Question+7

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__Alex Makartchouk__ There are many predictions in //Brave New World//. One of Huxley’s predictions is about government. In the novel the government controls citizens by making them happy via genetic engineering and by removing their personal freedom. As a result, citizens lose their emotions, self-esteem, morals, and values. What I find far-fetched about this is why the people would agree to this even if there was a war and other struggles. The first thing I found disturbing is that the government can use new technologies and new science discoveries against their own people. Is it just about control and nothing else? Is it the dream of the government to create mindless robots so they could perform work based on their social class and not care about anything else? It’s very smart and immoral to create robot test tube babies, but who would do it in the first place? The World Controllers in //Brave New World// are the ones who do it. It’s very disturbing that a handful of people could use science to oppress the people. Soma is an advanced drug that can make people happy, but it’s not very realistic for our current society where such drugs are banned. The State, who controls the brave new world, uses every effort to control the minds of the people by developing new technologies and by removing old knowledge from the old world. People who are too free, are sent away to prevent them from spreading “revolutionary ideas” to lower castes. In //Dune:// //House Atreides //, on the planet Ix, the government there creates genetically altered people called Suboids who lack high intelligence, emotions, and generally like what they do. When the planet gets invaded, the invaders manipulate the Suboids into revolting and overthrowing the government. The Suboids didn’t really understand what they were doing and just went with the flow. After the excitement died down, bored, they just went back to the construction yards to continue work. The Suboids most compare to Epsilons in //Brave New World//, who are easily controlled via “hypnopaedic” voice commands. The people’s happiness replaces all possible emotions, feelings, and ambitions in the brave new world. What is amazing is that people trade their lives for happiness. It’s not a big surprise though, because people in our society are dreaming of happiness, but not about “drugged happiness”. People in our society like in //Brave New World// can define happiness as the ability to satisfy needs by owning everything they dream, and to feel no frustration or stress. In //Brave New World// people reach for //Soma// for happiness and prosperity. For many people in our society full prosperity and happiness is just a dream. //Soma // in the brave new world can help people to avoid the truth about society. It looks like they don’t even want to know the truth, because all they want is happiness. Lenina, for example, in stressful situations always takes //Soma// with the purpose to avoid the truth of the event. John is considered to be savage because he is not living in the closed society. John is aware of the real truth: love, emotions, and relations. I find it far-fetched that so few people in the society of //Brave New World// want to know about what’s going on. It’s far-fetched to believe that governments can retain control by making its people very happy and prosperous so much that people don’t care about their freedom, because even happiness, prosperity, and drugs can become boring one day. It is more realistic when the government controls people by benevolent force, what we mostly have in the world now.

= Christian Cofoid = = Aldous Huxley has created a world in which everyone is happy. At first glance, this would be a utopia for all. But with closer examination, his society of the future is more like a dystopic, inaccurate vision of the future. Its concepts are moving and somewhat disturbing. The two most disturbing concepts are life without a family and the totalitarian control of the World State. = = //Brave New World// has many elements in it that I find odd and a little bit disturbing. They don’t fit in with today’s society. One of these things that moved me most is the lack of family. In my life, my family is very important to me. My parents feed me, clothe me, pay for school and sports, and give me advice when I need it. My sister is fun and energetic and makes things interesting at home. My home is a place I feel safe. This idea of family in //Brave New World// has been turned on its head; there are no families. Children are no longer born, they are //grown,// fertilized in a test tube. Then they are //decanted// once they have reached the age at which a normal human would be born. But they aren’t looked after by parents, rather employees of the State. Depending on which caste they are in, they are taught different things through hypnopaedia. They are processed through their childhoods, literally. The State brainwashes them into believing that they are happy with everything, that everyone is to everyone else, and that, “//a gramme is better than a damn//.” = = But one thing that stands out is that the State does not teach true, complex emotions. This is to keep the lower classes happy in their position, in turn keeping stability for the state. But because people are not conditioned with complex emotions, they do not understand them. For example, when Lenina comes on to John, John says that he must sacrifice something (his example was catching a mountain lion) to show his passion for her. He does not want to dishonor her in the Catholic-Shakespearean way. Lenina does not understand why he is refusing her, and therefore, his feelings of passion and love do not register with her. Lenina is an example of the Utopian society’s conditioning because she does not understand complex emotions. In today’s society, our families teach us all these emotions. Without a family, these feelings have become useless and obsolete. It is these emotions that drive everyday life in our world today. It is what makes our lives exciting and depressing. Without these emotions, life would seem like an empty void. Having true love for someone can change one’s life forever. Because there are no families or complex emotions, children are not taught how to desire to be better, smarter, faster, or stronger. They are only taught how to be happy with whatever they have. Because of this, progress is non existent. This is disturbing to me. A world without progress equals a world without excitement, without fun, and without surprises. I would not be happy in a world like this because looking forward is part of the fun. If I am waiting a few months for the new product to come out, just thinking about what it’s going to be like is half the fun. I get all pumped up for all those months before it comes out. But when I get it in my hands, the euphoric effect from all the waiting goes away. The fun of waiting for something new is removed from life in //Brave New World// because whenever the citizens want something, someone is there to hand it to them. = = The final one of the disturbing aspects of this book is the totalitarian control of the government. The World Controllers hand pick which ideas are to be published. Mustapha Mond himself marks a study done //not to be published.// The government as imposed a consumerism-command economy to keep the wheels of stability turning. All sports and leisure activities force people to buy things that the government has produced. I disagree with this form of economy. I do not like when people tell me what to do, let alone what to buy with my hard earned money. I understand that in the book, this works well in combination with their conditioning, but in today’s society, this would be an utter failure. = = Huxley’s predictions of the future are by no means accurate. It is literally impossible to predict a society 500 years from now. But some of these aspects of his society are interesting, and at the same time, a little bit disturbing. The aspects most disturbing to me are the lack of a family, the totalitarian control of the state, and the people’s excessive content with their lives. The government plays the largest role in the lives of people, conditioning them from birth to be happy to controlling what they buy and how they spend their time. It is hard for me to imagine what our lives would be like if this is how we lived today. =

