...Dystopia: The World Today Introduction Written in 1931 and published a year after, The Brave New World (1932) contradicts the idea of Utopia (perfect world); a type of novel that queries the values of 1931 London using satire to dramatically represent a futuristic world in which occurring fads in British and America have been taken to extremity. People from The World State are living peacefully, free from any kind of war, abhorrence, impecuniousness, illness and physical sufferings. The novel depicts a potentially perfect world, not to mention people can enjoy wealth in terms of material possessions and all form of pleasures. Using high technology, human beings no longer have to conceive. They are created in factories wherein they are being prepared for future lives. The children are raised altogether and minds are controlled through sleep-teaching to further enhance their condition. As they turn to be adults, people are already destined to certain classes. And if one was unfortunately destined to be of the lower class, he would be raised to generally like the kind of life designated to him and be trained not to like nor appreciate - basically to the extent of being manipulated - other roles but theirs. They are subjected to engage or yield themselves in totally harmless entertainment and physical activities as form of leisure. There are several anticipations which were depicted by Huxley in The Brave New World. Although some of them may not be totally proven by this time,...
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...Brave New World In Contrast to Aging in the Future The book “Brave New World” brought up many points about the future, and aging. The book is in the Utopia setting where everyone is the same, and robot-like, they take soma to stay happy and emotionally incapable. People do not age, they do not have emotions or feelings either, they are all the same. Comparing to the real world, we do age, we do have emotions, and we do care about others. In Brave New World everyone lives forever because of the medications they take. The question for today is, how long are we going to live in the future? It all depends on medical advances, and technological advances. Some people believe we are going to live longer as the years go on. Some believe that medicines or life styles may decrease our life expectancy. I believe that in the very far future we may end up like Brave New World, taking medications or other modifications to help our bodies live longer. I believe that we will advance medically in the near future, but we will not be advancing rapidly enough to be able to find a medication that everyone in society is going to take. It is far-fetched...
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...eventually deteriorate, they had contrasting views on how we would construct our own demise. Orwell feared “what we hate will ruin us;” meanwhile, Huxley “feared what we love will ruin us.” Both authors truly believed that “it is not in the stars to hold our destiny but in ourselves.” Postman’s view accurately details why Huxley’s prediction of the future is a much more plausible projection in relation to our modern day society in the United States. Orwell’s main character in 1984, Winston Smith, is living within a society reliant and controlled by a totalitarian government. This government controls the past, present, and the future of each and every citizen through the various...
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...In the book, Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley the society represents many aspects of today’s world that were mere predictions. Huxley focuses on the process of conditioning to change the children’s mindsets. As our world is changing, we can see some of the same results as the conditioning in the book creates. The conditioning that is constantly shown throughout the whole book is very scarysacry for the fact that in our world, some of these practices are shown in some way. One of the conditionings that are seen early in the book is when the children are getting electrocuted after seeing certain objects, in this case, flowers and books. The children are taught to hate specific objects by showing that pain is associated with them. Once the Director...
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...Brave New World by Aldous Huxley May 2012 Brave New World Brave New World idolizes the perfect future. This utopia seems infallible, but the pieces do not fit together. In this world, people take the easy way out, avoiding pain, and have a way of thinking that is not compatible with human nature. Life, altogether, has no meaning. There is nothing worth living for; no family, loved ones, or even God. Is this truly utopia? In fact, it is a chaotic society in which everyone thinks they are happy. At first inspection, it seems perfect in many ways: it is carefree, problem free and depression free. All aspects of the population are controlled: number, social class, and intellectual ability are all carefully regulated. Even history is controlled and rewritten to meet the needs of the party. Stability must be maintained at all costs. In this dystopian novel, Brave New World, presents a horrifying view of a possible future in which society has become a prisoner of the very technology it hoped would save us. In Brave New World Huxley's distortion of technology, religion, and family values, is much more effective than his use of literary realism found in his depiction of a savage reservation. Through his use of distortion Huxley tells a classic tale with the theme of, be careful what you wish for because it may not truly be what you wanted. Huxley effectively uses distortion in Brave New World through his depiction of social values of the future. For example, when...
