Welcome, You’ve Got a Brave New World
The task of predicting the future is difficult at best, yet Huxley’s predictions of the future have proven to be eerily accurate in several areas. Many of Huxley’s predictions are being realized today, have already been realized or will be realized in a few short years. These specific predictions, which are closely related to today are our sexual practices, an obsession with youth and beauty, the minimal role of parents and the practice of religion.
In Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World people treat sex as a form of entertainment rather than an expression of love between a couple. Most forms of entertainment in Brave New World somehow relate to sex. For example the feelies are pornographic movies with a more advanced plot line and the tremendous bonus of experiencing the same things as the actors on the screen. The government encourages sex and promiscuity among its citizens, if a person is not promiscuous they are seen as outcasts. Sex in Brave New World is not a private matter and is openly practiced. To ensure that sex’s purpose is for entertainment the government makes only thirty percent of the female population fertile. This ensures that the population will not view sex as a form of reproduction because the majority are not capable of sexual reproduction. The more partners a person has the more popular the person is.
A person is discouraged from having a long-term relationship with one person. If they have a long term relationship their loyalty to the government and Ford is in question, as evidenced in the following excerpt: “And you know how strongly the DHC objects to anything intense or long and drawn out. Four months of Henry Foster without having another man - why, he’d be furious if he knew”(page #) One night-stands are common and expected.
Sex is discussed openly in Brave New World. It is not seen as dirty, shameful or something to be discussed behind closed doors. From a young age children learn about sex and contraceptives. Children are forced to use contraceptives every time they have sex. They are encouraged to participate in sex play from a young age. Those who do not wish to participate are taken to a psychologist for an evaluation.
Religion in Brave New World is also linked to sex.
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...
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.
The difference between Rodriguez’s struggle between identity and Angelou’s struggle is that, Angelou’s identity’s center of focus is her name, while Rodriguez’s identity seems to revolve around his “complexion”. Although they both wrote about the struggle with their own identity, the views and attitude of the two authors differ. In Richard Rodriguez’s essay “Complexion” and Maya Angelou’s essay “Mary” both authors illustrate some hardships they faced during their life, such as their experience with racism and prejudice. In spite of the fact that they are both faced with similar situations, the actuality that sets apart their characters is how they dealt with each of their situations.
Samuel Huntington was one of the America’s greatest political scientist, back in 1993 Huntington published an essay, which later became a book, called The Clash of Civilizations, in his analysist he argued that the future conflict will be marked by civilizations conflict. He believes that in this new world the sources of conflict will not be primarily ideological nor economical, but rather the great division of humankind and the dominating source of conflict will be cultural. In short, Huntington’s predicts that the clash of civilizations will dominate global politics in the future (Huntington, 1993).
As analyzed by social critic Neil Postman, Huxley's vision of the future, portrayed in the novel Brave New World, holds far more relevance to present day society than that of Orwell's classic 1984. Huxley's vision was simple: it was a vision of a trivial society, drowned in a sea of pleasure and ignorant of knowledge and pain, slightly resembling the world of today. In society today, knowledge is no longer appreciated as it has been in past cultures, in turn causing a deficiency in intelligence and will to learn. Also, as envisioned by Huxley, mind altering substances are becoming of greater availability and distribution as technology advances. These drugs allow society to escape from the problems of life instead of dealing with reality. With divorce rates higher than ever in the past few decades, it has become evident that lust has ruined the society's sexual covenants. People are indulging in their sexual motives; lust runs rampant, thus strong, long-lasting relationships are becoming a rarity.
