Brave New World A Great Place for Me

The reason I love Brave New World is because this place fits perfectly for me. I have made that abundantly clear in class, and want to give some background as to why I absolutely love a place where nothing bad happens. When I was eleven years old there was talk of an apocalypse that was imminent in the world, and that apocalypse was none other than Y2K! This transition from 1999 to 2000 was supposed to be the end of the world with dogs marrying cats, white turning black, and fish walking on land. Yeah, yeah I know the whole scenario is stupid looking back on it, but having been somewhat conscious of my surrounding world I remember being a little sacred. Everyone around me was, for lack of a better phrase, crapping their pants so I, being only eleven years old, crapped my pants along with them. Then New Year’s Eve happened, and guess what. NOTHING HAPPENED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I was hoodwinked by the media and by mass hysteria, and boy was I mad at that. It was then that I resolved to get back at the world of drama and manufactured hysteria sort of the way John did by just showing people an alternate lifestyle. It isn’t that I don’t care at all about anything; it’s more that one has to prove something is wrong before I will believe something is wrong. I mean I’m only twenty-four and it would seem that I have lived through three major apocalypses. The first, as already mentioned, was Y2K. The second was the financial crisis of 2008, and the third was the whole Mayan calendar end of the world prediction. All three times people were told that life as we know it would forever be changed and many would die, yet in reality life goes on as before and most of us are still here.

 How my experiences in this world relate to Brave New World is this. In Brave New World there is no drama and people’s lives are completely planned out for them. Further, they get to play obstacle gold. I’m a golfer in case you didn’t know. However, back to the point, I completely understand that you have to have sadness in order to know happiness and that it is often beneficial to face tough challenges, in order to get a better understanding of how the world works and to better improve yourself. My major concern is with what happens when you plan out something and it fails. Then what then do you do? The character John tried to get the people to change, and when they didn’t he eliminated himself. When we were growing up we all wanted to be something truly special, but for one reason or another life didn’t turn out that way. I wanted to be President of the USA, but now I know for sure that will never happen. We all make plans in order to reach goals, but in reality I think we should all be more flexible with ourselves. Something great could come along but if you’re so focused on reaching your planned goal then you may miss it which means you may have missed out on a great opportunity. To wrap up this chat I will end with something I once heard: never take life too too seriously; you’ll never make it out alive!     

The Meaning of One Life

I would be extremely self-assured and pompous if I claimed to hold the key that unlocks the box that contains all that is wrong in our society. I do not assume that my meager understanding of the motives that drive humans to commit horrible acts is sufficient enough to rationalize or even comprehend the suffering in our world.

 However, as I delved deeper into this Brave New World, I found many alarming similarities between our actual modern society and the fictional one imagined by Huxley. The most poignant and alarming section that stood out to me personally was when John attempted to mourn over the loss of his mother Linda. In disgust of John’s emotions the narrator comments, “As though death were something terrible, as though any one mattered as much as all that” (206). This simple sentence immediately brought my sensibilities to all of the senseless deaths that occur on a daily basis because of violence, poverty, hunger, and disease. I was convicted over the lack of acknowledgement given to one life especially in underdeveloped countries. 

Is it the overpopulation of our planet and the all-consuming society that we live in that allows us to overlook or not mourn for the individual deaths that occur every second? Or is it the sheer mass of suffering that keeps us from being able to process or acknowledge the individual losses. Especially those not directly related to our own personal lives. I just can’t help but believe that the world would be a better place if more people reacted to sad events, suffering, or loss like John and less people reacted like the twins. If we took the time to process the emotions that attach themselves to the suffering that exists in our world perhaps we would be motivated to work together towards an answer. Perhaps if we realized that “one life does matter as much as all that,” then we would work harder to preserve that life and to ensure that future lives to come are afforded a chance at happiness and health. 

