A Corporate Dystopia
Our children are being brainwashed. Not overtly, mind you, and not in any way that would be so violent as to cause alarm with most parents, but subtly and persistently, powerful entities are programming and transforming the next generation of American citizens into obedient attendants and mindless drones. Without the necessary steps taken to prevent it, our future will lie in the hands of men and women who, instead of using a well-cultivated intellect, will feign attack on the problems of their day with the "Just do it." and "Why ask why?" knee-jerk responses of their wasted childhood, leaving real power to reside with their programmers: Coca-Cola, Nike, Disney, et al. By allowing corporations free access to the minds of our children (as many of us do), we take the first bold steps down the road to the Brave New World. Ignoring this threat and treating it as either non-existent or only minimally significant is tantamount to inviting Huxley's dystopian vision into our own world. In so doing, we set ourselves up for a decidedly dark tomorrow.
To the uninitiated, the society of Huxley's Brave New World at first seems to be only pure science fiction with no visible ties to reality. After all, we have no government-controlled genetic engineering of human beings in our world. We do not center our children's education around pleasure and the maintenance of happiness. We have no drug, or soma, to keep us in a state of physical bliss and emotional contentedness. Yet, for all its fantasy, there are several uncomfortably close connections with our own world in Huxley's ominous vision.
For instance, while there is currently no centralized system of large-scale genetic engineering, recent...
... middle of paper ...
...ty to apathy and, more importantly, teach our children to do the same.
[In] Huxley's vision, no Big Brother is required to deprive people of their autonomy, maturity and history. As he saw it, people will come to love their oppression, to adore the technologies that undo their capacities to think. -From Amusing Ourselves to Death by Neil Postman
Works Cited
Coca-Cola Company. 1997 Annual Report. Atlanta: Coca-Cola Company. 1998. Available online at: http://www.thecoca-colacompany.com/investors/index.html
Hays, Constance L. "Math Textbook Salted With Brand Names Raises New Alarm". New York Times 21 Mar. 1999. Available online at: http://www.nytimes.com
Huxley, Aldous. Brave New World. New York: Time, Inc. 1963.
Postman, Neil. Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show-Business. New York: Viking. 1985.
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.
Huxley implies that by abrogating dreadfulness and mental torment, the brave new worlders have disposed of the most significant and brilliant encounters that life can offer also. Most remarkably, they have relinquished an abstruse deeper joy which is intimated, not expressed, to be pharmacologically out of reach to the utopians. The magical foundation of this assumption is dark. There are clues, too, that a percentage of the utopians may feel a poorly characterized feeling of disappointment, an irregular sense that their lives are trivial. It is suggested, further, that assuming that we are to discover correct satisfaction and importance in our lives, then we must have the ability to contrast the great parts of existence with the awful parts, to feel both euphoria and despondency. As vindications go, it’s a great one.
Thrasymuchus was very hostile against Socrates in Book I. Every attempt that was made to prove Thrasymuchus wrong was badgered by bad comments of Socrates trying to manipulate him and the others. Socrates from the beginning on 336b was asking questions all the way to 347e building up his defense to Thrasymuchus statement that "justice is the interest of the stronger party" (Pg. 338 Para. C). Socrates disagrees with Thrasymuchus and he states, "Surely, then, no doctor, insofar as he is a doctor, seeks or orders what is advantageous to himself, but what is advantageous to his patient?" (Pg. 342 Para. D). Thrasymuchus and Socrates agreed to all these professions and what was considered a leader and what wasn't considered a leader. Socrates goes on with this, "… that a ship's captain or ruler won't seek and order to what is advantageous to himself, but what is advantageous to a sailor …" (Pg. 342 Para. E). Specifically there in those two statements Socrates has already shot down the idea of Thrasymuchus, but here is an example that Thrasymuchus gives to defend himself earlier in the reading:
Upon the summation of the debate between Polemarchus and Socrates, Thrasymachus enters into the fray. He states that justice “is nothing other than advantage of the stronger” (Republic 338c), and also that the greatest life is that of perfect injustice, to be found in the life of a tyrant. This definition leaves no room for the common good because it creates a life of compet...
Plato creates a seemingly invincible philosopher in The Republic. Socrates is able to refute all arguments presented before him with ease. The discussion on justice in Book I of The Republic is one such example. Socrates successfully refutes each different view of justice presented by Cephalus, Polemarchus, and Thrasymachus. Socrates has not given us a definitive definition of justice, nor has he refuted all views of justice, but as far as we are concerned in Book I, he is able to break down the arguments of his companions.
