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Industrial revolution and impact on society
Industrial revolution and impact on society
Industrial revolution and impact on society
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In today’s world, millions of young people worldwide are constantly bombarded by advertisements on billboards, in magazines and on television. These influences shape how we live our lives and affect our habits both as consumers and as individuals. In Aldous Huxley’s novel Brave New World, Huxley examines the idea of mental control from a governmental standpoint rather than commercial. His utopian society, in which babies are chemically created and every social class is predetermined, seems to be perfect. However, only perfect for the majority who simply live in the false world which has been so forcefully created. For those like Bernard Marx, individualism is an isolating thing – something that sparks a rebellious impulse. With his eerie portrayal of societal indoctrination, Huxley explores the repercussions of a civilization devoid of individualism.
Huxley starts the novel by giving the reader a feeling of the supposed perfection within the World State. He begins with an in-depth analysis of the Central London Hatchery and Conditioning Centre, the place where everybody in the World State is created and predestined. By starting with birth, Huxley shows the reader the most important aspect of World State society: lifelong control. Rather than a natural cycle, birth is a mechanized and automated system. The Director explains Bokanovsky’s Process as “making ninety-six human beings grow where only one grew before. Progress” (6). Immediately, the reader has been immersed in a world of repetition. This so-called “Process” creates similarity rather than individuality, its goal is to make “standard men and women; in uniform batches,” (7) explains the Director. From this basis of creation, the Process moves into the Social Predestination...
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...nd stability that he has carefully constructed, no matter the cost to him. In the end, no matter how hard Bernard, Helmholtz and John fight, they are immediately crushed by the overpowering social system. While achieving a newfound understanding of their own individualities, they failed to enlighten a conditioned population.
Once society is so brainwashed that only stray remnants of individuality are left, there is no hope to enlighten the majority. Brave New World tells the story of the cliché “too little, too late” for the World State. The citizens, fully indoctrinated, have neither the desire nor the intelligence to act as individuals. Even when given the opportunity they let it slip away with no realization of what just passed. Huxley uses his novel to warn future generations not to be brainwashed, to stand for individualism and uniqueness before it’s too late.
What if there was a place where you did not have to, or rather, you could not think for yourself? A place where one's happiness was controlled and rationed? How would you adapt with no freedom of thought, speech, or happiness in general? In the novel Brave New World by Aldous Huxley, there are many different attitudes portrayed with the purpose to make the reader think of the possible changes in our society and how they could affect its people.
Imagine not having a family to care for you or you for them. In Huxley's book, giving birth to a baby was simply not done. In Huxley's "new world," babies were produced rather than being born from a mother. These babies were then physically and mentally matured according to their set task in life. They were created according to what position they would hold in life. From the time that they were produced, they were conditioned to like what they were to do and only that. They were taught to like what they had and not want anything else. Because of this conditioning, everyone had a place in society and together, everyone created a happy society.
The novel Brave New World written by Aldous Huxley has been reviewed over time by many different people. Neil Postman is a man who has read Huxley’s novel and came to conclusions himself about the comparison between the novel, and the modern day problems we have in today’s society. Postman has made many relevant assertions as to how our modern society is similar to what Huxley had written about in his novel. The three main points I agree on with Postman is that people will begin to love their oppression; people would have no reason to fear books; and that the truth will be drowned by irrelevance. The first assertion Postman made regarded people loving their oppression.
Examining Aldous Huxley’s View on Government Control “Science and technology provide the means for controlling the lives of citizens” (Brave). This quote describes a major and ever-growing problem in the basic, daily lives of society now, and has been since the mid-twentieth century. With technology, medicine, and general knowledge evolving so rapidly, it is hard to find a constant code by which governments can carry out their purpose of regulating societies. In some cases, organization is taken to an extreme level that chokes out creativity and individuality while replacing it with codes and stern punishments (Huxley). On the other end of the spectrum, liberalism can flourish in an atmosphere of prosperity and freedom, but not for very long (Huxley).
