Humanity in Brave New World
For years, authors and philosophers have satirized the “perfect” society to incite change. In Brave New World, Aldous Huxley describes a so-called utopian society in which everyone is happy. This society is a “controlled environment where technology has essentially [expunged] suffering” (“Brave New World”). A member of this society never needs to be inconvenienced by emotion, “And if anything should go wrong, there's soma” (Huxley 220). Citizens spend their lives sleeping with as many people as they please, taking soma to dull any unpleasant thoughts that arise, and happily working in the jobs they were conditioned to want. They are genetically altered and conditioned to be averse to socially destructive things, like nature and families. They are trained to enjoy things that are socially beneficial: “'That is the secret of happiness and virtue – liking what you've got to do. All conditioning aims at that: making people like their inescapable social destiny'” (Huxley 16). Citizens operate more like machinery, and less like humans. Humanity is defined as “the quality of being human” (“Humanity”). To some, humanity refers to the aspects that define a human: love, compassion and emotions. Huxley satirizes humanity by dehumanizing the citizens in the Brave New World society.
Huxley deletes love from society to satirize humanity. In the society, in order to maintain stability, “'The greatest care is taken to prevent you from loving any one too much'” (Huxley 237). If you have no loved ones, you have no one to mourn. When a citizen dies, life continues on as usual; there is no loss in efficiency. Huxley learned at a young age that grieving for a loved one is part of being a human: “At the age of 14 Aldous...
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...dure the hardships of life in order to enjoy the blessings. Sadness is a defining characteristic of a human being: “In spite of their sadness-- because of it, even; for their sadness was the symptom of their love for one another-- the three young men were happy” (Huxley 242). Sadness is a symptom of joy. Loss is a symptom of love. But Huxley knew that it is worth it to feel both pain and happiness instead of nothing. Without these defining characteristics of humanity, all that remains is a stable, well-oiled machine, certainly not a group of human beings.
Works Cited
"Aldous Huxley – Biography." Egs.edu. The European Graduate School. Web. 25 Feb. 2012.
"Brave New World Theme of Suffering." Shmoop. Shmoop. Web. 25 Feb. 2012.
"Humanity." Dictionary.com. Dictionary.com. Web. 25 Feb. 2012.
Huxley, Aldous. Brave New World. New York: Harper & Bros, 1932. Print.
Hence, The Wenders’ determination to protect their daughter in a hostile society, Uncle Axel’s willingness to love and guide his insecure nephew, and the telepaths’ devotion to their closely-knitted group remind us that no matter how corrupt the majority of society becomes, there will always be those who will keep alive the beautiful qualities that make us human. Thus, it is clear that Wyndham purposely incorporated loving relationships in the midst of suffering to keep alive our hope in the human race. Love is an unique quality that can emerge through hardships. The Chrysalids is meant to remind us that the power of this emotion can overcome despair.
Happy endings to stories are often times pre conceived to mean something considered good -- things such as a romantic kiss confirming mutual love, a heroic “saves the day” moment, or a grand victory in an epic battle. However, the notion that happy endings only spur from sentient fortunate events is a misconceived one; in fact, happy endings can also be moral or spiritual, even if the final act closes with death. In Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, John’s suicide that ends the novel gives him both spiritual reassessment and moral reconciliation as he searches for isolation both for his own sake and for what he believes to be the sake of World State as a whole.
The dystopian novel Brave New World by Aldous Huxley, displays a controlled society where people have a designated position. Everyone is made in a test tube and placed in different caste: Alpha, Beta, Gama, Delta, or Epsilon. The upper castes are intelligent and have managerial jobs, whereas the lower castes do the manual labor. The citizens within this society are conditioned to believe, hate, love, or do certain things that their caste requires. For instance, the Alphas are set to believe that they have the best jobs, whereas the Epsilons believe that their jobs are better because they don’t have work as hard as the other castes. The science and technology within Brave New World is what makes this society possible. The science and technology being invented today have the potential of our real world society ending up much like the society in Brave New World. Starting with the study of genetically modified bacteria leading up to genetically modified humans. And then eventually having children conceived in test tubes. All the studies and experiments being done today are the stepping stones to a controlled society much like Brave New World.
John's eyes fluttered open and he cautiously surveyed his surroundings. Where was he taken? Who knocked him unconscious and carried him from his solitude at the lighthouse? He did not have to wait long for his answer, when he saw his friend standing over him, shaking him to awareness.
Huxley implies that by abrogating dreadfulness and mental torment, the brave new worlders have disposed of the most significant and brilliant encounters that life can offer also. Most remarkably, they have relinquished an abstruse deeper joy which is intimated, not expressed, to be pharmacologically out of reach to the utopians. The magical foundation of this assumption is dark. There are clues, too, that a percentage of the utopians may feel a poorly characterized feeling of disappointment, an irregular sense that their lives are trivial. It is suggested, further, that assuming that we are to discover correct satisfaction and importance in our lives, then we must have the ability to contrast the great parts of existence with the awful parts, to feel both euphoria and despondency. As vindications go, it’s a great one.
At what point does social stability outweigh human nature? There needs to be a balance between physical and actual happiness, and where the proper balance should be is questionable. Huxley doesn?t have the answer, but he leaves the reader with an idea of why balance is so hard to find: ?Actual happiness always looks pretty squalid in comparison with the overcompensations for misery? (Huxley 221).
