not entirely bad

In his In Our Time newsletter, Melvyn Bragg develops the idea in this week's programme (blogged here) that Aldous Huxley's Brave New World is as much utopia as dystopia.

'The notion of a life without physical pain, the notion of death made painless, the notion of being employed in an area where you were secure even though you were confined to that area, the notion that pleasure of certain sorts was always readily available. For many I think that would not be considered an entirely bad deal.'