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Effect of technology on human beings
Effect of technology on human beings
Effect of technology on human beings
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Albert Einstein, a theoretical physicist, once said, “I Fear the Day That Technology Will Surpass Our Human Interaction”. In the book Brave New World by Aldous Huxley, Huxley writes about a futuristic society in which people are conditioned to believe, act, and live in a certain way. Aldous Huxley proposes to the reader the fundamental idea that technological advances can easily be used by any form of government to control the thoughts, actions, feelings, and lives of its people. In the new world, the world state controls what thoughts people have, the director says this in the beginning of the book, “Till at last the child’s mind is these suggestions, and the sum of the suggestions is the child’s mind And not the child's mind only. The adult's …show more content…
mind too—all his life long. The mind that judges and desire and decides—made up of these suggestions. But all these suggestions are our suggestions . . . suggestions from the State” (Huxley 29). The Director was telling the reader that the world state did not give the people any chance to think for themselves. The world state put the thoughts that they wanted the citizens to have into their heads. The director provided another example of how the world state controls the thoughts people have. He states, “Roses and electric shocks, the khaki of Deltas and a whiff of asafoetida—wedded indissolubly before the child can speak” the director continued on saying “For that there must be words, but words without reason. In brief, hypnopaedia” (Huxley 28). That quote was about the conditioning process in which the world state brainwashes the new children into loving their life and what they should hate, for example the Delta children were conditioned/ brainwashed to hate flowers and books. Another way in which the world state controls the lives of its people is by controlling their actions.
The head nurse and the director demonstrate this in the following quote, “lifting his hand, he gave the signal. The Head Nurse, who was standing by the switchboard at the other end of the room, pressed down a little lever. There was a violent explosion. Shiller and ever shriller, a siren shrieked. Alarm bells maddeningly sounded. The children started, screamed; their faces were distorted with terror” (Huxley 21). The director here in this quote is bring the group of students through the process on how they condition delta babies into hating books and roses by sirens and loud noises. The director then goes on saying, “And now we proceed to rub in the lesson with a mild electric shock” (Huxley 21). This quote displays how they are physically conditioned to control their actions. Another way in how the World State controls the actions of people is by how the have to fill out paper work and go through a long process in order to leave the world state. This next quote shows how much effort it is to leave London, “A permit for you to initial, Director, said Bernard as airily as possible, and laid the paper on the writing-table. The Director glanced at him sourly. But the stamp of the World Controller’s Office was at the head of the paper and the signature of Mustapha Mond, bold and black, across the bottom. Everything was perfectly in order. The Director had no choice” (Huxley
95). The paper had to go through the World Controller’s Office, Mustapha Mond, and the Director for approval just for him to go to the reservation with Lenina. A final way in which the world controller’s control the people of its society is through feelings. One of the biggest ways we see this in the book is trough the use of Soma. Soma is a drug in which the leaders use to moderate the citizens; it is described as the perfect drug because it gives you the high of normal drugs without all the bad stuff afterwards. The citizens of the "World State" have been conditioned to love the drug, and they use it to escape any momentary bouts of dissatisfaction. The problem is that the citizens are essentially enslaved by the drug and turned into mindless drones when on it. Another way we see this in the book is when Bernard is talking about how he wants to feel passion. Lenina over hears Bernard saying this, "I want to know what passion is," she heard him saying. "I want to feel something strongly.” "When the individual feels, the community reels," Lenina pronounced. "Well, why shouldn't it reel a bit?" (Huxley 94). In that last quote from Bernard and Lenina we see that Bernard wants to feel and we also got to see what Lenina says or thinks about feelings. In conclusion, Huxley proposes to the reader the fundamental idea that technological advances can easily be used by any form of government to control the thoughts, actions, feelings, and lives of its people. You can see this through the book by the new reproductive technology, sleep-learning, mental and physical conditioning, and the use of Soma.
The children screamed; their faces were distorted with terror.” (16) Even at a young age, the world state uses technology for children to understand what the society wants and does not want, repeatedly, so that they do not do so in the future either. In this case, the world state does not want children to read, reading produces emotions and a greater spectrum of knowledge. Shocks are used in Neo Pavlovian conditioning as a method used by children to fear books.
According to Neil Postman’s Amusing Ourselves to Death, Orwell’s 1984 and Huxley’s Brave New World both predicted that society would eventually be governed by a global totalitarian system; however, the key difference between both their predictions is the method by which society’s cognizance would be undermined. Orwell claimed that contemporary society would be controlled by overt modes of policing and supervising the social hierarchy, whereas Huxley stated that society’s infatuation with entertainment and superficial pleasure alone would be enough for the government to have absolute control over the public. Unfortunately, today’s society is not an Animal Farm. All jokes aside, Postman’s assertion of Huxley’s theory, “what
How does one achieve happiness? Money? Love? Being oneself? Brave New World consists of only 3 different ways to achieve happiness. Each character of the brave new world will have his or her different opinion of the right way to achieve happiness. In his novel Brave New World, Aldous Huxley explains many people achieve happiness through the World State’s motto – “community, identity, stability”, soma, and conditioning.
