I don’t think that our society has become the Brave New World that Huxley predicted in any way. In Huxley’s BNW bodily health and immediate gratification are most important to society. The society works because people have been stripped of emotion and have no hardships in life. They do not have to worry about love, “disease, aggression, war, anxiety, suffering, guilt, envy, (or) grief.” (Leon Kass) Their lives are planned out before they are even decanted and they only have to make shallow, trivial decisions for themselves. According to Mustapha Mond, “The world’s stable now. People are happy; they get what they want, and they never want what they can’t get. They’re well off; they’re safe; they’re never ill; they’re not afraid of death; they’re blissfully ignorant of passion and old age; they’re plagued with no mothers or fathers; they’ve got no wives, or children, or lovers to feel strongly about; they’re so conditioned that they practically can’t help behaving as they ought to behave. And if anything goes wrong, there’s soma.” (p.220) Of course, soma, the drug that fixes the one thing that they can be plagued by: emotion. On the other hand, there is our society. Although when we are young our parents try, like the government in BNW, to shield us from the negative emotions and the problems in the world, for the most part we do feel. And we feel strongly. Our whole lives are based on emotional attachments. Starting with our mothers, fathers, brothers and sisters, then friends, and eventually a wife and a family of our own, we form relationships based around emotions. We are even emotionally connected to people we don’t know when we read a tragic story in the paper or see the news of a hurricane on TV. There are wars, disease, and most importantly sin. Our society also conditions. We teach our young to make good decisions and to do what is right, to want to succeed in life, to get a good education, a job, and a family. However when we grow up we are individuals. No matter what our parents have taught us we still make our own decisions. The people in the BNW are not free. They are conditioned in everything down to what they do for fun, what they buy, and what job they do. We are truly free. We have all the things that the BNW lacks. John the Savage in the BNW says “But I don’t want comfort. I want God, I want poetry, I want real danger, I want freedom, I want goodness. I want sin.” (p.240) He claims the right to be unhappy along with the right to all the things that the BNW got rid of. I agree with John. I think that the people of the BNW are not human. Furthermore they are not even happy. One cannot know or feel happiness without having felt fear, sorrow, grief, and boredom. The people in this BNW do not have any emotions and are not human because of this. They do not think for themselves, have real relationships with others, or feel. There are hardly even any individuals. They are like maggots, faceless and mindless maggots. People in our society have hopes, dreams, choice, and ambition. Also our society is ever changing. We have no restrictions on technology or science. We are encouraged to think for ourselves and we have art, literature, history, and multiple religions. We are all individuals and act as individuals.
I do see one small similarity between our society today and theirs. This is the constant presence of technology. Even as I write this journal I am listening to music. When faced with nature, the vast emptiness of the sea and the night sky, and the solitariness Lenina has a strong urge to turn on the radio. Her conditioning causes her to actually be afraid of nature and of being alone. Sometimes we do use music and other things to distract ourselves but I do not think it is the same. I think that the music we listen encourages thought. It is full of emotion and imagery and pierces us. It is not mindless and designed to prevent us from thinking like the radio in the BNW. We still value alone time and are always fascinated and inspired by the greatness of nature. We stare at the clouds or the stars and allow our minds to drift. The other similarity is instant gratification. However, again there are differences. I think that our society’s value on instant gratification is more because we want to save time. In the BNW instant gratification keeps them from feeling the strong emotions that “lurks in that interval of time between desire and its consummation.” (p.44) We still have this time for so many things. We have self control and do not expect to have everything instantly. We must work for many things but once we can afford them it is nice to be instantly gratified. Our society is still made up of emotion filled individuals. We are very human and suffer, but we also feel so much more and strive to fulfill our own hopes and dreams and find our own purpose in life. We find what makes us truly happy and on the way we live. We are human and have all the good and bad things that come along with that.
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Robert's point about the people in BNW not having emotion is valid. Yet our society seems to be on its way toward the ideals of BNW. Medicine is advancing to the point where people might try to live multiple generations. This would keep them from feeling the emotion that comes along with death. Stem cells might eventually make this happen. ALthough now we are nowhere close to what BNW is like. If society attempts perfection Huxley's world could eventually parallel ours.
I agree with Ford. I believe that we are beginning to see many similarities between our society and that of BNW. In today's society instant gratification is very important among a lot of people. That is why people get On Demand tv and the like. Drugs have been very popular for a long time and it seems as though one day we will have such a thing as the perfect drug. I agree that at this point in time our society is not completely like that of BNW. However, there are many parallels and as Ford said "our society seems to be on its way toward the ideals of BNW."
I think Robert is right, although our world is like BNW, just to a much, much smaller extent. Examples are, like Robert said, noise, among others such as the perfection and control towards which some people strive.
I too agree with what Ford said. Our society is on a path with similar ideals of those in BNW. A very simple similarity that can already be seen are our buildings. Cities like New York have huge apartment buildings. Granted, they aren't as tall as those in BNW, but they are tall nonetheless. But the biggest contrast we can see between our society and BNW is the issue on freedom. Yes, we do sacrifice some freedom in return for security. However, once that securtity is no longer need people want their freedom back. We are so use to the ideas of rights that it would be a crime against the world for us to lose those rights. In BNW, everyone has rights, but because their government neglects to tell them what they are, the people are ignorant of their rights and have no ambition to get them back.