In this new world, “The greatest care is taken to prevent you from loving anyone too much” (237). I think that in our own world that we could benefit from loving ourselves more as well as those that we share this world with. If we focus on improving our own self-worth it will encourage us to value others more as well. Overcome with the emotion of his loss John realizes and demands, “I don’t want comfort. I want God, I want poetry, I want real danger, I want freedom, I want goodness. I want sin”  (240). All of these things are small parts of our daily lives that we take for granted. Essentially, choice is the common thread behind John’s list of demands. My argument is that if we choose to see the value in a single human life, and choose to place importance on that life that we will be making the choice to make a “better new world.” 

Image #1:  http://www.cone10studios.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/pandoras-box.jpg

Image #2: http://i3.ytimg.com/vi/2nbaAYBR_DU/mqdefault.jpg

Image #3: http://www.onelifearlington.org/resources/OneLife2.jpg

Image #4: http://www.dctigertalk.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/self-worth-tattoo.jpg

How Different It Would Be

Reading Brave New World I can't help but imagine what life would be like living in the world state. So many of our lifetime milestones would be erased: the first kiss would not be important, little girls would never have a wedding dress to dream about, no one would have parents to turn to for advice when they are confused. I just cannot imagine how miserable life would be. 

Living in a world where any troubles can be solved by a Soma holiday just does not seem like life to me. I have grown the most out of adverse situations; people would be so emotionally weak if they just took drugs to get rid of all the bad emotions. 

Death is one aspect of the world state that I look at as slightly favorable. I really hate how much sadness and despair is associated with death in our culture. Yes, sadness is a good thing, but I feel that it is more important to look at the good times that person had. Recently my best friend's grandmother passed away after many years battling cancer. I was sad, naturally, but I also was glad that she was put out of her suffering.

Don't even get me started on books. What is so wrong with books? I cannot find one argument with weight for why they would not be allowed. Yes, they draw out an alternate reality, but everyone needs an escape from time to time, right? When I'm having a bad day I can pick up a book and just let my mind escape from whatever troubles I am experiencing. 

Brave New World is an interesting read, but I hate mostly everything in it. I don't like the human engineering and the removal of any individuality. I hate the reliance on Soma and the avoidance of anything bad or unpleasant. If I can't live in a place where I can think and make decisions for myself, I think that I would rather not live at all.

My thoughts on Brave New World (after the first reading assignment)

I promise I am not just repeating what was discussed last Wednesday. My schedule last week was extremely hectic and I never had a chance to post this. I wrote it BEFORE class on Wednesday, I promise.

I'm not going to lie, I have read Brave New World prior to this class. While I found it odd, I did find it intriguing. In no way would I wish to live in this world that is so label oriented and prejudiced – but that does not make it any less intriguing. This kind of plays into what I said on the first day of class when we went around and shared our ideal utopia. Mine included a lack of brands, so people could not judge others based on what they have or are wearing.

Already we know that in Brave New World the characters are labeled as Alphas, Betas, Epsilons, Gammas, Deltas, etc as their social class level based upon their PREDESTINED embryos. Each child is then trained to hypnopaedia to believe in the established prejudices. There are also specific colors that each class of character wears, and then dislikes and judges others if they are wearing a different classes color. This is the part that ties into my utopia. They are disliking someone based on the color they wear (similar to a brand) rather than the good quality that person (← notice I did not say individual) has or contributes to the society.

On to other topics of Brave New World...

The whole idea of everyone belonging to everyone, and how having a steady relationship with just one person is disgusting completely boggles my mind especially since I feel that this is a recurrent theme in almost all the utopian books we have read. What do these authors find so wrong with loving one person, belonging solely to them? I find this one of the best things in life...the search to find this person, the memories you've made along the way, the ability to know that you share something special with that person and they share something special with you. This is a large aspect of society. Finding that one person to spend forever with. Granted, marriage is not as sacred anymore nor are there as many couples getting married these days, yet they live together and share other responsibilities. Why, in most of the utopian novels we've read, is marriage and monogamy so heavily frowned upon?

