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Is the Brave New World so bad?
Let's face it, the world detailed in this book likely scares the intellectual people that read this. But I felt it would not be so bad. Not necessarily for me (I might get sent to another Island), but certainly raise the plight of much of the world. It was a welcome utopia to the world described in 1984.
My point is this...if people don't mind doing work, and are happy, is it so bad? I am not sure.
Facebook User about 1 year ago
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The type of fear incited by 1984 is much different and more obvious that in Brave New World. Government doesn't have to destroy human significance when people are happy to do it themselves for the sake of being entertained. This doesn't scare people today because it is rapidly becoming our world. The reality is that the people in Brave New World are not happy. They are empty. They seek shallow entertainments with no meaning and their lives in turn have no meaning. It doesn't matter if you are reading 1984, Brave New World, or Fahrenheit 451-- the fate of humankind is going to be the same. You become nothing more than an a sequence of algorithms and when you expire no one will remember or care.
Facebook User about 1 year agoI agree. I would hope that I would be sent away to an island, but I couldn't be sure... That's the beauty of utopia/dystopia novels: They can be interpreted either way.
Andy Costello about 1 year agoHow do you define happy as opposed to entertained? I think I know what you mean, but you can't be too carefull. What I really find bizarre is that nowadays there are people who choose shallow entertainment (eg. drugs, celebrity gossip, what have you) over things with signifigance and emotional weight. As my number one value is freedom, I can't bring myself to condemn them. I just don't understand it.
...Maybe it has something to do with risk. If your goal is entertainment all you risk is boredom, if you seek true happiness you risk real pain. Just a thought.
Sam Eckert about 1 year agoTrue happiness, despite what the mass media would have you believe, is not sitting passively on your couch and watching 24 hours of The Hills or what not. Happiness comes from life fullfilling, meaningful activities such as love, creation, and utilizing your mind. The emotion we are so often told is "happiness" is nothing more than fleeting amusement. Why else would there be such an obscene number of antidepressant perscriptions in the US? This is our Soma.
Freedom is all about risk taking. In America you have the freedom to do something new and entrepreneurial with your life, but you may also fail. To have the greatest benefit, you must risk something. This is what socialists cannot tolerate.
Facebook User about 1 year agoAre you happy when you are being entertained? Ever? Think about it, try and observe yourself when you are watching television or playing video games, what do you do? What do you feel? In truth, watching television quite often puts people into an almost comatose state, they sit there and watch, they aren't really enjoying what they are doing, they are simply doing something that distracts their brain from the horrors of thinking. That is what the Brave New World is, it’s a land where people don’t think they just live complete passive lives. If that sounds good to you, be happy, you are more than welcome to join most of Americans who have 4 or 5 TV’s in their houses and do nothing at home except sleep, eat, and watch. I would aslo debate that there is no such thing as shallow entertainment, there is also no such thing s deep entertainment, there is only one classification entertainment. News on TV isn't designed to do anything but keep you watching. You can learn random stuff from documentaries but it is a byproduct of being entertained. Until we understand that entertainment is good for nothing except entertaining we will always be in danger of becoming the Brave New World.
Jeremy Kolb about 1 year agoI think that the point of Brave New World is that there's nothing really wrong with it from a utilitarian standpoint- everyone is content and society goes ahead with few problems. The reason it's so interesting is because it offends our notions of what society needs to be successful, but still works.
David Donaldson about 1 year agoAll that talk of 'true' happiness is just a way of reinforcing your own beliefs about what is important, which is most likely arbitrary (that's the way culture works)... The only reason it seems true is because that's how our society is constructed, so it fits with our notion of truth. However, in a society that is differently configured, true happiness and freedom and benefit takes on a different meaning.
Indeed, it all comes down to your philosiphies of life. I will argue, however, that Aldous Huxley (obviously) was blatantly condemning the world he portrayed. I won't go into my views about the book because I beleive it simply isn't relevent which is why I'm posting right now.
This topic is seemingly irrelevent to the book. It has nothing to do with literary pursuit, and is instead directed toward philisophical discussion. I don't think this conversation belongs on this book's discussion board. Find a group that is generally about philosiphy or this small facet, utopian thinking.
Brett Bateman-Linsley about 1 year agoI think we should invite any opinions on this book, and keep this debate open and the topic flexible.
I'm not so sure Huxley wanted to condemn the world he betrayed, so blatantly. "1984" wasn't written at that time, and the world was still more concerned with alcohol abuse, moral decay, colonialism, social classes and socialeconomy than after WWII and it's militarism and totalitarianism. Neither did Huxley portray a sane, completely true hero. It is a neat work, giving a prediction of a future society that impressed me when reading it, considering it is from 1932.
Facebook User about 1 year agoI got the impression that he found it hard to fit the character's personal story into the story, as I his character irrational and not as credible as his environment. This is the weakest part of the book.
They're only happy because they have been conditioned that way. They have had no choice and that is one of the defining principles of humanity. If you take away our freedom of choice we would just become robots and I don't think that's a good society. The people in the novel believe they are living in a utopia but from the outside, it is very different.
Facebook User about 1 year agoAre you serious? The philosophical discussion of the book has nothing to do with literary pursuit? The "philosophy" that everyone is discussing is deeply entwined with the themes of the book. You should be somewhere else, not this discussion. At least back up what you're saying with your views. Don't just come on here and say everyone is talking about the wrong thing when you aren't willing to express what you feel is right.
Facebook User about 1 year agoPeople have been conditioned in general to be happy in certain situations and toward certain things. People are robots even though they have freedom of choice. You got to conform to a certain degree whether you realize it or not. And Huxley's world is coming true. Drugs and Drinks are plentiful for those who want it in order to be happy. People are already able to diagnose whether their baby will come out "normal" or not. Autistic child in the womb? Well, you have options now.