Greta Hucek

Aldous Huxley got creative when he thought of this Utopia. You’d have to be creative if you were going to conjure up the image of children playing “hunt the zipper”. He seems to have gotten so excited to talk about how different this new world would be from his own that some details turned out to be impractical. There are many issues with this world that aren’t discussed in full detail that can’t be ignored if stability is to last for a long period of time. For starters, impersonal relationships have instability written all over them. I have learned about the negatives of these relationships not from my own experience but from many movies and shows. Joey Tribbiani of //Friends// is one such example. He has been with so many different women that he can’t remember the names of those he currently is with. Sorry Joe. I love you and all, but that’s bad. Another ignored issue is economics. It is a crucial part of a society and it can in no way be ignored. Listen to Bill Clinton: “it’s the economy, stupid.” A topic that is never discussed in the book is the problem of energy. How are these helicopters getting around? Surely they need some sort of gas to power unless they already found some sort of replacement for gas. That doesn’t seem to be the case, though, because if they used biofuel, they would be growing crops, such as corn. I know this is not the case because people are conditioned to hate the countryside, so they wouldn’t be working in fields. If helicopters are in fact using natural gas, as I suspect they are, there is inevitably going to be a shortage. How do I know this? I’m pretty sure it’s happening in the United States today. I’m actually not pretty sure; I’m certain. Currently, gas prices are around $4.18 per gallon, which is enough to keep me off the streets. These people living in the Utopia are using these helicopters at a ridiculous rate. Gas is not present in unlimited amounts. There is no magical oil well that refills whenever it gets empty. If there were, we would not be having such a problem in the United States. The brave new world will run out of gas, and there will be a crisis because these people will have no mode of transportation to their daily feely or to their vacation spot of the week. Ford forbid they can’t play obstacle golf every day. Uprisings will ensue because this society is centered on social life, and when people can’t go to these social events, they will be upset. The World Controllers won’t know what to do because they did not plan for this situation. They were not working on alternative sources of energy because apparently progress is unnecessary in Utopia. The World Controllers are in quite the pickle now, all because they didn’t consider the economics of the situation. There is not an unlimited amount of gas in Utopia, so it is not immune from problems concerning the amount of gas on Earth. It is unrealistic for this Utopia to exist in a bubble and not be affected by any other parts of the world. I have to burst that bubble; the world does not work like that. Another issue in this society that could not happen in reality that I would like to point out is the fact that nobody takes time to talk to anybody. On page 89, Bernard tells Lenina that he wants to talk to her alone. She is very surprised at this comment and responds, “Talking? But about what?” Nobody in the Utopia takes any time to get to know what others are like. If nobody talks, I want to know what people do when they are in a helicopter and are flying to, say, a social event (where else would they be going anyway?). What do they do while they are on a 3-hour flight to an island in the Caribbean? The answer can’t //always// be soma. It doesn’t make sense that people wouldn’t ever strike up a conversation about, say, what kind of music they like. What is a person’s favorite feely they have ever been to? Where does that person work? What tasks does he or she have to perform there? Come on, Lenina, get creative. If nobody talked, I feel it would be just a tiny bit awkward, and that’s just from my own experience. Someone’s personal interests are what make an individual different. Any form of uniqueness has been effaced from this Utopia, and I don’t think uniqueness or difference can be completely wiped away from a person. It is apparent that the World Controllers have attempted to rid the world of human differences to the best of their abilities. There are a few aspects of this that they can’t control, however, like everyone being the same. The Bokanovsky process won’t allow it – it will only allow about 15,000 people to be twins. Though there are hardly any differences between others in the Utopia, people still find a way to alienate individuals based on their appearance. This concept seems that it will never truly be gone from this world, because it is very prevalent in today’s world as well. Even the perfect world is flawed. Linda is a perfect example of this. When she returned to this brave new world, inhabitants of the Utopia were disgusted and tried to stay away from her. Nobody would talk to her because she was repulsive to these Utopians’ standards. Thomas, the former Director of Hatcheries and Conditioning, "had" Linda before she went to the savage reservation. When she returned and he saw how ugly she was, he acted as if he didn’t know her in order to keep from being embarrassed. The other side of this is seen when people go from not really being cared about to being the center of attention. This happened to Bernard when he brought John “Savage” to the new world. This gave him social prominence, so people paid attention to him. He got special privileges, he could have any woman he wanted, and the rumor about alcohol in his bottle was forgotten. When John refused to go to any social events, Bernard was seen as his boring old self like before. This is very much like today because, though we may not try to be, we are shallow people who judge others based on their social prominence and outward appearance. If they do not fit a specific set of standards, they will be shunned. Have you ever noticed how the “popular” people in school are all really pretty, skinny, and are good at sports? Is that an accident? I think not. Huxley’s Utopia may look perfect on paper, but it really isn’t. So many aspects of this world are not realistic, like people not considering how they are affecting the rest of the world. Also, people can’t just stop talking to each other because, even with a bunch of social events to go to, it would make for a very boring life. I love spending time with my friends because they each have their own quirks that make them unique. Since these people in the Utopia don’t know any personal information about anybody else, they are judging these people solely by outer appearance. People in the Utopia are still shallow if not shallower than the people in the world today. The flaws that Huxley observed in his lifetime and tried to fix still somehow ended up existing in Utopia. I guess even the perfect world isn’t perfect.

