Cara Acebal
Mrs. Walker
English 11H- P. 9
March 3rd, 2014
The So-Called “Perfect World”
Many modern works portraying utopian civilizations expose only the positive effects of these futuristic worlds. Depending on how a society is structured and controlled, there are numerous negative effects to this type of future. Humanism, by definition, is a system of thoughts or actions in which human interests, values, and dignity are the most important. In Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, satire exposes the consequences of rejecting humanism. Rejecting humanism creates a society where the people are unable to connect with each other emotionally, kept from feeling unhappy, and constantly avoid feelings, instead using other methods to make up for the loss. In the centralized world Huxley created, individuals are strictly restricted in knowledge and perspective to prevent them from threatening the stability of the civilization. John the Savage, a rebel utopian not conditioned like the others, does not have a restricted knowledge or perspective and clearly notices the problems with this “perfect world.” Due to a world that is strictly controlled and manipulated, the rejection of humanism leads to a society without human qualities and individualism.
Huxley’s satiric version of a “utopian” future proves how human qualities are necessary for a community to succeed. The world portrayed is Huxley’s example of “the type of utopia that must be avoided” (Matter 146). The inhumanity of this “perfect world” is evident since the citizens are prohibited from having relationships, families, and kids, stripping them of their emotional ties to each other. The motto “everyone belongs to everyone else” (Huxley 40) is enforced to prevent relationships between ...
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...le without stripping the community of its human qualities and identity. A perfect world prefers the happiness of its citizens over the truth in order to protect them from the “sadness and painfulness of human life” (Rogers 270). The New World defines happiness as the absence of conflicts which could disturb its overall tranquility, and as a result make it impossible to control. Its motto “community identity stability” (Huxley 1) exemplifies the three ways for a society to succeed; by being concerned with the needs of the community as a whole, taking away its member’s identities, and maintaining stability by ensuring the overall happiness of the society. However, since the desire to achieve a utopian world has sacrificed all human qualities, civilization is unable to experience the feeling of being truly happy, only the effects of being conditioned to do so.
In all aspects a utopian society is a society that is place to achieve perfection, and that is the society that both the “Uglies”, by Scott Westfield and “Harrison Bergeron”, by Kurt Vonnegut, was striving for. In both of these stories, the government had control over the people’s choices, freedoms, and their natural abilities. Yet both government strive for a perfect society, the methods they use to achieve this goal were different from each other.
The struggle between happiness and society shows a society where true happiness has been forfeited to form a perfect order.
Huxley and Niccol demonstrate in their fictionist stories that humanity cannot be changed and cannot be controlled; it is just what it is. The government cannot create a society, nobody can, a society is self-made, and all we can do is be a part of it. Nevertheless, the main purpose of these stories is that we as humans need to stay humans, we need to stay a society; and there are so many changes that are being made in today’s times, but don’t let that change our humanistic ways.
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.
This passage means that everyone are created, trained the same and none of them have their own life or own thoughts or emotions which is unfortunates. The utopia is trying to unify everyone. They scold people that are unique individuals and when they come across a different individual, the individual is sent to a psychologist and is mentally fixed. Also, the State wants people to just have fun and play games with people rather than people being mothers and fathers of kids and feel the pain. Marriage is frowned upon while people are encouraged to have erotic fun. The controller of a perfect society wants people to intercourse for their happiness and not for them to build a family. They are satisfied with the happiness they get from the things they use. This could state that the citizens in Brave New World are genuinely happy, this is more a result of ignorance and blindness rather than a truly fulfilling sense of bliss. However, one person in Brave New World tried to consent his individuality in the society and he end up to be a dangerous citizen. The person that object his individuality was Bermard Marx who’s an Alpha plus and does not believe in the promiscuous nature of his society. He feels isolated from the rest of society because he attempts to do dissimilar things from
“’ [W]here would Edmund be nowadays? Sitting in a pneumatic chair, with his arm around a girl’s waist, sucking away at his sex-hormone chewing-gum and looking at the feelies. The gods are just. No doubt. But their code of law is dictated, in the last resort, by the people who organize society; Providence takes its cue from me.’
