Stagnancy And Happiness In Aldous Huxley's Brave New World

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There have been philosophers that have been philosophizing for thousands of years. Discovering new ideas and different ways to think about things. Thinking in new, creative ways is an inevitable future that humanity will face unless stagnancy in the development of technology and morality occurs. Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World displays this possibility incredibly and makes stagnancy look unappealing. With stagnancy and lack of new and imaginative thoughts, however, complete happiness seems like a less menacing task than before. Nobody questions why certain luxuries are not available. The whole world can be content. Why would this not be favorable for humanity? Happiness is hindered greatly by the ability to think.
Humans are intelligent creatures. The need to imagine and create new and intelligent things is necessary at the moment for progression towards happiness. However, at a certain point, can stopping advancement at the perfect point to achieve such happiness? Happiness is hindered greatly by the ability to think. The reasoning behind philosophy is to continually strive towards the truths in being. However, can such a level of understanding ever be achieved?
Besides the reasons why human advancement is almost impossible to stop, there are reasons that we philosophize, not because we need to, but because we want to. Philosophizing is an interesting way to invest your time and it happens on a daily basis. So, why study philosophy? Many of my peers are bewildered by what I've chosen to study, seeing it as something archaic and utterly useless in the real world. They believe the subject is intriguing, but will get me nowhere fast.
I'd like to argue that it's instead the most valuable subject to study at the undergraduate leve...

... middle of paper ...

...tarting line.
By taking a biased point of view, we effectively impair ourselves to the rest of the world, expecting nothing besides what we already believe. But by philosophizing, we expose ourselves to unexpected possibilities and free ourselves from the narrow view of conventional wisdom.
We adopt a larger view of the world and its inhabitants, by realizing that there is much, much more than what meets the eye.
In short, what's gained from studying philosophy is not so much the material as the method: developing an ability to discuss and to understand things to a greater degree and in a greater context.
With this, we may realize our minuscule role in the universe and begin to approach things more rationally. With philosophy, we can remove our dogmatic assertions and adopt a bigger but less certain perspective of things. Not to mention, it's absolutely fascinating.

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