Human beings have a tendency to avoid problems and suffering in their lives, searching for the “perfect world” in which every individual may constantly feel happy. However, is this “perfection” ascertainable by any individual or mankind as a whole? In Brave New World, Aldous Huxley offers his ideas and interpretations of a utopian society in which each person has the ability to always be happy. In Huxley’s vision, pain and suffering are completely avoidable through the use of a drug called soma. Soma functions as an opiate, allowing its consumers to escape all of life’s hardships almost instantaneously by entering into “another world.” People of the World State heavily depend on soma to live their daily lives each day without
"'God isn't compatible with machinery and scientific medicine and universal happiness.'" So says Mustapha Mond, the World Controller for Western Europe in Aldous Huxley's novel Brave New World. In doing so, he highlights a major theme in this story of a Utopian society. Although the people in this modernized world enjoy no disease, effects of old age, war, poverty, social unrest, or any other infirmities or discomforts, Huxley asks 'is the price they pay really worth the benefits?' This novel shows that when you must give up religion, high art, true science, and other foundations of modern life in place of a sort of unending happiness, it is not worth the sacrifice.
Imagine living in a society where there is no sense of independence, individual thought or freedom. A society where the government uses disturbing methods that dehumanize people in order to force conformity upon them. Taking away any sense of emotion, It would be very undesirable to live in a society with such oppression. Such society is portrayed in Aldous Huxley's novel Brave New World. The World State uses social restrictions to create permanent artificial personalities for people within the society. The World State also uses controlled groupings of people to brainwash them further to be thoughtless people with no sense of individualism. Lastly, the World State uses drugs to create artificial happiness for people, leaving no room for intense emotion which causes people to revolt against the World State. Within the novel Brave New World, it is seen that the World State eliminates individuality through social restrictions, government controlled groupings and the abuse of drugs to maintain control of the population.
Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World is a science fiction book that captures both the benevolent and malevolent sides of cloning and mass production of human embryos through science. Huxley’s book, published in 1932, conveys his well-developed and disturbingly accurate ideas about human behavior in what was then the distant future. Some of Huxley’s predictions have been realized today, some to a greater degree than others. These specific predictions which are closely related to today are; our sexual practices, obsession with youth and beauty, abuse of drug and the declining practice of religion. For the people of the “World State”, life is based on immediate pleasure and constant happiness; lack of religion, fixation on beauty, sex and the use of
I have just recently read the novel Brave New World by Aldous Huxley. This novel is Huxley’s satiric vision of the “utopian future” where humans are genetically bred to serve a designated purpose for the rest of their entire lives. Huxley first released a version of this book in 1932. It is remarkable how Huxley made predictions of technological reproduction and manipulation while in a time where technology was not prevalent. Huxley had established himself as a writer and social satirist. A Modern Utopia, by H.G. Wells, which was based on an idealistic vision of the future, inspired Huxley to write Brave New World, a more pessimistic, provoking, and terrifying prediction of the future. This novel follows the story of a world controlled under one world power, where genetic engineering has taken the place of sexual reproduction. Huxley touches a wide variety of topics in his novel. Three of the main ideas Huxley concentrated on were how too many technological advancements can overrun a society, unattainable happiness, and the dehumanization of sex.
In today’s society a person is shaped by family, friends, and past events, but in Aldous Huxley’s classic novel, Brave New World, there is no such thing as family, history and “true” friends. The government controls every aspect of an individual from their creation in the hatcheries to their conditioning for their thoughts and careers. In this brave new world the ideas of stability and community reign supreme, and the concept of individualism is foreign and suppressed, “Everyone belongs to everyone else, after all,” (47). Huxley perverses contemporary morals and concepts in Brave New World, thus distorting the ideas of materialistic pleasures, savagery versus society, and human relationships. These distortions contribute to the effectiveness of Brave New World, consequently creating a novel that leaves the reader questioning how and why.
In Haruki Murakami’s novel, 1Q84, the idea of man creating the ideal world is explored. What starts off as a temporary refuge, develops into a community with the ultimate goal of becoming a utopia. However as this utopia develops, the population becomes increasingly blind and naïve. In the process, they lose their morality in favor of subordination, following the wills of those standing above them. Likewise, in A Clockwork Orange, Anthony Burgess introduces a world that strives to wipe out radical thought. By means of brainwashing experiments, these radicals are forced to conform to societal definitions of ‘good’. These individuals lose their humanity as a byproduct of these tests, which brings our attention to the question of human ethics and what is really right or wrong. The two books show that in the attempt to achieve a utopian society, it is impossible for mankind to stay in touch with their humanity.
In a world based on the motto “Community, identity, stability,” every aspect of society follows that phrase. In the Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, everyone belongs to everyone else. The people live in one community, follow their pre-destined identity and lead stable lives as a result.
Because of the place and development of this society, it has formed a certain alterity or “otherness” to it's culture that is vastly different than what we see today. It is all used as a blown up concept of what life is today, and even in the 1930s when the book was written. Huxley is showing where we have placed ourselves as a society and how we have set the direction of it for the future. Aldous Huxley sets out and makes true connections and assumptions that with time our own society is becoming more exotic from one generation to the next. We change in sexual morality, what we value changes completely and we begin to see our own alterity in the culture we have so blindly and carelessly shaped.