Facebook User about 1 year agoWith the increase rate of technology (like predicting your baby's personality and so much more), how will our weakening morality in general put up such a strong defense? Tech. and science will naturally run its course and humanity with it. Reason and logical thinking is preferred in many ways, but I sadly feel that by the time we realize we have to fight to save our humanity, these fighters will be the ultimate minority like Winston was in 1984...no chance.
Sam Femino about 1 year agoI wholeheartedly agree with you on every point Ulf Jahnsen, especailly the final point.
Bronwyn Lysaght about 1 year agoThe main problem with the Brave New World is that it undoes human nature. Any time that a person goes against their own nature, it can be considered immoral and/or evil. Brave New World shows us two extremes, the tribal man and a potential ultimate result of a technology-focused society, and makes us aware of the precarious balance that our own world holds in the middle. The fact is, the balance will be broken eventually, regardless of our wishes. Humanity does not, however, wish to fall to either side. Although the tribalism represents human nature, it also represents a state of being that we are not willing to return to. In my opinion, Brave New World not only condemns the technology-driven society, but upholds primitivism's view that, in moving away from our own origins, our own nature, we are driving our society down an ever-spiraling road into meaninglessness, futility, and a state of being in which we have been so far removed from our own nature that whatever meaning life originally held for us has been swept into oblivion.
Facebook User about 1 year agoconditioning gives order to the world and Huxley's "utopia" is an extreme example of this. while i don't necessarily agree with how Huxley says it or that it should be done, ascribing a status makes every person useful to the community as a whole. depriving a fetus of oxygen isn't fair in my book, but the technological achievements of the society in Huxley's world are staggering.
Anonymous User about 1 year agosociety may be more functional if everyone was given a specific purpose, it detracts from personal freedom and individual liberty to take away a person's right to, in the lamest of terms, be who they want to be. but by what right do we deserve individual freedom? is it honestly inalienable and endowed by our creator? or, like in brave new world, are those opinions merely given to us by the government in power?
our view of what is right and wrong is assaulted in this book. the moral ambiguities that Huxley explores are remarkable. they required me to really look at how i view life, and where those views came from. could life be so shallow? could conditioning destroy class conflict and create people who are genuinely happy about where they are? are we already conditioned to feel a certain way or are some feelings inherent?
moral of the story is: this book f*cked with my head and i enjoyed every page.
I think the world of this book should scare the reader on multiple fronts.
The obvious point, it the contrast to 1984. The same control, wrapped up in a friendly package. Huxley was saying that through proper manipulation of public opinion, a regime can control a large % of the population outside of their awareness. This is in some ways more dangerous than 1984, where everyone is aware of the controls and lies, but too scared to do anything (or psychologically accepts them as true as a protection mechanism).
The other area to fear, is that by sanitizing life to that degree, it loses it's humanity. We all want disease, war, famine to end. But it's a common theme in dystopian literature that people go crazy in a world that actually succeeds in doing that. Put more simply, there is no sweet without the bitter.
Of 1984, Fahrenheit 451, and Brave New World, there was no prize for scaring me the most. And I don't think that as governments encroach more they will only use one tactic. I think that there are elements of each strategy at play in the world today.
Tim Hoolihan about 1 year agoAnd thus the nihilism of modernism reaches its telos. Way to articulate it so nicely, Mr. Stern. Perhaps you can hold the needle while we start euthanizing any child that shows any creative ability...
Facebook User about 1 year agoIn regards to the words of Mr. Hart:
The books forces you to contemplate not only the difference between good and evil, but also what rights are inherent and which are in fact privileges. This leads to the question of what the purpose of government really is, and, consequently, what freedoms they have the right to disrupt.
Good/Evil can be defined in one of a few different ways: If one is religious, they might say that anything that aligns with the morality that <insert deity here> passed onto us is good; all that is against their deity is evil. From another point of view, which happens to be mine (though I am also semi-religious), there is no absolute "good" or "evil", however, there are inherently wrong actions. All men are not only created equal, but, throughout the entirety of their lives, are equal. By that token, no man has the right to enforce his will upon his neighbor. Any act that disables the free will that is undeniably inherently human is to be considered wrong.
Additionally, I have always found it curious that, to tie in with physics, the second law of thermodynamics states that all order tends to disorder (the principle of entropy). This principle seems to imply that all things in the universe are chaotic in nature, yet politicians and government officials seem to believe that humans are exempt from this principle. The sheer unpredictability of humanity, and the pleasure that individuals gain from surprise and chance, should be a clear indicator that human nature is in fact chaotic, that it is not MEANT to be tame and orderly, and that perhaps that taming and ordering that is the goal of a government is the very reason for so much insanity in this day and age, for it makes perfect sense that in going against one's own nature, they may be driven out of their mind.
Human freedom is undeniably inherent and any restriction imposed on it by a fellow man is wholly wrong.
Facebook User about 1 year agoYou've got to be kidding - Brave New World is no utopia. It's a dystopia in every sense, it's just far more subtle than something like 1984.
Ruth Sherwood about 1 year agoThe people in Brave New World are *conditioned* in every way. There is no such thing as an individual. There are no highs of life because there are no lows. Everyone in the book is reduced to being a child with no need for choices or responsibilities. In that way, Brave New World is even *worse* than 1984! At least in 1984 there was some chance of a person having a free thought of their own. In Brave New World an original thought is a biological anomaly.
Sorry, I take our own crappy world over one so fake it ceases to be life.