The first is a rejection of the Clash thesis as fabricated myth for perpetuating Western dominance and justifying its aggrandizing policies. The other is of the Clash being inevitable due to the essentially and radically different ethos of Islam that makes it impossible to reconcile with the West. Sajjad (2013) thus added that Muslims needed to prepare for the approaching Clash. In his article, Sajjad (2013) interestingly shared some analysis from the non-Western world point of view on the flaw of Huntington’s Clash of Civilizations as
Most forms of entertainment in Brave New World somehow relate to sex. For example the “feelies” are pornographic movies with a more advanced plot line and the tremendous bonus of experiencing the same things as the actors on the screen. The government actually encourages sex and promiscuity among its citizens; if a person is not promiscuous they are seen as outcasts. Sex is not a private matter and is openly practiced. To ensure that sex’s purpose is for entertainment the government makes only thirty percent of the female population fertile. This ensures that the population will not view sex as a form of reproduction because the majority is not capable of sexual reproduction. The more partners a person has the more popular the person is. Due to this a person is discouraged from having a long-term relationship with one person. If they have a long term relationship their loyalty to the government and Ford is in question, as evidenced early in the book when Fanny was scolding Lenine for not being with more men when she had the chance. “And you know how strongly the DHC objects to anything intense or long and drawn out. Four months of Henry Foster without having another man - why, he’d be furious if he knew,” (46). One night-stands are common and expected; the idea of marriage is practically nonexistent. Because it is common for the people of the World State to talk constantly about sex and are encouraged to have sex frequently, it is not seen as dirty, shameful or something to be discussed behind closed doors. From a young age children learn about sex and contraceptives. Children are forced to use contraceptives every time they have sex. They are encouraged to participate in sex play from a young age. Those who do not wish to participate are taken to a psychologist for an evaluation. Unfortunately, these actions are steadily becoming common in our own
If you recall my main point in “The Clash of Civilizations?”, I argued that the conflicts of the future will dominantly be due to cultural differences (Huntington, 1993). However, Said argues that instead of cultural differences, conflicts will stem from the ignorance that different cultures have when it comes to the other (Said, 2001). I defend my argument by pointing out that although Said believes the conflicts will stem from ignorance, the conflicts are still between civilizations. For Said’s argument to make sense, he has to admit that there are and always will be differences between these cultures that are of a sufficient scale, in order for one side to be ignorant about the beliefs and values of the other. The result of either civilization not understanding or accepting the practices of the other side’s culture is their eventual conflict (Huntington, 1993). Therefore, the basis of Said’s point supports my hypothesis that future conflicts will firstly, be between civilizations, and secondly, be due to their differences in culture.
Clarissa Dalloway, the central character in Virginia Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway, is a complex figure whose relations with other women reveal as much about her personality as do her own musings. By focusing at length on several characters, all of whom are in some way connected to Clarissa, Woolf expertly portrays the ways females interact: sometimes drawing upon one another for things which they cannot get from men; other times, turning on each other out of jealousy and insecurity.
Throughout history, Western civilization has been an emerging force behind change in foreign societies. This is the concept that is discussed in the article the West Unique, Not Universal, written by Samuel Huntington. The author makes a very clear thesis sentence and uses a variety of evidence to support it. This article has a strong very convincing point. The thoughts expressed in this article can be related to a lot of events throughout history.
Clarissa Dalloway and Septimus Warren Smith are two of the character is in the book Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf. Clarissa Dalloway and Septimus Warren Smith are unhappy with their lives.
Clarissa Dalloway and Septimus Smith are two characters in the book Mrs. Dalloway. Though they are not directly connected in the book they both connect in many other ways. In some ways they are the same person, and in other ways they are extremely different people. Each character struggles with their own problems inside their head. They have unique life styles that both of them wish they could change. They each made or experienced important events that changed the way they lived their life forever. The novel follows who the characters are inside and out of their heads, Woolf is able to exemplify this by using a writing style called stream of consciousness. This style of writing shows how these two characters can appear polar-opposites on the outside, but when being able to see their thoughts and feelings they can parallel immensely.
“There is a sort of elation about sunlight on the upper part of a house. ” Edward Hopper, a classic realist painter of the twentieth century, had a fascination for light. His plays on the mood of light stretch as a major theme throughout his works, and contribute to the intensifying effect he could inject into seemingly every day scenes. His works took a dramatic appeal through the “eerie stillness's” and lone figures sprinkled throughout his paintings. Although influenced by Edgar Degas and Edouard Maent, Edward Hopper easily added his own personal touches to the beautiful style of realism.1
Samuel P. Hunington “The Clash of Civilizations” Foreighn Affairs 72.3 Summer 1993 Council on foreign Relations , Inc
In conclusion, Huntington appears as a cultural thesis in the clash of civilisations, he then request that the major distinction among people is that they are not political, economic and ideological, they are cultural. If distinction possesses primacy, it is accompanied by the world’s conflicts. Some of the facts he stated in his thesis are unproven, and the world they cannot be one because, wars they still taking place even today, countries are still fighting. These prove that, Huntington ideas are adequate because they can be criticised and proven false. Post-cold war cannot be shaped only by cultural factors; it can also be shaped by political factors.