By Sidharth Dang
George Orwell, the English novelist and critic famous for his dystopian novel ‘1984’ and political satire ‘Animal Farm’ said, “If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they don’t want to hear.” In 2024, those words ring ominously as we enter a ‘Brave New World' (reference to the 1932 dystopian novel by Aldous Huxley) where people not only refuse to hear what doesn’t align with their worldview but will go to any lengths to silence those with opposing views. ‘Cancel culture’ is a term that’s been coined fairly recently in light of increasing intolerance seen around the world. It’s defined as “a form of ostracism in which someone is thrust out of social or professional circles - be it online, on social media or in person.” It started out as a good thing with the #MeToo movement in 2017 but in the era we live in, all good things either come to an end or live long enough to be transformed into something entirely different. Social media is a perfect example of that. It started out as a well intentioned attempt to bring the world closer. What it has evolved into is wrecking people’s mental health, influencing political campaigns and elections, decreasing our attention span to unhealthy levels, altering and manipulating our behavior by showing ads, causing suicides in teenagers by promoting competition, and making us (in effect) a drug addict at a casino slot machine. I bet Mark Zuckerberg, Jack Dorsey or any of those Silicon Valley superstars didn’t envisage all this when embarking on an innovation that would change people’s social lives forever. Sure, social media has many positives. But at the moment they’re being overshadowed by the ill effects of a technology scaling out of control. But isn’t that a microcosm of the consumer society we actually live in? A society that rewards economic growth and prosperity above all else, even climate change or people’s peace of mind for instance. A society where the yardstick of individual success is measured by how much money one has in the bank and how much of his freedom and individuality he's willing to give away to grind his way to the top of the corporate ladder. A society where happiness is not a birthright but a luxury. A society where false news spreads more rapidly than wildfire and people prefer to remain in their own bubble of self delusion rather than waking up to the truth. As Orwell said, “In the end, the Party would announce that two and two made five, and you would have to believe it”. In the book ‘Brave New World’, the ‘World State’ prioritised happiness at the expense of truth. In the Netflix series based on the same novel, there is a scene where if someone says anything remotely disagreeable or profound, everyone in the room immediately pop a pill known as ‘Soma’. Soma was the panacea that kept them in a constant state of artificial ‘happiness’ and prevented them from experiencing the reality of pain, sorrow, frustration, heartbreak. It was akin to a ‘blue pill’ in the movie ‘The Matrix’ where upon taking it Neo would remain in the fabricated reality of the simulation. In the 2021 film, ‘The Matrix Resurrections’, the blue pill is used by Neo’s psychiatrist to keep his true memories suppressed and hamper his ability to think critically and perceive the lies surrounding him. The word ‘Soma’ was derived from the Vedic scriptures where it’s mentioned in great length in the Ninth Mandala of the Rig Veda. It’s a mythical elixir praised by the Vedic Rishis as the ultimate goal of higher consciousness - the supreme bliss (Ananda) and the yogic state of Samadhi. It’s in essence the ‘Red Pill’ that opens our eyes to the reality of illusion or ‘Maya’. Maya (meaning ‘that which is not’) refers to the reality which is the construct of our consciousness. The ego splits this world into the seer and the seen, the subject and the object, which is the basis of all the duality we see around us. When we go deeper and deeper into ourselves we touch the ground level of consciousness that’s beyond space and time. The Vedic seers called it the Atman. This experience of the ground state of consciousness is known as ‘Sat-Chit-Ananda’ (Reality-Consciousness-Ecstacy). In Vedic terms it’s also represented as ‘Indra-Agni-Soma’. In the Netflix reinterpretation of Brave New World, alongside Soma we are introduced to Indra, a ‘Big Brother’ like existence that’s actually an artificial intelligence responsible for creating this new world - a simulation where human social stability is achieved through the control of neurochemical incentives and structural hierarchy through biological and psychological conditioning. They’ve also gotten rid of God and religion as they are only compatible with the society where people suffer. God and religion also lead to self denial but modern industrial civilisation only functions when people indulge every desire. It keeps people buying things and consuming soma preventing them from experiencing real passion or pain which could’ve led to instability. Yet we see this world crumbling apart in a ‘Fight Club’ like manner when people start waking up to the reality of their prisoned lives disguised as a utopia. All because the AI Indra didn’t take into account one fatal flaw that humans were built around. A flaw that couldn’t be corrected or conditioned away and that eventually spread to the AI Indra as well. The virus was all about human emotions. Messy as they are, they’re not necessarily a flaw but a defining feature of human existence. And all that our history, culture, scriptures, movies are trying to tell us is that emotions shouldn’t be controlled externally but internally. Not the Soma of Huxley’s world but the Soma of ‘Antar mukhya vritti’ - the inward tendency towards reflection and meditation. Not the Blue Pill of The Matrix but rather its Red Pill. And you’ll see how deep the rabbit hole goes. As the Cheshire Cat says to Alice in Wonderland, “We’re all mad here.”
By Sidharth Dang
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