John Hickernell Aldous Huxley’s book, //Brave New World//, is one of many that play the dangerous game of predicting the future. Turning our moral values and rights upside down, Huxley’s world is one that many of us wouldn’t want to live in. Yet, the book extrudes out of every reader the subconscious goal of making the world “a better place”, a utopia, or close to it. Huxley’s world, an attempt at utopia that instead became a dystopia, eerily mirrors our world, with many of Huxley’s guesses having come true only 80 years later. However, it is impossible to predict the future without making erroneous guesses, as many of his predictions are just laughable in the people of the 21st century’s eyes. Nevertheless, some are very close to home and possible could occur soon or in the near future.

An obvious question when one reads this book is “Did Huxley actually mean for his future world to be a complete dystopia?” No doubt the book reveals the problems of a possible future of our advancing society, this “nightmare” of a world, as Huxley calls it. But one need not go far to see parallels of some aspects of Huxley’s society that we cringe at. Hypno ædia rings true in some countries today. In North Korea, innocent citizens are indoctrinated in the “evils” of capitalism and its respective affiliates (e.g. the US), and the “gloriousness” of North Korea as the strongest and mightiest country in the world, under the perfect ideology of communism. Patriotic phrases all over the main square, dances to honor the great Kim Jong Il, and songs sung by two year olds ring unceasingly in the minds of North Koreans, so when Western reporters ask for them to comment on the US, the answer is uniform: “No, we do not like the United States. They are very bad (huge smile).” Not so far away are the laboratories in California who advertise the art of eugenics, reminiscent of the Hatchery and Conditioning Centre in Huxley’s London, England. Scientists are now able to genetically modify your child (just like your tomatoes) to be free of “defects.” This sounds much like what happens in the Hatchery, where scientists add alcohol, radiation, and sleep sickness, although this is for the purpose of making defects (16-17). Also, Bokanovsky’s process is a futuristic model of cloning, which has been in the air since the cloning of Dolly. With the human genome project, the cloning of humans may occur possibly in the near future. The Human Genome project also has lead to another possibility: drugs made to match the DNA in your body to create happiness and relieve stress. Soon, when people are ever tired, or nervous about the upcoming AP Euro test, they will be able to take some pills (or soma, in Huxley’s world), and be stress free for a given amount of time. Some drugs like marijuana could be like soma. And, with the birth control pills since the 1960s (which came thirty years after Huxley created the Malthusian belt for the females in his future world), sex has become more recreational and devalued for some people, a step towards the idea that “ everyone belongs to everyone else” (40). Though there isn’t much evidence today, with predictions of the old people to young people ratio increasing in the next 50 years, killing citizens at age 60 might come up as a proposition to fix a potential food shortage. I find all of these technologies in Huxley’s book disturbing, but the truth is our world has either already created such technologies or might invent them soon.