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...In this human society we are being controlled by our pleasures and our fears. In fact there are three aspects that are created in our minds, which are desire, fear, and ignorance. Yet, what ignorance? Therefore, were so involved with our desires and fears, we become distracted and therefore we ignore the powerful and natural qualities. According to the article, “Amusing Ourselves To Death” the author Neil Postman’s view states that Aldous Huxley’s stark vision of the future depicted in “Brave New World” is more accurate than the novel 1984 by George Orwell. As technology invests, there is more and more of a tendency towards distractions and fascination with self. I stand in strong agreement with Postman’s statement. It is intriguing how two...
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...Brave New World: Relevant or too Relevant? In the 1930s and 1940s, Aldous Huxley and George Orwell presented notions of a lurid future society in their novels. Huxley’s Brave New World is a dystopian novel that tells a tale of humans born in laboratories who are free to use drugs and have sex at their leisure, which mirrors a few aspects of today’s world. Today, sexual promiscuity and prurience has increased. Substance abuse has also proliferated. Moreover, many rapid scientific/technological developments have been made. Despite Orwell’s 1984 prophesying that telescreens and totalitarianism will be copious, our world is steadily racing toward a society that echoes Huxley’s Brave New World. The eerie resemblance is more than just a coincidence. Whether the circumstance applies to a teenager or an adult, sexual promiscuity has become increasingly common. By human nature, men and women will be aroused by someone whose attributes are in his/her favor (such as a large bosom or wide hips of women for men and muscularity or great hair of men for women), even if they are married and devoutly committed to his/her partner. Monogamous relationships are also threatened by divorce and extramarital affairs. Another reason marriages break apart is due to pornography— men and women may feel unsatisfied in their relationship and/or seek sexual gratification from a third party. A study by the Family Research Council and the Marriage and Religion Institute claims that 56% of divorces...
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...in Aldous Huxley’s classic dystopian novel Brave New World and director Phillip Noyce’s film The Giver exhibit behaviors that are forced upon them, and they do not know what has been taken away from them. Our modern society and culture is succumbing to these predictions to only a slight extent because Americans still have the freedoms to be their own person while the characters in the stories do not. The governments in the book and the movie are both over-controlling and try to inhibit natural phenomenon like having free will and the ability to feel emotions. For the most part, Americans are born free and have the capability to feel anything. Conversely, in Brave New World, most of the population is genetically engineered to feel a certain way. Each person is created in such a way that whatever they are predestined to do in life makes them happy. As the Director once put it, “that is the secret to happiness and virtue—liking what you’ve got to do. All conditioning aims at that: making people like their unescapable social destiny,” (Huxley 16). In modern society, no one is...
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...Wow! This was first reaction to answer this question. It's probably the oximoron of novel comparisons. Ban books, no reason to read." books. Inflicting pain, inflicting pleasure. There is no grey area here. It's black or white, democrat or republican. Two totally different literary masterpieces. Huxley's "Brave New World" published in 1932, portrayed a world of preiscuous sex, no war, no poverty, no crime, and everybody was using a suposively perfect drug called "Soma." The drug use and unlimted sexual freedom gave them comfort and a false sense of hapiness. Orwell's "1984" was published in 1949 and received immedaite attendtion in England and the United States. Orwell died at age 46 of TB six months after it was published, so he never got to see how his predictions would pan out....
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...dominant theme.” To what extent do ‘1984’ and ‘Brave New World’ depict a dehumanised society? Both Orwell’s ‘1984’ and Huxley’s ‘Brave New World’ certainly deny humanness to the characters in their novels. Kelman defines humanness as having two key attributes, identity and community. Dehumanisation occurs when these are removed from society. It is true that individuality is denied to citizens and although the community remains, it is subverted in order to fit the government ideal. It can therefore be said that dehumanisation occurs as people are denied and identity and the true meaning of community which is the perception that a person is part of an interconnected community of individuals. Dystopian literature serves to critique the current social and political conditions by looking at potential conditions. Both novels were written when the fear of growing totalitarian governments was present. The novels are a prediction of what may happen to society if this power grows worldwide. In 1946, Orwell wrote "Every line of serious work that I have written since 1936 has been written, directly or indirectly, against totalitarianism and for democratic socialism, as I understand it." Around the time Huxley wrote ‘Brave New World’ there had been huge discoveries made in science and technology, Huxley took these and created a dystopia that uses technology to trick citizens into loving their slavery. The governments in both ‘1984’ and ‘Brave New World’ dehumanise people in order to maintain their...
