Chapter 7: The Soma Revolution Part 1: The Usurpation of Art

These next two chapters establish the overall thesis of the book. The chapter provides more incite to the 90s cultural renaissance in that this was a time when music and cinema often tackled dark, transgressive, anti-establishment themes that would be unimaginable in mainstream culture today. In this regard, the chapter goes much further than merely lamenting that art forms of music and cinema are declining as paying industries, but finally addresses the issue of what art is being usurped by. In this case, the chapter contends that these art forms are being usurped by soma. In the same vein of the soma of Brave New World, this art-usurping soma provides users with instant gratification to keep them in a passive, compliant, servile state to uphold the status quo and keep the masses in line. This soma can be so powerful enough as to co-op youth culture so that the notions of rebelling against their parents, defying authority, and questioning the status quo no longer register with them. The soma revolution isn’t just dystopian, it has become so powerful as to co-op dystopia itself.

Chapter 8: The Soma Revolution Part 2: Dystopia as Soma

A much needed critique of dystopia and it’s contemporary and former depictions is presented here-with effectively no film or academic criticism in this regard at all. The chapter argues that this contrast is not just polarized but dystopian in and of itself. The previous centuries’ of dystopia had always used the dystopia depicted to provide a warning to audience of the dystopia presented to them. What no one seems to realize is that this century has done the exact opposite with it’s perpetual depictions of dystopia that effectively affirm or normalize the dystopia they present to the audience. This is happening when real life becomes increasingly dystopian in nature in which our present techno-plutocrats continue to obtain so much wealth and power as to usher in Huxley’s Final Revolution in which they become Gods themselves leading to a point of no return.