Recommended: Impact of media on individuals
Nineteen Eighty-Four and Brave New World were both written by men who had experienced, what was in their time the largest and most violent war in history. These tremendous world events revealed the truly deplorable and destructive nature of the state mixed with an inherently domineering human nature. Huxley and Orwell portray a satirical depiction of the eventual state of society as an extrapolation of the condition of the world in their own time showing similar stories of totalitarian dominance and complete control of society by world states. And while these narratives have similar dystopias the ways in which the world falls into control and that state supremacy is maintained is a stark contrast making for an interesting comparison. Huxley's image depicts a world in which the industrial revolution expanded beyond material goods to the mass production of humans themselves.
They want it, and they want it now, and for the most part, they get it. If people feel any sort of negative emotion, happiness is two clicks away. In Huxley’s world, when they want something, they, as well, get it right away. If they want someone, they can have them; afterall, “everyone
If people who deviates the new norm, they would be a “threat” to society, and according to the National Library of Medicine they would “ tend to elicit negative responses...including unfavorable social perceptions, negative emotions, scolding, gossip, and punishment” would lead to being “exiled” from society. The sacrifices of people or individuality aren’t worth the exchange for “social stability” or the opinions of society has chosen to become the “normal.” Sacrificing individuality, every individual would have no personal happiness for
Aldous Huxley’s text, Brave New World, will leave you questioning your perspective on life and it’s choices. Within the novel, curious readers can see that government control over all in an attempt to create a utopia, can sometimes have a counter effect, creating a dystopia. Wielding it’s tool of conformity, The World State has forced its ideology into the minds of its people at a young age, in hopes of avoiding rebellion. In many ways this is how our society functions in the real world. The genre of Huxley's text may be fiction, but the society fabricated in Brave New World may not be so fictional after all.
An important thing for those observing Huxley’s work to keep in mind is the intentions of the World State. The idea of a utopia, ideally without pain or conflict, can be quite tempting and it can be noted that the intentions may be far from what results from the wishful thinking of idealism. In this book, the readers visualize what sacrificial decline of principles might entail. Do the ends justify the means?
As human beings, it is in our nature to desire a life lead by prosperity, bliss, liberty, justice, peace and brotherly love (p. 1). Although this is a universal dream that seems to never be attainable; a great number of leaders have tried to direct men onto this road of riotousness but have failed. These failures are due solely to the opposing beliefs of how to reach this perfect life style. When two opposing beliefs collide, the sight of such dreams merely vanish and the idea of peace and love a drown out by war and rage. Aldous Huxley digs deeper into these goals in his book, “Ends and Means: An Inquiry into the Nature of Ideas”.
"(Huxley, page ##) This quote shows that by conditioning all of society, no one can really be their own person and they just accept everything the way it is because there was never another way of thinking. You can find the same issue in North Korea, where people have propaganda forced into their daily lives and aren 't allowed to have any individuality. One way the World State uses propaganda in the book is with hypnopaedia. This can be compared to the
In a quote stated in the book,”The more stitches, the less riches..." (52).People identify themselves by what they own, rather than by something less superficial. What you own ends up owning you in a sense. Consumerism is due to the perpetuated idea that you cannot be happy unless you surround yourself with things. They are taught to never question and constantly consume. Many people in society today depend highly on money as a driving force.
In Aldous Huxley’s dystopia of Brave New World, he clarifies how the government and advances in technology can easily control a society. The World State is a prime example of how societal advancements can be misused for the sake of control and pacification of individuals. Control is a main theme in Brave New World since it capitalizes on the idea of falsified happiness. Mollification strengthens Huxley’s satirical views on the needs for social order and stability. In the first line of Brave New World by Aldous Huxley, we are taught the three pillars on which the novels world is allegedly built upon, “Community, Identity, Stability" (Huxley 7).
When Huxley wrote the novel Brave New World he envisioned a world 600 years in the future. Although many of the things that Huxley writes about is very farfetched, other things are relatable, in fact some of them have already occurred. For example Huxley states that in the future we will have the ability to create children in test tube, modern day science has enabled us to come very close to that very same prediction. “The complete mechanisms were inspected by eighteen identical curly auburn girls in Gamma green, packed in crates by thirty four short legged, left-handed male Delta Minuses, and loaded into the waiting trucks and lorries by sixty three blue-eyed, flaxen and freckled Epsilon Semi Morons” (p.160). This is an example from the book about how they create the children.
Huxley's ideas that our society is numbed by things that we love and that everyone is almost happy to be somewhat oppressed is almost too real. It is pretty easy to see and make connections after evaluating our society that we live in. I agree with Neil Postmans assertions claiming that Brave New World is most relevant to our society. One of Postman’s claims that i related to is “people will come to love their oppression, to adore the technologies that undo their capacities to think.” this is expressed in the book by the simple quote “community, identity, stability”(1).
In modern Western civilization, Huxley would realize that consumers still make up most of the economy. Consumers can be from any social or economic class, although in the book, the lower caste is conditioned to be larger consumers. “The idea was to make them want to be going out into the country and every available opportunity, and so compel them to consume transport” (22). Huxley uses parallels; the government wants people to go out to the country, contradicting how they want to “abolish the love of nature” (6). This reinforces their ideal of consumerism making the economy stronger.
Truth and happiness are two things people desire, and in the novel, an impressive view of this dystopia’s two issues is described. In this society, people are created through cloning. The “World State” controls every aspect of the citizens lives to eliminate unhappiness. Happiness and truth are contradictory and incompatible, and this is another theme that is discussed in “Brave New World” (Huxley 131). In the world regulated by the government, its citizens have lost their freedom; instead, they are presented with pleasure and happiness in exchange.
In the United States roughly 18% of people are homeless. Many people in the U.S are homeless and while there may be several causes. Some of the reasons that people become homeless aren't just personal issues, there's also some economic issues or work related injuries and more. In the U.S there's a large amount of homeless people and many reasons why they're homeless one such reason is.
Huxley also write some short stories, poetry, travelogues and even film scripts. In his novels and essays Aldous Huxley would always play the role of a critical observer of accepted traditions, customs, social norms and ideals. Importantly, he would be concerned in his writings with the potentially harmful applications of so-called
