From "Brave New World"; what is our equivalent to a gramme of Somma?

Question

What would be the most likely drug we could use to compare it with. This question started a debate among coworkers. Some said marijuana and some said ecstasy

Answer 1

I think rather than focusing on the physical effects, one should focus on the role that the drug plays in the society Huxley portrays.

In Brave New World, Soma is legal and its use is even culturally encouraged. It is used by people as an escape, to avoid bad feelings, to avoid confronting reality. Its counterpart in our world right now is alcohol.

The physical effects of alcohol are different from Soma, but the role each plays in its respective "world" is identical.

Answer 2

It's not a drug. In order to equate fictional dystopias to the modern condition, you have to take a broader view of the category you would put the equivalent into. So soma is any passive doping device: television, spectator sports, religious sermons, talk-radio, pornography, etc. It is not the content that matters, it is the contentment felt in the vegetative state. That's why television was narcotic even when the programs presented constructive values. America suffered crib death from the Baby Boomers, the first television generation; from that result you have to conclude that it was the inaction and capture of the consciousness's attention on an unreal world that did the damage that soma did in the dystopia.

Answer 3

Soma's more like ecstasy: it certainly has an amphetamine-style degree of stimulation, accompanied by an ecstasy-like sensation of love and sexual arousal. However, ecstasy also causes some hallucinatory effects and as far as I remember, Soma isn't well known for this.

Let's just say it's half a pill and a line of coke, yeah?

Answer 4

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Answer 5

Any drug, and in some cases even TV.