Sex is everywhere in this novel, the naked playgrounds for children, how its wrong for a child to not want to engage in sexual activities, he was not conditioned well enough, etc. the sexophones, the orgies...I do not really know how to take this. We go from a land of Virgin Maries and now free love...kind of like the Oneida Community and how they had the big circular room with little alcoves to do the deed. Sex is also not used for procreation in this novel, but rather recreation and pleasure. Other societies and time periods did view sex as only for procreational uses and so this may come as novel to readers of that or earlier time periods. We know it is not for procreation from the first chapter. Every person is a test tube baby and all the females carry the 1-4 contraceptives (in fashionable cases too!). Then, when we meet Linda, we find that Lenina's reaction to her son and even Linda's own reaction were along the lines of disgust. Why is natural pregnancy and childbirth so disgusting?

Hypnopaedia. When they first brought up the idea, I was thought that this would be really useful for education! But then that was quickly shot down since they already tested that theory out. Either way, the idea itself is interesting, if not a little scary. Can you imagine having a machine playing in your consistently with the same messages over and over again until it basically becomes apart of you. You believe in something, but do not really know why you believe in it...that thought is terrifying. If this was used today, I do not feel that it would better society, but rather hinder it. It could be used in evil ways. I think the way it is used in Brave New World is in humane. In our society we learn from our family and peers and hypnopaedia takes away from this. We also learn from our mistakes – which this society seems to make few of (from their own perspective).

Soma. A pill to take whenever you feel distraught! How ingenious! Or is it? I feel that the harder emotions, stressful, confusing, etc. times are the times that help develop us: our character, strength, success...the list goes on! Soma appears to be an “antidepressant” or a knock out pill. Some to take to make you feel good, to leave the moment so you don't have to deal with the situation. While that may seem appealing at times, I feel that a person is missing out on so much personal development. You don't know how strong you are until you win the battle, whatever it may be.

I do enjoy this novel. It reminds me in some ways of the movie Gattaca, which I also enjoyed. It definitely makes me appreciate the life I have...and kind of makes me fear progress for the sake of progress. We shall see how the story progresses and how my thoughts may change.

Word Count: 874

Brave [Dated] World

Huxley's Brave New World is dated and condescending, but, I admit with reluctance, still relevant.

Huxley's vision of manufacturing (from people to helicopters) is from the past. The modern process of manufacturing is nothing like Huxley's vision, which is reminiscent of nineteenth century England. All operations were carried out by people "decanted" expressly for the purpose of the job they carried out. "Thrity-three Delta females, long-headed, sandy, with narrow pelvises, all within 20 millimeters of 1 metre 69 centimetres tall, were cutting screws" is just one example out of the groups working at the factory visited by John Savage (147).   In a modern plant, robots dominate manufacturing rather than people. For the remaining people that work in a manufacturing plant, unions and state and federal governments regulate the process and add checks on employers.

Some of Huxley's attitudes are also dated. The consequence of separating sex from procreation has not resulted in the inability of people to connect in an emotionally fulfilling manner and has not resulted in emotional infantilism. Rampant promiscuity (at least perhaps what Huxley would consider rampant promiscuity) has not shaken the foundations of society to a point where it can no longer function.

In addition to these dated visions and attitudes, Huxley is condescending to his audience (Hitchens points this out in his forward of the 2010 edition). There is evidence of this attitude in Huxley's descriptions of activities and culture his denizens of London can access, such as Obstacle Golf,  sexophones, synthetic music, and feelies, all of which are contrived to disgust and disconcert the reader ever so slightly.

Despite these limitations, Huxley's Brave New World still has a vestige of relevance to society. Mustapha Mond points out that people can be conditions to accept anything (211). People will accept anything they consider "normal," whether it is healthy or not; whether "normal" provides potential for all members of society to self-actualise, or not; whether it provides individuals with the freedom to choose their own path in life, or not. That is why it is important to listen to those moments when "normal" makes us uncomfortable and to question everything.

Huxley: Looks as Grumpy as he Writes (guardian.co.uk)