A “utopia is that which is in contradiction with reality,” said the famous French novelist Albert Camus in his collection of essays, Between Hell and Reason. History shows us that seemingly exemplary ideals in practice have led to the collapse of societies. Just examine the two most prominent attempts at a utopia: Hitler’s attempt to socialize all of Europe and create the “perfect” Aryan race coupled with Karl Marx’s beliefs to instate communism into society. The final result was the destruction of their perspective visionary worlds. There was one major facet that prevented these two from creating their paradigms: utopias take away individual freedom and identity and therefore society cannot exist. Aldous Huxley’s science fiction novel Brave New World examines the large disconnect between the future and present day societies, showing how several aspects of this dystopian world lead to the downfall of the individual identity, most prominently exemplified by the death of John Savage.
The characters in Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World represent certain political and social ideas. Huxley used what he saw in the world in which he lived to form his book. From what he saw, he imagined that life was heading in a direction of a utopian government control. Huxley did not imagine this as a good thing. He uses the characters of Brave New World to express his view of utopia being impossible and detrimental. One such character he uses to represent the idealogy behind this is Bernard Marx.
In most countries in our world, society has experienced technological advances to the point of being able to accomplish what Huxley envisioned. In contrast to Huxley’s vision, the moral standards of most nations allow all humans to enjoy basic human rights that embrace family, personal relationships, and individualism. Today’s society is able to comprehend how with the technological advances Huxley’s world could be a reality, but with the privilege of a democratic society, civilization would not allow the medical intervention for reproduction, the conditioning for happiness and consumerism. Work Cited "Brave New World by Aldous Huxley : Barron's Notes" Brave New World by Aldous Huxley: Barron's Notes. N.p., n.d. Web.
This serene society greatly contradicts the one we live in. Our society is furnished with hatred and warfare, yet in return, we are given freedom and the privilege of having distinctive characters. Given the nature of human beings, our society is more idealistic to live in. Utopia is an imaginary state, which consists of people who believe they are more capable of living in a group than alone. In such a community, the welfare of the group is the primary interest compared to the comfort of individuals.
Thomas More’s Utopia and Aldus Huxley’s Brave New World , are novels about societies that differ from our own. Though the two authors have chosen different approaches to create an alternate society, both books have similarities which represent the visions of men who were moved to great indignation by the societies in which they lived. Both novels have transcended contemporary problems in society , they both have a structured, work based civilization and both have separated themselves from the ways of past society. It is important when reading these novels to focus on the differences as well as the similarities. The two novels differ in their views of love, religion, and the way to eliminate social classes. These differences seem to suggest that if we do not come closer to More’s goal in Utopia, we will end up in a society much like that of Huxley’s Brave New World.
"'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.
...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.
In Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, the author depicts a collective society in which everyone has the same values and beliefs. From a young age, the people in the World State’s civilization are conditioned to believe in their motto of “Community, Identity, Stability.” Through hypnopaedia, the citizens of the World State learn their morals, values, and beliefs, which stay with them as they age. However, like any society, there are outsiders who alienate themselves from the rest of the population because they have different values and beliefs. Unfortunately, being an outsider in the World State is not ideal, and therefore there are consequences as a result. One such outsider is John. Brought from the Savage Reservation, John is lead to conform to the beliefs of the World State, thus losing his individuality, which ultimately leads him to commit suicide. Through John and the World State populace as an example, Huxley uses his novel to emphasize his disapproval of conformity over individuality.
In Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, truth and happiness are falsely engineered to create a perfect society; the belief of the World Controllers that stability is the the key to a utopian society actually led to the creation of an anti-utopian society in which loose morals and artificial happiness exist. Huxley uses symbolism, metaphors, and imagery to satirize the possibiliy of an artificial society in the future as well as the “brave new world” itself.