In Plato’s Republic Thrasymachus is arguing with Socrates about “what is justice?” Thrasymachus argues that might makes right. He believes that justice is made only by those in power, to serve those in power. The morality of the “lesser” people is a reflection of what the powerful people have set as the laws to follow. In that sense, might makes right. The people with the most power set the rules, and the citizens follow them, making it right. He also believes that the God’s do not care about humans because they do not enforce justices. Socrates does not follow the “might makes right” belief. Socrates argues that there are times that the people in charge make rules that do not benefit them. Then Thrasymachus says a “true ruler” would not
The human experience comes from a unique sense of self development through an individual’s efforts to gain knowledge as well as experiencing all ranges of emotion. The most resplendent quality within people is each ‘flawed’ personality that differentiates from one person to the next while all people, though each his or her own, strive towards the advancement of their own selves. In Brave New World, Aldous Huxley takes this concept and runs with a satirical, anti-humane theme in which the core foundations and principles of humanity are stripped and flipped around as though each one is pointless. While main themes persist throughout long passages, Huxley brings
"'God isn't compatible with machinery and scientific medicine and universal happiness.'" So says Mustapha Mond, the World Controller for Western Europe in Aldous Huxley's novel Brave New World. In doing so, he highlights a major theme in this story of a Utopian society. Although the people in this modernized world enjoy no disease, effects of old age, war, poverty, social unrest, or any other infirmities or discomforts, Huxley asks 'is the price they pay really worth the benefits?' This novel shows that when you must give up religion, high art, true science, and other foundations of modern life in place of a sort of unending happiness, it is not worth the sacrifice.
The arguments of all the individuals tried to define the true meaning of justice. The subject proved to be quite the challenge. Socrates logically refutes each argument and through this slowly forms his own definition of justice. He shows how self-interest influences each definition and the motives for why one chooses to be just. Through this he concludes that justice resides in the soul and individual.
...purpose is “to unmask the hypocrisy and show how the meaning of Justice is being perverted” . He is not prepared to argue, leaving Socrates victorious. Here, Socrates’s method of argumentative questioning is insufficient and naïve against a stubborn, powerful and philosophically certain moral skeptic. This is confirmed by the change in investigative approach in the latter books. Thus the ‘earlier’ Plato cannot adequately respond to Thrasymachus’s immoralist view of Justice.
One major issue that helps maintain social stability in Brave New World is sex. It is thought of as normal for people to be completely open with their sexual nature. It is typical for children to run around naked during recess playing games that are sexual and sometimes homosexual in nature. Every adult is encouraged to sleep with as many different partners as possible. This outlook on sexual nature is quite different from actual accepted views. Today, sex is most widely accepted as a private, romantic event that should take place between monogamous couples. Because sex is a natural need of the human body, people of Huxley’s society feel pleased by being open with their sexuality. Indulging in their sexual pleasures eases their minds and keeps them from questioning the level of freedom they have.
Thrasymachus, tired of holding his tongue back, barges into the argument and asks Socrates exactly what justice is; since Socrates cannot answer Thrasymachus offers his perception:
For years, authors and philosophers have satirized the “perfect” society to incite change. In Brave New World, Aldous Huxley describes a so-called utopian society in which everyone is happy. This society is a “controlled environment where technology has essentially [expunged] suffering” (“Brave New World”). A member of this society never needs to be inconvenienced by emotion, “And if anything should go wrong, there's soma” (Huxley 220). Citizens spend their lives sleeping with as many people as they please, taking soma to dull any unpleasant thoughts that arise, and happily working in the jobs they were conditioned to want. They are genetically altered and conditioned to be averse to socially destructive things, like nature and families. They are trained to enjoy things that are socially beneficial: “'That is the secret of happiness and virtue – liking what you've got to do. All conditioning aims at that: making people like their inescapable social destiny'” (Huxley 16). Citizens operate more like machinery, and less like humans. Humanity is defined as “the quality of being human” (“Humanity”). To some, humanity refers to the aspects that define a human: love, compassion and emotions. Huxley satirizes humanity by dehumanizing the citizens in the Brave New World society.
In conclusion, the concept of justice defined by Thrasymachus and Socrates has opposing views. Thrasymachus views justice as making one unhappy. He says that lying and stealing is a way out. On the contrary, Socrates brings out justice as a pure of the soul. Socrates reflects the wishes of the society while Thrasymachus reflects a society that has rotten values.
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.