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Dystopia in brave new world
Dystopia in brave new world
Dystopia in brave new world
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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.
The main goal of Brave New World’s society is to create a balance social stability, and happy individuals. To create such a world; feelings, passions, and relationships are nonexistent. No one has parents, children, or lover. Instead, everyone belongs to anyone. There is no emotional attachment; nothing is valued, only physical interaction. When one feels negative emotions, that society cannot control, such as humiliation and stress, a drug called soma is taken to feel content and impassive again. Great works of literature, such as Shakespeare, religious texts, and art are forbidden in the society because it can cause passion and curiosity beyond what they have been programmed to know. Even science is suppressed for it searches for truth, and according to the novel, truth gets in the way of happiness. ( ) While one can evaluate the novel and view all who are a part of the ...
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...ars North Korea and America called it truce, and North and South Korea remained separated. However, the children of North Korea are taught Americans are the enemy, Americans started the war, and North Korea must take their revenge on America. ( ) Since information is repressed, and the children are knowledgeable of nothing else. Thoreau’s claim of inborn sense of right and wrong is disproved. The children of North Korea do not realize the immorality of hatred and seeking revenge, harvesting anger for people they do not even know. They become brain washed to believe this is what is right, and how life should be.
While many may believe humans are inbreeded with certain believes and morals, they automatically diminish the probability of being brainwashed. Literary works as Brave New World, and the government of North Korea, prove controlling the mind to be possible.
From the beginning of the novel technology has been a focal point. Brave New World is first set at the Central London Hatchery and Conditioning Centre. This center is where all the humans are being produced and conditioned. Conditioning a method used to influence ones mind with a variety of different values and morals, predestines these new beings into five different classes Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta, and Epsilon. As written in Huxley’s Brave New World “All conditioning aims at that making people like their unescapable social destiny.” (16) This quote signifies that each group is designed by the World State to hav...
The future of the world is a place of thriving commerce and stability. Safety and happiness are at an all-time high, and no one suffers from depression or any other mental disorders. There are no more wars, as peace and harmony spread to almost every corner of the world. There is no sickness, and people are predestined to be happy and content in their social class. But if anything wrong accidentally occurs, there is a simple solution to the problem, which is soma. The use of soma totally shapes and controls the utopian society described in Huxley's novel Brave New World as well as symbolize Huxley's society as a whole. This pleasure drug is the answer to all of life's little mishaps and also serves as an escape as well as entertainment. The people of this futuristic society use it in every aspect of their lives and depend on it for very many reasons. Although this drug appears to be an escape on the surface, soma is truly a control device used by the government to keep everyone enslaved in set positions.
In the novel “ Brave New World” by Aldous Huxley takes place in the future of a dystopian society where a particular government will rise to power and strip everyone of their individuality and freedom. Huxley uses the literary techniques of symbolism, allusion, and irony to portray the disadvantages of individuals in a dystopian society. In this totalitarian government, the people of BNW are subjected to act a certain way and to not step out the boundary that are made by the controllers. The controllers of the brave new world use the drug “soma” as a weapon against citizens, soma reduces the idea of satisfaction and is used calm down urges. The latin word for soma is “sleep” and it distracts everyone from what really is going on in this society. The use of soma is to depict the disadvantages that the people of the brave new world face. Happiness is given at an early age by the use of soma, this drug is the answer to the unwanted pain felt by individuals in BNW. While many might argue that alcohol should never be the answer to anything, some people in society continue to consume it.
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.
Humankind has always had a thirst for power; over its peers, environment and spiritual beliefs. To quench this thirst it has gone as far as genocide; but has often employed more subtle techniques, such as mind control. In today’s socio-economical and political worlds, mind control plays a key role in dictating tastes and lifestyles; as well as controlling political thoughts, views, and people’s understanding of the world. It is accomplished using various channels to condition people’s thinking. Publicity and advertisement campaigns saturate people with products, broadcasting over radio, and television which in itself is a prime example. Many religions employ mind control, conditioning their followers to obey without questioning.
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 ).
The caste system of this brave new world is equally ingenious. Free from the burdens and tensions of a capitalistic system, which separates people into social classes by natural selection, this dictatorship government is only required to determine the correct number of Alphas, Betas, all the way down the line. Class warfare does not exist because greed, the basic ingredient of capitalism, has been eliminated. Even Deltas and Epsilons are content to do their manual labor. This contentment arises both from the genetic engineering and the extensive conditioning each individual goes through in childhood. In this society, freedom, such as art and religion, in this society has been sacrificed for what Mustapha Mond calls happiness. Indeed almost all of Huxley's characters, save Bernard and the Savage, are content to take their soma ration, go to the feelies, and live their mindless, grey lives.
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.
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
...terature or life and does not have a deeply satisfying sense of family and love. Brave New World suggests that the readers should seek freedom, knowledge, and love in their lives by producing humans in test tubes and simultaneously rendering family, marriage and love obsolete , removing religion and all prior knowledge of art and history humans would lose their nature and become like robots; emotionless and without freedom or independent thought. The pursuit of happiness is a long, treacherous road that is superficial and misguided. Individuals should seek meaning in life and happiness may or may not follow. Having meaning in life is much more satisfying and meaning cannot be achieved without the freedom to seek the answers to many controversial questions, without the knowledge of what it means to be human or without another individual to share this experience with.
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.
Huxley begins the book by describing a cold and mechanical hatchery center where humans are made in test tubes in almost a robotic fashion in the civilized society of London. All of the humans in society are conditioned as children to act and behave uniformly, according to their social class; Alphas, Betas, Gammas, Deltas and Epsilons. The government controls the citizens by keeping them happy on the surface encouraging the use of drugs and distracts them by nurturing a consumer culture. "Call it the fault of civilization. God isn 't compatible with machinery and scientific medicine and universal happiness. You must make your choice. Our civilization has chosen machinery and medicine and happiness. That 's why I have to keep these books locked up in the safe." (p. 234). Humans are programmed to accept society’s rules without question or individual thought. In doing so they take away freedoms, such as the freedom to think for
This is a very scary society because everything is being controlled even before someone is born, in test tube, where they determine 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 from the very start by using technology which affects how the people behave in this inhumane, unrealistic, society. The people in this community act like they do not have any emotions or feelings at all. This is because from the very start, they were structured in such a way that they could not feel if something is sad or if something is happy. The only thing that they are allowed to enjoy is soma.
Brave New World written in 1931 by Aldous Huxley (published in 1932), is a satirical piece of fiction that attempts to not only explore the effects of the overall advancement in technology and its effects on human beings, but, the ever-changing definitions of freedom, meaning and Individuality as well. In the following paper, the differences between freedom, individuality and meaning within the brave new world and within the real world will be discussed. Ultimately, this paper will come to show that the real world, despite its flaws, is the more “perfect” world to be living when compared to the brave new world because of the freedom that each human being beholds.
Brainwashing and Mind Control are “best thought of as a series of techniques that are used over time to shape a person’s perception, cognition, emotions, decision making and behavior to such an extent that they have lost their freedom of choice” (Mind Control Today). These techniques, once in existence within authoritarian and totalitarian governments, are increasingly being practiced by advertising companies and mass media. There are extensive similarities among the political and economic standards that cause negative impacts on society, as a result of adopting these mind control tactics. As Malcom X pointed out, “The media is the most powerful entity on earth, because they control the minds of the masses”.