Of course, not all of Huxley’s inventions are disturbing to me. Personal helicopters seem to be a likely commodity down the road. Rockets to close the distance gap even more could take people from country to country in minutes. Skyscrapers to replace single-digit story houses would likely solve a potential problem of space as our population increases. The superwurlitzer is now the iPod. Soon, we probably will have “4-D/5-D” television and movies (smell and touch) such as Philharmagic at Disney World.

However, I highly doubt that in this country, a nation that stresses individualism, our government would take over the job of reproduction. Also, the eradication of all religions in place of a government-approved religion with orgies is highly unlikely since the freedom of religion is enshrined in the Bill of Rights. One could not fully take away the freedom of religion and/or the sanctity of a family unless the proper checks and balances of the government were circumvented, or if the great majority of our citizenry were mesmerized by some charismatic leader. Of course, if all else fails, the people themselves, as described by Locke’s ideology of the law of human nature and the social contract, could revolt.

Whether these technologies, disturbing or not, likely or unlikely, will prevail in the future is but a mystery. To guess would be to take on the role Huxley did, along with the dangers of being overtly wrong. Yet Huxley makes us ponder the disturbing possibility that the //Brave New World//, which is already similar in some ways to our present world, will be a mirror of our world years from now. Will humanity sacrifice its freedoms for a “utopia”?

// ABC News Primetime North Korea: Inside the Shadows //. Perf. Diane Sawyer. ABC News, 2007. DVD.

Amy O'Grady manbabies.com <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">Predicting the future can be close to impossible. The possibilities are literally endless, yet Aldous Huxley came painstakingly on target when writing his book, __Brave New World__. After side-by-side comparison of our world and the Utopia, it is clear to me that many things are eerily similar to what is in our world today. “Soma” is a good example of this. == Throughout the novel, characters use the drug “soma” to relieve all stress, pain, and any other negative feeling. It was described as having "all the advantages of Christianity and alcohol; none of their defects." (p.33) After reading about this drug, I couldn’t quite figure out what it reminded me of, though I knew it was something. Unlike common drugs like alcohol and marijuana, both often used to relieve stress, soma was unique; it did not have any lasting side-effects. Finally, I realized what exactly this drug mimicked: Xanax. Knowing that many people in my town use this drug made the Utopia a little less foreign to me, but also left me feeling a bit uneasy. Throughout the book, I always looked at soma as a //bad// thing; a false sense of happiness, the easy way out, etc. If people in our society use this drug too, are we really that different from those of the Brave New World? Taking a look at their social class system reassured my discovery of us being not so different after all. == == At first, the castes of “Epsilon,” “Delta,” “Beta,” and “Alpha” seemed pretty ridiculous. It was bizarre to me that people of such an advanced time and age would actually consent to being stuck in a social caste. After all, years and years ago people would rebel even at the thought of a caste system. For example, the French Revolution of the late 1700’s painted a very clear picture of how the people felt about it. Thankfully, us Americans have a Democracy, //obviously// the best form of government because all men are born equal, and “you can be whatever you want in life, son!” Right? Well, not quite. After a closer look, it became apparent that although our society today allows people to move up or down in society on occasion, it is more uncommon than one would think. To some, this would be impossible to do. Take an underprivileged minority teenager wanting to be come a lawyer. Is it //really// possible for this kid to make it through high school, somehow scrape together enough money for college and law school, and then beat out the others in his class to set up a successful firm? Not likely. And do you see many kids born into rich families eventually ending up on the streets? Most likely no. As one can see, although a caste system seems almost inhumane to us while reading about it in __Brave New World__, it actually isn’t to different from what we have today, when you get down to it: both are essentially immobile. == == While I did experience a few epiphanies while reading this novel, finding similarities between our world and the Utopia, I also found some things that were //just not right.// Many aspects of the novel left me feeling a little disturbed. Something that sticks out to me is the emphasis on sexual activity; even worse, of //children’s// sexual activity. The nurses taught the children to play games like “find the zipper” and learn at a young age that sex is normal for anyone, any age. This really disturbed me because it is not socially acceptable in any way for children to be taking part in these kinds of activities. It is seen as perverted and morally unjust, and to hear Huxley speak so casually of it had me feeling more than a little weird. In addition to things like these being disturbing to most of its readers, I also came across a few that really hit close to home, like the absence of a family. == == In our world today, family is extremely important. Everything one does basically involves their family in some way or another, and humans are each entitled to the responsibility of looking after and loving one another from birth. Reading about the children having no family to be born from really opened my eyes to how strange that would be. I could never imagine my life without my family, due to physical as well as mental and emotional needs. My parents give me shelter, food, water, as well as sentimental things like love, knowledge, and support. Interacting with my two brothers over the years has taught me a lot of my most important life lessons and also how to deal with others in life the correct way. Evidently, a family seems crucial to survival today, and that is why the absence of families really hit close to home in Huxley’s book. == == Through close reading and comparison, I have realized that Huxley’s Utopia in __Brave New World__ isn’t so different from our own world after all. At the same time, many aspects of the Brave New World still leave readers feeling uneasy because they are so foreign to people of the 21st century. The thing I am left wondering about is, since many of Huxley’s predictions came true, does that mean that these “disturbing” elements that “hit close to home” are really that bizarre, or could they, too, come true in the near future? ==

