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Difference between utopia and dystopia
Loss of individuality in a brave new world
Utopia and dystopia paragraph
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As man has progressed through the ages, there has been, essentially, one purpose. That purpose is to arrive at a utopian society, where everyone is happy, disease is nonexistent, and strife, anger, or sadness is unheard of. Only happiness exists. But when confronted with Aldous Huxley's Brave New World, we come to realize that this is not, in fact, what the human soul really craves. In fact, Utopian societies are much worse than those of today. In a utopian society, the individual, who among others composes the society, is lost in the melting pot of semblance and world of uninterest. The theme of Huxley's Brave New World is community, identity, and stability. Each of these three themes represents what a Brave New World society needs to have in order to survive. According to the new world controllers, community is a result of identity and stability, identity is a part of genetic engineering, and stability is what everyone desires to achieve. These themes are represented in the book by the symbolic meaning of the phrase "Children are from bottles" and the hypnotic phrase "Everybody belongs to everybody else. For a better understanding it is useful to explore these themes in detail. Community refers to the thought of one whole unit. Everyone is connected, by their actions toward each other in every day life, sexual desires, and what they do to remove the feeling of horrible emotions. This connectedness and lie, and its effects can be seen in the character of Bernard, a person who hates what society has become.
The year is A.F. 632 (After Ford; Ford is the equivalent to God in Brave New World and with the available technology, citizens are mass produced. But have an underlying theme in common. The stability of this brave new w...
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...ch.” It is this willingness of man to make the same mistake twice that in 2000 the ideas in Brave New World do not seem that far off base. Most people thought that with the collapse of the Soviet Union it would put an end to the suffering and an all-controlling government. But with an influx of clones, test tube babies, government controls of television, needless violence, and the search for the perfect mood altering drug. Who is to say that Brave New World is not earth in fifty years? As more people lose their individuality they become connected with community. It is with this connection that they begin to let others control their lives and humanity is already headed in that direction. Brave New World should not only be seen as a great piece of science fiction. It should be seen as a warning. Of what can happen when people live up to the influence of outside sources.
Brave New World is an unsettling, loveless and even sinister place. This is because Huxley endows his "ideal" society with features calculated to alienate his audience. Typically, reading Brave New World elicits the very same disturbing feelings in the reader which the society it depicts has notionally vanquished - not a sense of joyful anticipation. Huxley's novel presents a startling view of the future which on the surface appears almost comical. His intent, however, is not humor. Huxley's message is dark and depressing. His idea that in centuries to come, a one-world government will rise to power, stripping people's freedom, is not a new idea. What makes Huxley's interpretation different is the fact that his fictional society not only lives in a totalitarian government, but takes an embracive approach like mindless robots. For example, Soma, not nuclear bombs, is the weapon of choice for the World Controllers in Brave New World. The world leaders have realized that fear and intimidation have only limited power; these tactics simply build up resentment in the minds of the oppressed. Subconscious persuasion and mind-altering drugs, on the other hand, appear to have no side effects.
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.
middle of paper ... ... In the Brave New World, society aims to preserve the homologous nature of living. With strict rules, crowd mentality and community actives, the Brave New World attempts to get rid of the individual. Hypnopedia messages such as "When the individual feels, the community reels," and "Everybody belongs to everyone else," the Brave New World attempts to diminish the value of individuality and seeks instead to promote the idea of society first.
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.
The actual process of creating humans is made possible through the use of a single ovary which makes thousands of identical people. Since these people are similar in appearance, thought and relations, they are able to live in perfect harmony with each other. Huxley uses Lenina and Fanny, two of his female characters who are distant relatives from the same ovary, as people who get along well and are on the same page on issues concerning Utopian lifestyles. This is how the government of Utopia, made up of only ten controllers, is able to maintain stability among its people. Since stability is part of the brave new world’s motto, it is a crucial deal for the government to uphold.
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 utopian government control. Huxley did not imagine this as a good thing. He uses the characters of Brave New World to express his view that utopia is impossible and detrimental.
“Brave New World,” is a novel written by Aldous Huxley where he explains that everything is based on a futuristic science which he claimed sprang forth from him because of his experience as “an ordered universe in a world of plan less incoherence” (River 4 1974). People seem to care more about temporal things rather than emotions. Technology also seems to be the most important aspect and everyone is affected by it in one way or another, whether if it is negative or positive. This does not necessarily mean that everyone is fully happy with technology because in a way they are all slaves to it. Another thing discussed in the novel is the lack of freedom. Due to a lot of technological development there exists this division in between people even before their birth that their fate has already been decided where subsist these casts such as Alphas, Betas, Gammas, Deltas e.t.c. They are pushed away from freedom of choice and forced to live in a bubble of their own.
Brave New World, a novel by Aldous Huxley was written at a tine in history when war had ravaged much of the nation, Depression was blanketing society, and people’s wills were being put to the test. Science had become an overwhelming force for better or for worse. People had witnessed science saving and preventing millions of lives with vaccinations and such, but on the contrary, had also witnessed it kill with horrifying “factory-like” efficiency in WW I (the age of machine guns and chemical warfare). Brave New World is not intended to be a happy book, it is more Huxley’s way of describing what he believes is coming to us. He is basically saying, “This is our future”. Huxley’s writings are known for dealing with conflicts between the interest of the individual and the interests of society. Brave New World addresses this conflict in a fictional future (approximately 500 years into the future) in which free will and individuality have been sacrificed to achieve complete social stability.
Both A “Brave New World” and events from our own world disprove the statement that individuality is seen as a threat to a harmonious society. In the book Huxley introduces the characters Bernard, Helmholtz, and John as outsiders. They do not fit into the societies that they are a part of which threatens the system Mustafa Mond and the other world leaders have instilled into the society. The accusation above is flawed and incorrect. Individuality was seen as a threat to a harmonious society however it is not a threat. It is important for civilization to keep moving forward.
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 discontentment; therefore maintaining control by eliminating the chance of people revolting and going astray from their conditioning.
In a world based on the motto “Community, identity, stability,” every aspect of society follows that phrase. In the Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, everyone belongs to everyone else. The people live in one community, follow their pre-destined identity and lead stable lives as a result.
...terature or life and does not have a deeply satisfying sense of family and love. Brave New World suggests that the readers should seek freedom, knowledge, and love in their lives by producing humans in test tubes and simultaneously rendering family, marriage and love obsolete , removing religion and all prior knowledge of art and history humans would lose their nature and become like robots; emotionless and without freedom or independent thought. The pursuit of happiness is a long, treacherous road that is superficial and misguided. Individuals should seek meaning in life and happiness may or may not follow. Having meaning in life is much more satisfying and meaning cannot be achieved without the freedom to seek the answers to many controversial questions, without the knowledge of what it means to be human or without another individual to share this experience with.
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.