Ok, let's get something straight. Our society might be generally or should i say barely tending to go in the path Huxley predicts, but there is no legitimate argument that can be made, at least for me, that suggests "Huxley's world could eventually parallel ours." No way. Consider this. Woodberry Forest School and The Central London Hatchery and Conditioning Centre have a lot in common. Take our conservative dress code for example. Neatly tucked in collar shirts, khaki pants, belt, socks, and cleanly shaven and showered. That is as uniform as you can get without actually wearing uniforms. When I go outside Woodberry and meet people who wear baggy jeans, tight shirts, dyed hair, colorful shoes or popped collars, I regrettably come to the same conclusion Lenina did about the savages – “queers.” I feel as though Ralph Lauren Polo shirts and Old Navy khakis are the only appropriate attires. How did it come to that? Well, in the process of conditioning, a code is first introduced and if the subject doesn’t respond certain punishment methods are used – demerits. So at the end you buy into the system whether you like it or not.
What was Dr. Campbell's line "Woodberry is not a college preparatory school; It is a life preparatory school." So we basically come here so we can be conditioned to be honorable and disciplined young men who are ready to get out and make impact on society.
But think about it. That is one shallow argument. I am just looking at the specifics and ignoring the general picture. Our world is not like A.F 632 in so many ways. Woodberry has been here for more that 119 years and we have had dress codes and the honor system forever. Yet the school is full of INDIVIDUALS who chose their own paths. Some become involved in Arts, others in Academics, Athletics, clubs, and groups and so on. We have free will. No one is brainwashing us to enjoy running 70 minutes in the cold weather or skipping dinner so we can stay on weight for the next wrestling tournament. (Hence we complain a lot.)
The point I am trying to make is, nitpicking at some elements of the book like noise and technology and making them seem immensely crucial doesn’t prove we are getting closer and closer to The Brave New World. It just ignores the bigger picture.
But the overall trend of our country is toward instant gratification and loss of personal responsibility. Young kids growing up in this media-soaked America want more and more right friggin' now, because advertising has conditioned them to consume. Our TV shows also tend to emphasize a looser, more carefree lifestyle, like the one in BNW. Considering how much time we as a society spend hooked up to the tube, we should consider carefully what we are learning.
Tyson makes a great point. I think that Huxley's Brave New World is a huge exaggeration of modern society's qualities. We are moving towards a world of instant gratification. Think fast food, microwaves, and even the internet. Sure mothers will let babies cry and I can’t "have" any girl I want, but Huxley's idea of instant gratification is one that can be seen in modern society.
Huxley also made some interesting predictions on modern day sex. In his new world, sex is very open and public. Monogamy is extinct and multiple partners are encouraged. Again this is a huge exaggeration of sex and society today, but I do see many parallels. Today sex is very public. Bond movies are considered “lame” if the Bond girl doesn’t show a little skin for James. Sex has infiltrated entertainment and even sports (football’s Lingerie Bowl.) Teenage males are considered cool if they “have“ a few girls in high school or college. I’m not saying that the government is giving us “sex in the bushes” time, but I do think that our society has become more and more relaxed about sex.
I think our obsession is our closest link to the BNW; obsession with technology being the most prevalent. People nowadays spend countless hours playing online video games, not really achieving anything. It's the focus on details and specific, distracting activities. It's just like Electromagnetic Golf or Elevator Squash; they are things to keep your mind off of emotion, and other arts that lead to it. I think all of our technology has led to a less emotional world. For example, imagine if Woodberry didn't have all of the distractions it did. Just like it used to be about 60 years ago. People wouldn't be using their phones, being on AIM, or even playing video games. People used to just hang out in other rooms and talk, or go outside and play sports. I think that the focus on details and distractions from technology have definitely made us a more unattached society.
I think that that Salvant has a point with obsession. I think that our link with BNW is linked to obsession in that our society today we are always obsessed to get things quicker and easier and have our lives smoother. In BNW they have their complex games to stay occupied and in our world we have all the things that Justin mentioned. Besides that though I see a real important link with Leon Kass's point about a stress on bodily health. Today people are trying to get healthier and stronger faster which to me seems like the epitome of the instant gratification that BNW has. A common emotion that we share with the people in BNW is impulse. We as well as the BNW society tend to act on impulse more than anything and that's the strongest link that I can find to BNW. I think Johnny put it well when he said we are on a kind of path towards the BNW.
Ok, so pretty much everyone agrees, besides Yone, that world we live in is to some degree on its way to the BNW. I'm right there with yall, and clearly, things are not the EXACT same as the book, but after all this is fiction, and it’s a made up world. The ideas are eerily similar in lots of cases, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see the world turn into the Brave New World; we have the technology already for most of it. I think the biggest argument against it is the emotion aspect, but I feel like we are all turning into drones already with the way we go through life, living by cultures guidelines- go to high school, go to college, get a good job, make a lot of money, have a family and settle down somewhere and try not to get divorced. But I mean who knows what could happen in the next roughly 600 years.
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