Examining Aldous Huxley’s View on Government Control “Science and technology provide the means for controlling the lives of citizens” (Brave). This quote describes a major and ever-growing problem in the basic, daily lives of society now, and has been since the mid-twentieth century. With technology, medicine, and general knowledge evolving so rapidly, it is hard to find a constant code by which governments can carry out their purpose of regulating societies. In some cases, organization is taken to an extreme level that chokes out creativity and individuality while replacing it with codes and stern punishments (Huxley). On the other end of the spectrum, liberalism can flourish in an atmosphere of prosperity and freedom, but not for very long (Huxley).
This book can be a warning to humanity, telling society that brainwashing can become common and destroy the modern day world. This book makes the people of the modern day world think about what could happen in the near future if society decides to go farther and more into scientific research. Misuses in science could contribute to the making of man into an animal, not a smart, adapted, emotional connected human being. In “Brave New World,” Huxley creates a world that is complete and utterly disturbing to what humanity could become. The people in the World State are controlled through psychological conditioning on a ground breaking scale.
The novel Brave New World, written by Aldous Huxley and the Giver directed by Phillip Noyce both warn that the over reliance on technology can take over independent thinking and lead to the loss of emotions required to make wise decisions. This is demonstrated through the lack of freedom, usage of drugs and absence of family bonds.
In his novel Brave New World, Aldous Huxley illustrates ways in which government and advanced science control society. Through actual visualization of this Utopian society, the reader is able to see how this state affects Huxley’s characters. Throughout the book, the author deals with many different aspects of control. Whether it is of his subjects’ feelings and emotions or of the society’s restraint of population growth, Huxley depicts government’s and science’s role in the brave new world of tomorrow.
Imagine a society in which its citizens have forfeited all personal liberties for government protection and stability; Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, explores a civilization in which this hypothetical has become reality. The inevitable trade-off of citizens’ freedoms for government protection traditionally follows periods of war and terror. The voluntary degradation of the citizens’ rights begins with small, benign steps to full, totalitarian control. Major methods for government control and censorship are political, religious, economic, and moral avenues. Huxley’s Brave New World provides a prophetic glimpse of government censorship and control through technology; the citizens of the World State mimic those of the real world by trading their personal liberties for safety and stability, suggesting that a society similar to Huxley’s could exist outside the realm of dystopian science fiction.
Many people believe that being very technologically advanced is the best thing for society, but not many people know that technology can also be the worst thing for society. In the novel A Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley, technology is shown as a harmful thing. Having too much technology is potentially harmful as shown through the use Soma, the reproduction process in the world state, and the World State's method of determining social class.
In Huxley’s, Brave New World, there is a society, known as the World State, where people are divided into different castes, and depending on the caste they are set in determines their place in the community and purpose in the world. If one is an Alpha, he/she will be highly intelligent and be a leader of the free world, while one who is an Epsilon has lowered intelligence and is conditioned to do physical labor. From the process of the human beings being created in test tubes, to their birth and development, they are trained to believe in certain truths. Brave New World is a Utopian novel that uses a form of brainwashing to conform people to the ideal society placed in the plot. Other literature works, and real life occurrences, make it evident that brainwashing is used to condition to believe and behave I certain ways, which become their morals and truths.
Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World illustrates a colorful, fantastic universe of sex and emotion, programming and fascism that has a powerful draw in a happy handicap. This reality pause button is called “Soma”. “Take a holiday from reality whenever you like, and come back without so much as a headache or a mythology.” ( Huxley 54 ).
Today there are strong debates and questions about the extraordinary breakthroughs in science such as cloning, in communications through the Internet with its never ending pool of knowledge, and the increasing level of immersion in entertainment. People facing the 21st century are trying to determine whether these new realities of life will enhance it and bring life as they know it to a great unprecedented level, or if these new products will contribute and perhaps even cause the destruction of society and life. To many cloning, censoring, and total immersion entertainment are new, but to those who have read Brave New World by Aldous Huxley, the topics are reminiscent of the horror that is found in Huxley's fictional utopian world where the dehumanizing of man is achieved in the interests of "Community, Identity, Stability," the world state's motto.
They program these humans to have needs and desires that will sustain a lucrative economy while not thinking of themselves as an individual. Huxley describes the World State’s intent to control their society through medical intervention, happiness, and consumerism, which has similarities to modern society. Designing life from conception is an intriguing concept. Brave New World’s World State is in control of the reproduction of people by intervening medically. The Hatchery and Conditioning Centre is the factory that produces human beings.
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.
Technology, which has brought mankind from the Stone Age to the 21st century, can also ruin the life of peoples. In the novel Brave New World, the author Aldous Huxley shows us what technology can do if we exercise it too much. From the novel we can see that humans can lose humanity if we rely on technology too much. In the novel, the author sets the world in the future where everything is being controlled by technology. This world seems to be a very perfectly working utopian society that does not have any disease, war, problems, crisis but it is also a sad society with no feelings, emotions or human characteristics. This is a very scary society because everything is being controlled even before someone is born, in test tube, where they determine of which class they are going to fall under, how they are going to look like and beyond. Therefore, the society of Brave New World is being controlled by society form the very start by using technology which affects how the people behave in this inhumane, unrealistic, society.