Skip to main content

Considering the specific aspects of Brave New World's utopian society, how might we see Aldous Huxley's novel as a cautionary tale?

The novel serves as a warning to our own society not to take the easy way out of life by giving up our freedoms in return for a superficial "happiness" than might numb our pain, but also prevents us from living fully. 


In the World State, people don't suffer but they also don't feel much. The government runs everything to make the world as efficient, painless and sterile as possible and people have no say in who they are or how the world is organized. Specific issues relevant to our own society would be the following:


The people in the World State popped soma, which made them feel good and let them escape reality; do we use meds, alcohol or other mind-altering substances to do the same? (This is not about people who genuinely need and benefit from meds.)


The people in the World State were conditioned to consume or to buy, buy, buy. Do we "shop until we drop" and stuff our homes and closets with more consumer goods than we need or could ever use?


The people in the World State were conditioned through tapes they heard at night to do what the society wanted them to do. Are we similarly "conditioned" by incessant advertising to do what others want us to do, whether it's good for us or not?


The people in the World State were given mindless entertainment. Do we substitute mindless entertainment (watching cat videos, for example) for reading works of literature, as the Savage does, that might cause us to rethink how we see the world or confront us with new ideas?


The people in the World State were encouraged never to become too close with any one person but instead to jump from superficial relationship to superficial relationship. Do we have a "hook up" culture in our world? 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Is there a word/phrase for "unperformant"?

As a software engineer, I need to sometimes describe a piece of code as something that lacks performance or was not written with performance in mind. Example: This kind of coding style leads to unmaintainable and unperformant code. Based on my Google searches, this isn't a real word. What is the correct way to describe this? EDIT My usage of "performance" here is in regard to speed and efficiency. For example, the better the performance of code the faster the application runs. My question and example target the negative definition, which is in reference to preventing inefficient coding practices. Answer This kind of coding style leads to unmaintainable and unperformant code. In my opinion, reads more easily as: This coding style leads to unmaintainable and poorly performing code. The key to well-written documentation and reports lies in ease of understanding. Adding poorly understood words such as performant decreases that ease. In addressing the use of such a poorly ...
Post a Comment
Read more

A man has a garden measuring 84 meters by 56 meters. He divides it into the minimum number of square plots. What is the length of the square plots?

We wish to divide this man's garden into the minimum number of square plots possible. A square has all four sides with the same length.Our garden is a rectangle, so the answer is clearly not 1 square plot. If we choose the wrong length for our squares, we may end up with missing holes or we may not be able to fit our squares inside the garden. So we have 84 meters in one direction and 56 meters in the other direction. When we start dividing the garden in square plots, we are "filling" those lengths in their respective directions. At each direction, there must be an integer number of squares (otherwise, we get holes or we leave the garden), so that all the square plots fill up the garden nicely. Thus, our job here is to find the greatest common divisor of 84 and 56. For this, we prime factor both of them: `56 = 2*2*2*7` `84 = 2*2*3*7` We can see that the prime factors and multiplicities in common are `2*2*7 = 28` . This is the desired length of the square plots. If you wi...
Post a Comment
Read more

What warning does Chuchundra issue to Rikki?

Chuchundra, the sniveling, fearful muskrat who creeps around walls because he is too terrified to go into the center of a room, meets Rikki in the middle of the night. He insults Rikki by begging him not to kill him. He then insults him by suggesting that Nag might mistake Chuchundra for Rikki. He says, "Those who kill snakes get killed by snakes."  He issues this warning to Rikki not to help keep Rikki safe but as a way of explaining why Rikki's presence gives him, Chuchundra, more reason to fear.  Chuchundra starts to tell Rikki what Chua the rat told him--but breaks it off when he realizes he might be overheard by Nag. He says, "Nag is everywhere, Rikki-Tikki." Rikki threatens to bite Chuchundra to get him to talk. Even then, Chuchundra won't overtly reveal any information. But he does say, "Can't you hear, Rikki-Tikki?" This is enough of a clue for the clever mongoose. He listens carefully and can just make out the "faintest scratch-s...
Post a Comment
Read more