance. Afterwards, there is a very sensible question that arises which goes ”Was it real?”
This is where the shift in perspectives comes into play. The question wonders whether anything external actually happened, or if it was all in one’s head. The point, however, is that it makes no difference. Whether God is actually just one’s own subconscious and doesn’t at all exist externally to the subject, even if there is no transcendental knowledge, the experience and its consequences are all the same. This is faith, putting trust in one’s own experiences.
- Do you like music?
- More than most things
- And what, may I ask, does Mozart’s G-Minor Quintet refer to? Does it refer to Allah? Or Tao? Or the second person of the Trinity? Or the Atman-Brahman?
- Let’s hope not
- But that doesn’t make the experience of the G-Minor Quintet any less rewarding. Well, it’s the same with the kind of experience that you get with the moksha-medicine, or through prayer and fasting and spiritual exercises. Even if it doesn’t refer to anything outside itself, it’s still the most important thing that ever happened to you. Like music, only incomparably more so. And if you give the experience a chance, if you’re prepared to go along with it, the results are incomparably more therapeutic and transforming. So maybe the whole thing does happen inside one’s skull. Maybe it is private and there’s no unitive knowledge of anything but one’s own physiology. Who cares? The fact remains that the experience can open one’s eyes and make one blessed and transform one’s whole life.
Ironically, this is all a very abstract way of explaining something extremely concrete. Concretely, the ’experience’ is nothing external but simply the increase of awareness. Often practiced with meditation as it acts as a cleansing of your senses, the point is nothing mystical or more than to heighten your awareness. Clear the brain-fog, shutdown the auto-pilot, get out of your head, the metaphors are endless. Awareness transforms life itself into a spiritual experience.
I ought to have made it clear that concrete materialism is only the raw stuff of a fully human life. It’s through awareness, complete and constant awareness, that we transform it into concrete spirituality. Be fully aware of what you’re doing, and work becomes the yoga of work, play becomes the yoga of play, everyday living becomes the yoga of everyday living.
ep916's review against another edition
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.0
bibliotequeish's review against another edition
2.0
I think I have to face the facts, I'm not a Huxley fan.
I have tried and while the premise is always interesting enough, I never like them.
Needless to say, I was not a fan, and was often bored
I have tried and while the premise is always interesting enough, I never like them.
Needless to say, I was not a fan, and was often bored
prbowler's review against another edition
challenging
hopeful
informative
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.25
randomprogrammer's review against another edition
3.0
Sermon masquerading as a narrative. The worst part is that I rather liked some key messages in Huxley's sermon, but see, I was hoping to read...you know...a book. Huxley could have given the world a much more engaging piece of literature if he had only revealed this utopia in true narrative form, perhaps from the viewpoint of the lifetime of the two children, the island girl and the prince. We could have followed them as they grew, felt the depths of their worldviews, seen the pain of their conflict. We would have identified with both of them, and had to really think and feel about the different systems.
Instead we got a lecture on how to live thinly disguised as a story, and tepidly weak writing as a result. The lecture was a bit too anti materialism and contained a sort of naive positivity towards lifelong drug use, but it had some wonderful stuff about physical activity, adoption clubs, thoughtfulness, teaching. styles, and sexual positivity.
Anyway, I think a prospective reader would do better to read a bullet point summary of Huxley's key propositions on Wikipedia.
Instead we got a lecture on how to live thinly disguised as a story, and tepidly weak writing as a result. The lecture was a bit too anti materialism and contained a sort of naive positivity towards lifelong drug use, but it had some wonderful stuff about physical activity, adoption clubs, thoughtfulness, teaching. styles, and sexual positivity.
Anyway, I think a prospective reader would do better to read a bullet point summary of Huxley's key propositions on Wikipedia.
nobe4's review against another edition
adventurous
inspiring
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
4.25
echo_finished_cake's review against another edition
3.0
At first, this book was hard for me to get into, but the more I read it, the more I enjoyed reading the views on philosophy, politics, humanity and religion Aldous Huxley conveys. It was interesting to relate these views to the time era in which the book was written-right after WWII and shortly before Vietnam. I tend to be somewhat narrow minded and I felt this book really opened my eyes to different points of view and it was great! I would recommend this book to anyone wanting to learn a little more about philosophy & religion in a story form.