In his text Brave New World, Aldous Huxley imagines a society genetically engineered and socially conditioned to be a fully functioning society where everyone appears to be truly happy. This society is created by each person being assigned a social status from both, much like the caste system in modern society or the social strata applied to everyday society. Huxley shows the issues of class struggle from the Marxist perspective when he writes, “Bokanovky’s process is one of the major instruments of social stability”(Director 7). The director demonstrates that the Bokanovky’s process is a way to control and manage the population much easier. The process consists of creating clones for them to control.
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 his novel Brave New World, Aldous Huxley illustrates ways in which government and advanced science control society. Through actual visualization of this Utopian society, the reader is able to see how this state affects Huxley’s characters. Throughout the book, the author deals with many different aspects of control. Whether it is of his subjects’ feelings and emotions or of the society’s restraint of population growth, Huxley depicts government’s and science’s role in the brave new world of tomorrow.
Before examining how utopias rob individuals of their identities, it is important to note the large cultural differences between the present in Brave New World and the modern-day present to show how utopias cannot function even in a highly technologically advanced future. A common phrased used by most of the characters in the novel is, “Oh, Ford!” (Huxley 21) as opposed to “Oh, God!” in modern-day language. This shows how the Brave New World society views Henry Ford, one of the fathers of modern technology, as its deistic figure. The manner in which Henry Ford is viewed is similar to the way ‘God’ is viewed in the present day, as the omniscient, omnipotent figure. Likewise, the futuristic society is one driven largely by the consumption of drugs, spe...
... In short, the novel Brave New World, shows that the World State eliminates individuality through social restrictions, government controlled groupings and the abuse of drugs to maintain control of the population. Social restriction through hypnopaedia and shock therapy robs individuals of their creative personalities by preventing freedom of thought, behavior, and expression. Government controlled groupings such as Solidarity Service Days and the feelies to eliminate individuality stemming from individual thought due to discontent; therefore maintaining control by eliminating the chance of people revolting and going astray from their conditioning. Works Cited Huxley, Aldous. A. & Co.
Within Brave New World social stability means everyone is identical and has a preset purpose to life. A tour guide at the Central London Hatchery And Conditioning Centre explains they”…predestine and condition. We decant our babies as socialized human beings, as alphas or epsilons, as future sewage workers…” (Huxley 13) Bernard Marx was born by the same Bokanovsky process as everyone else. He is forced to live in a society where individuality is suppressed for stability by conformity. Marx knows he is unlike many others and tries to fit in. He is prevented to be his true self because he is already looked down on by the conditioned society and risk of exile. His anti-social beliefs include ideas of marriage, emotions and community events which are unmoral according to the rest of civilization.
Not only does Huxley use sex and reproduction as symbols of stealing human rights early in life, but he uses it for their adolescent and adult lives. Strange and alien sexual control is showed at an early age in this society when children of a young age are told to be playing an erotic and sexual game. This continued push on sexual promiscuity, especially on women, is in stark contrast to our own soci...
In 1932, Aldous Huxley wrote a thrilling dystopia titled Brave New World. Centered on a man struggling in a world where emotions have been forsaken for peace and stability of the entire community, the novel has a shock factor that is quite electric. Though it was popular in the 1950’s with college students because of its portrayal of gender, the true merit of Huxley’s work can be found in its predictions for the future. The practices in the novel are alarmingly similar to many aspects of today’s society. The approval of drug use to induce happiness, the constant effort to make life better through technology and the everlasting trust in the government are all characteristics shared by our society and that found in Brave New World.
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.
In today’s society a person is shaped by family, friends, and past events, but in Aldous Huxley’s classic novel, Brave New World, there is no such thing as family, history and “true” friends. The government controls every aspect of an individual from their creation in the hatcheries to their conditioning for their thoughts and careers. In this brave new world the ideas of stability and community reign supreme, and the concept of individualism is foreign and suppressed, “Everyone belongs to everyone else, after all,” (47). Huxley perverses contemporary morals and concepts in Brave New World, thus distorting the ideas of materialistic pleasures, savagery versus society, and human relationships. These distortions contribute to the effectiveness of Brave New World, consequently creating a novel that leaves the reader questioning how and why.
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.