Brave New World
Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World portrays a society in which science has clearly taken over. This was an idea of what the future could hold for humankind. Is it true that Huxley’s prediction may be correct? Although there are many examples of Huxley’s theories in our society, there is reason to believe that his predictions will not hold true for the future of society.
One of the biggest changes occurring in Brave New World was that babies were not being born to parents, but rather being grown in test tubes. These test tube embryos were altered to produce thousands of babies using only one embryo. Our society practices similar procedures. We were first able to grow babies in test tubes, helping people who could not get pregnant. Our next development as a society allowed the ability to clone an embryo and have many where one stood.
Another change in Huxley’s society was how people appeared physically as they grew older. In the story, people we given surgery to preserve their attractive peak for the rest of their lives. There is no surgery in our society that makes a person look good for the rest of their lives, but methods of slowing the aging process have been discovered. This new technology allows a person to look younger for a longer period of time. This means that a 60-year old person would look the same as a 30-year old would today.
Despite the previously mentioned cases, there are examples of how today’s society is not changing to replicate Brave New World. In the story, there were no mothers or fathers, no family, and no general monogamy. Today’s society still believes in marriage, parental roles, and the family structure.
The last difference is that of the government. In Brave New World, there were no political parties and no divisional boundaries. The story portrayed a society with a large group of intelligent leaders that controlled the society.
...cieties, which are dreadful, dysfunctional societies. The citizens appear happy and in harmony; however, their joy is a façade because it is reinforced by science. These societies aim to achieve happiness and harmony through different technological means. Modern-day societies and governments use the media, legislation, and consequences to accomplish their goals, such as equality, harmony, and more. Although, Brave New World and The Twilight Zone reflect extreme utopian societies, they aim to warn people of the following risks: the power of science, the influence of beauty and youth, the function of the government, and more.
Science and Technology have a strong influence on the daily lives of the citizens in the world state. The first influence is through the use of drugs and in particular, soma. Soma is a drug that is used in the world state by everyone to create false happiness. When john, Bernard and Helmholtz meet Mustafa mond the leader of the world state, Mond explains the beneficial effects of simply consuming one drug on a daily basis. “Now, you swallow two or three half-gramme tablets, and there you are. Anybody can be virtuous now. You can carry at least half your mortality about in a bottle. Christianity without tears-that’s what soma is.” (Helmholtz, 162) In the world state, there is only praise for the drug known as soma, as there are no side effects the members of society fear of. Science and technology has reached a point where it allows a simple tablet to relieve its citizens of any sort of problem that they may encounter. Furthermore Soma is produced in large quantities for consumption in order to suppress understanding of what is around the members of society. Secondly, along with the Soma consumption, the citizens are also influenced by science in everyday life by not being able to gain knowledge. methods of gaining knowledge include: reading books or anything that promotes an idea. Using technology, the world state prohibits any type of reading. When small children are being conditioned to keep away from books, the procedure is presented, “Crumpling the illuminated pages of the books, the director waited until all were happily busy. Then, ‘Watch carefully,’ he said. And, lifting his hand, he gave the signal... There was a violent explosion... The children screamed; their faces were distorted with terror.” (16) even at a young age...
Every human being in this controlled society is created on an assembly line in test tubes much like a factory. The first test tube baby in our world was born in Great Britain on the 25th of July 1978. They retrieved one of the mother eggs and placed into a test tub wear it was fertilized with a father’s sperm. The scientist then waited for the cell to divide in to 64 cells, then placed the fertilized egg in the mother’s uterus were it was successfully embedded, and then the baby was born about 9 months later. There are many more humans that have been conceived in this way. This is part of the ...
A Brave New World, written by Aldous Huxley, is a book that to me is more of a warning then entertainment. In the book, Huxley writes about a future civilization and all how everything in life is simplified. Babies are created in factories and are designed however scientists want them to be. Relationships are completely irrelevant and frowned upon in this world. People are distracted from true beauty and left to submit their selves into a false world. Since this book was written in 1931, Huxley obviously had no knowledge of new age technology. But, many of the warnings he wrote about have, in fact, come true. Cloning is now a very relevant topic in the scientific community, which could actually lead to artificial birth like Huxley wrote about. Video games now have one of the most profitable industries and are now as immersive as ever. And according to multiple studies, sexual promiscuity is at an all time high in teenagers.
Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World introduces us to a futuristic technological world where monogamy is shunned, science is used in order to maintain stability, and society is divided by 5 castes consisting of alphas(highest), betas, gammas, deltas, and epsilons(lowest). In the Brave New World, the author demonstrates how society mandates people’s beliefs using many characters throughout the novel.
In Aldous Huxley's novel, "Brave New World" he introduces a character named, Bernard Marx an alpha part of the upper higher class who does not quite fit in. Bernard is cursed by the surrounding rumors of something going wrong during his conditioning that he becomes bitter and isolates himself from those around him in the World State. Huxley's character experiences both alienation and enrichment to being exiled from a society that heavily relies on technology and forms of entertainment with little to no morals.
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.
There were quite a few changes made from Aldous Huxley’s, Brave New World to turn it into a “made for TV” movie. The first major change most people noticed was Bernard Marx’s attitude. In the book he was very shy and timid toward the opposite sex, he was also very cynical about their utopian lifestyle. In the movie Bernard was a regular Casanova. He had no shyness towards anyone. A second major deviation the movie made form the book was when Bernard exposed the existing director of Hatcheries and Conditioning, Bernard himself was moved up to this position. In the book the author doesn’t even mention who takes over the position. The biggest change between the two was Lenina, Bernard’s girlfriend becomes pregnant and has the baby. The screenwriters must have made this up because the author doesn’t even mention it. The differences between the book and the movie both helped it and hurt it.
Today, in 21st century United States, people are concerned with the fast pace of new and growing technology, and how these advances should be used. In the last decade alone we have seen major advancements in technology; in science, cloning has become a reality, newer, more powerful drugs have been invented and, in communications, the Internet has dominated society. There is a cultural lag due to the fast rate of increasing technology, and while the governments of the world are trying to keep up their role as censors and lawmakers, we as individuals are trying to comprehend the effects it has on our lives. Will these advances enhance our lives to an unprecedented level of comfort, or lead to the loss of actual happiness? In the early 1930's, when Aldous Huxley wrote Brave New World, this was a question he felt was worth asking.
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 a utopian government control. Huxley did not imagine this as a good thing. He uses the characters of Brave New World to express his view of utopia being impossible and detrimental. One such character he uses to represent the idealogy behind this is Bernard Marx.
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.
...he novel and as well as the current situations of the society we live in today, it is clear that Huxley’s vision is accurate and reliable.
Huxley observes in his work, Brave New World that the modern world revolves around technological development. The aspirations and morals of modern society do not entirely rely on social issues such as love, family, and success but rather on industrial progress and social development. According to Huxley, technological improvement and growth are critical factors that shape the operation and activities in modern society. So far, community members need to observe the world as technologically oriented and collective social setting. Instead of being interested in individual social development, modern society is focusing its attention on merging technological transformation and their impact in modern success. In his observation, Huxley states that modern society is quickly surrendering its culture to emerging technological development. Contemporary culture is mainly being characterised by socio-technological status (Huxley 7). Therefore, based on the novels content, it is clear that Huxley’s writing is a dangerous prophesy of technology’s ability to control modern social operations.
The destruction of the family an important issue to me personally because of the relevance it has to my life and to our changing world. The fact that the words mother, father, etc are considered pornographic is particularly interesting. The family in “Brave New World” is replaced with bottles, nurses, conditioning, and life training. These changes allow for a more easily controlled individual. By not allowing a person to have or develop relationships that person is more receptive to his predestined path and more contented to follow the group. The destruction of the family is also an issue in today’s world. Devoice and pregnancy before marriage is destroying the Family. These things are causing children to grow up with out whole families and in some cases without any family. This worries me because I don’t want our world to end up the same as the one in “Brave New World.”
Huxley begins the book by describing a cold and mechanical hatchery center where humans are made in test tubes in almost a robotic fashion in the civilized society of London. All of the humans in society are conditioned as children to act and behave uniformly, according to their social class; Alphas, Betas, Gammas, Deltas and Epsilons. The government controls the citizens by keeping them happy on the surface encouraging the use of drugs and distracts them by nurturing a consumer culture. "Call it the fault of civilization. God isn 't compatible with machinery and scientific medicine and universal happiness. You must make your choice. Our civilization has chosen machinery and medicine and happiness. That 's why I have to keep these books locked up in the safe." (p. 234). Humans are programmed to accept society’s rules without question or individual thought. In doing so they take away freedoms, such as the freedom to think for