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...Savannah Morris Faris Honors English IV 09 January 2015 A Maggot-Less World A Utopia is an imaginative place that is beautiful in every aspect and is the author’s perspective of a “perfect society”. Aldous Huxley creates this Utopia in his novel, “Island”. He creates a perfect society with limited technology and a union of all people to work together. Huxley creates this Utopia during a time period of corruption and new discoveries. As the nation enters the literary time period of “the beat period”, Huxley's unconscious idea of a Utopian society is displayed uncensored in “Island” as opposed to “Brave New World” and he provides his personal solution to the world’s problems. In “Island” by Aldous Huxley the main character, Will Farnaby,...
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...Amna Shah Journal # 1 Due Date: Sept 7th, 2011 I'd like to start this with a prediction: in a few years and with some historical perspective I predict that we will realize that the first decade of the twenty-first century produced the most profoundly far reaching scientific revolution in history. This revolution will not come from massive particle accelerators. Nor will it come from telescopes scanning the deepest regions of space; its insights are not about the origin of the universe. As significant as those insights will undoubtedly be, the revolution I have in my mind from this article is taking place within brain imaging centers across the world. Its insights are about us what it means to be human, to have a feeling, to make a decision, to live with others, and to construct social and moral orders unlike anything seen in the history of life. Mind is as a form of energy quite apart from the electrochemical exchanges that drive the brain, yet able interface with them on behalf of higher functions of the personality. According to the article, the legal and moral new field of neuroethics threaten took place into every part of our lives. With rapid advances in pharmacology and in brain imaging, it will soon be possible to monitor and control impulses and behavior. Researcher has investigated these problems with something quite unexpected began happening a few years ago. Our individual and collective decision making to underlying brain processes. In so doing, she is uncovering...
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...After the year 1984 passed the world breathed a sigh of relief that Orwell’s prophecy of oppression by government or a “big brother” did not come true. In 1985 Neil Postman published Amusing Ourselves to Death in which he describes a takeover of a passive society using Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World as the prophecy. Postman describes imminent death by comparing Orwellian fears to those of Huxley’s: “We had forgotten that alongside Orwell’s dark vision, there was another – slightly older, slightly less well known, equally chilling: Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World. Contrary to common belief, Huxley and Orwell did not prophesy the same thing…What Orwell feared were those who ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one. Orwell feared those who would deprive us of information. Huxley feared those who would give us so much that we would be reduced to passivity and egoism. Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from us. Huxley feared the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance. Orwell feared we would become a captive culture. Huxley feared we would become a trivial culture, preoccupied with some equivalent of the feelies, the orgy porgy, and the centrifugal bumblepuppy…In 1984, Huxley added, people are controlled by inflicting pain. In Brave New World they are controlled by inflicting pleasure” (vii). With entertainment and technology surrounding the population everyday...
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...Can youthfulness really be continual? With technology advancing it’s now possible to look twenty years younger, but is it worth it? Undergoing costly surgeries, and hours of agonizing pain can not only be dangerous but also may lead to long term consequences. In the book, Brave New World (BNW) the normalcy in the society is to never age. The author, Aldous Huxley, made some authentic predictions on surgical procedures for people to stay youthful. In our time scientists like, the student’s in Durham University, have invented the “forever young drug”, but no matter what aging is still inevitable. “We don't permit their magnesium-calcium ratio to fall below what it was at thirty. We give them transfusions of young blood. We keep their metabolism...
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...Jennifer Kurtenbach, Mrs. Holzhauer, world Lit, Period.3, November 16, 2015. $18,000 On Average, the amount parents spend on Genetically modifying their child. With ongoing advances in reproductive technology and genetic engineering, a human’s ability to make themselves what they please is increasingly within reach. For example, in a 1996 Nature editorial it was stated that, “the growing power of molecular genetics confronts us with future prospects of being able to change the nature of our species.”{1} This has raised serious ethical concerns. The power to change human nature says nothing at all about whether we have any right to change it or should change it. How might we use such unprecedented power? Aldous Huxley made disturbing predictions about human’s possible future. Both explored what might happen if technologies like genetic engineering and psychological conditioning were unwisely applied to mankind. Huxley’s View In Huxley’s Brave New World children...
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