<span style="font-size: 12pt; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: auto; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: auto;"> Andrew Eck

Predicting the future is a lot like gambling, in the way that it is very risky as well as challenging to be successful with. In Aldous Huxley’s book, // Brave New World //, he decides to step into the casino and predict very far ahead in the future. Now, he may not have hit the jackpot, but he was very accurate with some of his predictions. On the other hand a lot of his ideas seem very idiotic when hearing them in today’s world. Lots of his predictions can come off as very disturbing and terrible at the surface, but when you really think about it a lot of the things that happen in his “Utopia” are also occurring in our world today. That in itself is a very disturbing idea. The first of many aspects that I found disturbing in this book was that people were not born naturally, but were decanted. What this means is that no one has a “mother”, which is a curse word in the utopia, or any other family members for that matter. I found this to be very disturbing because from my own experience I don’t know what my life would be like if I didn’t have my parents or my brother and sister, but I know I would be much worse off. Also, in our world today the perception is that all children that have lost their parents are just absolutely miserable and never have any happiness. Of course, this isn’t the case in the utopia because the people there are programmed to be happy and aren’t even the slightest bit aware of what life would be like to have family. Freedom is one of the things in life that I tend to value most. In the book, the people of the utopia may think they have freedom, but from birth they are molded to fulfill whatever niche in there society that needs filling. In the utopia they have a caste system that consists of different levels that basically go from worst people to best people. What I found to be the worst about this system is that a person could never work their way into a higher class. The worst part about this though, is that is almost that same as what goes on right now in our world. Sure, there are always the amazing stories of how people came up from nothing and achieved their dreams, but these are once in a lifetime occurrences. How the cycle works in our world today is that the rich stay rich and the poor stay poor and of course there are the very few exceptions to this. The key to that statement is that those are // exceptions //and almost never happen. This made me feel that our world was so much more similar to the “Utopia” than I originally thought. Another case where I found something disturbing that occurs both in this utopia from the book, as well as in our world today is with drugs. In the book they have “soma” which was created to keep any negative feelings from ever occurring. Obviously, they are trained in their sleep to take this whenever they feel any anger coming on. Even thought we don’t train people in our world to take “soma”, we still have doctors that prescribe drugs to people that we feel have a “problem”. A type of drug that I found in our world that was very similar to soma is any anti-depressant drugs. Although people taking anti-depressants are mostly likely just a little less happy than the people from the utopia, this doesn’t make it any better for us to turn to drugs when problems arise. Another concept that I found disturbing form the story was how much of their lives were devoted towards sex, especially when they don’t even use its // real // purpose which is to have children. Something particularly disgusting was that they devoted a lot of their lives towards sexual activities at all ages. For example a game that was played by the children in this book was called “find the zipper.” This is clearly a case where Huxley’s prediction was a little off because our world today isn’t really similar to theirs in this aspect. Huxley may have aimed for a very “utopic” society in this book, but it comes off as very dystopic to many readers, including myself. After seeing how many of the disturbing ideas in this book seem very similar to things in our current world, it made me think about how many more connections this disturbing book could have to our world in the near future. After seeing this attempt at the creation of a utopia, and seeing how disturbing I felt it was it really made me want to ponder one question in particular- will we ever come to a point in time where disturbing things like these don’t go by unnoticed by people in our society?