Aldous Huxley wrote the novel, Brave New World, with the intention of warning his readers of the dangers of our growing society. He feared that technology and the urge to advance would ruin the free life we know today. Neil Postman, a social critic, contrasts George Orwell’s vision of the future and Aldous Huxley’s vision. He makes relevant assertions about Huxley’s fears that compare to our own society. His assertions are that people will come to love their oppression, the truth would become irrelevant, and that what we love with ruin us.
In Aldous Huxley’s dystopia of Brave New World, he clarifies how the government and advances in technology can easily control a society. The World State is a prime example of how societal advancements can be misused for the sake of control and pacification of individuals. Control is a main theme in Brave New World since it capitalizes on the idea of falsified happiness. Mollification strengthens Huxley’s satirical views on the needs for social order and stability. In the first line of Brave New World by Aldous Huxley, we are taught the three pillars on which the novels world is allegedly built upon, “Community, Identity, Stability" (Huxley 7). The process used to maintain these three qualities are, however, seemingly completely incongruous
Today’s society is one of instants: Instant downloads, instant messaging, instant shipping, instant oatmeal, instant movies, instant gratification. For many, the idea of having the world on a whim is a thrilling human achievement. For others, such as Paul Roberts and Aldous Huxley, this instant gratification is their nightmare. In Robert’s case, he theorizes that humans are designed to work hard and to struggle. By taking away any sort of effort and hardship, humans are being numbed, dumbed down and destructive. Huxley, in his novel Brave New World, sets up an entire society that relying on mass production, mass consumption, and instant gratification. This immediacy and efficiencies creates a world of mindless drone humans skating through life
Past leaders such as Andrew Jackson, Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini, and Marc Antony are evidence that society does not reward morality and good character in leadership. Society is drawn to leaders that have good rhetoric, propaganda, and charismatic personalities, and society supports them despite their immorality. Society is concerned about stability more than the morality of their leaders and will support immoral leaders in times of crisis to provide stability.
Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World depicts a society where efficiency is the primary concern. The world leaders use horrifying repetitive conditioning to shape individuals into acquiescent, infantilized citizens, stupefied into an artificial sense of happiness. The majority of citizens willingly follow the tide that infinitely crashed over them with wave after wave of parties, casual sexual relations, and the perfectly engineered drug, soma. However, the readers may find themselves disturbed, and possibly intrigued, at the lack of morality in this “brave new world”.
In this novel, Aldous Huxley wants to point out the danger that the development of the technology will bring. When I first read the novel, I was skeptical about the setting he made because I believe that there is no reason to vilify the science and technology since our current society benefits a lot from them. However, as I go through the novel, I realize that the science is not the point only. Through the advent of John, Huxley stresses importance of the literature. It is an important moment for me, as I understand why lots of people praise for this novel. Through the novel, he reminds me that there should be balance between literature and science. Before reading the book, I thought literature is unnecessary for the life and sometimes obsolesce. I had had no special feeling when reading Shakespeare, which is praised by lots of people. Now, I realize the point of the literature; it allows us to think about the human dignity, individuality, and possible dangers that only development of science and technology will lead as Huxley refers in the novel.
Huxley has a theory of entertainment as control and we can see it throughout his book Brave New World. The fact that his vision was made years ago, makes this vision even more interesting, because knowing that entertainment has a big impact into our society for the book reveals similar forms of entertainment to control it’s people. The ways that the book was created has brought to conclusion that our society is controlled by entertainment. Our society has become a trivial culture preoccupied with entertainment.
Truth and happiness are two things people desire, and in the novel, an impressive view of this dystopia’s two issues is described. In this society, people are created through cloning. The “World State” controls every aspect of the citizens lives to eliminate unhappiness. Happiness and truth are contradictory and incompatible, and this is another theme that is discussed in “Brave New World” (Huxley 131). In the world regulated by the government, its citizens have lost their freedom; instead, they are presented with pleasure and happiness in exchange. People can’t know the truth; they are conditioned from birth never to know the truth. The majority of the citizens do not seek to know the truth, as ignorance is bliss. By taking Soma,
In the Brave New World, a book written by Aldous Huxley,, he writes about a utopian future where humans are genetically created and pharmaceutically anthesized. Huxley introduces three ideals which become the world's state motto. The motto that is driven into their dystopian society is “Community, Identity and Stability.” These are qualities that are set to structure the Brave New World. Yet, happen to contradict themselves throughout the story. Some of the characteristics of the Brave New World include citizens being conditioned to their social groups, they are conditioned to fear the outside world, are deprived of human qualities, are under constant surveillance and in this case, the figurehead worshiped in the Brave New World is Henry Ford.
In Aldous Huxley’s novel “Brave New World” the world has fallen into an authoritarian order, of which control is kept through constant distraction and suppression of information. Though through this remains communities of “savages” who reject the new world order and have continued more traditional human life in reservations. It is in one of the these reservations the Aldous Huxley introduces the character John, a foil to the society he is introduced to. This exile from the land and the ideologies of the home John once knew to the “brave new world” allows John to both learn about himself and gives him the ability to see the corruption within the world state.
Aldous Huxley uses Bernard Marx, Helmholtz Watson, and John’s varying interpretations of freedom to enhance the lack of diversity in the World State society with both actions and beliefs. In Brave New World, the World State society was formed on the idea of “Community, Identity, Stability.” It was used to perpetuate ideas of freedom, and more often lack thereof.
Contemporary society is a variety of all things good and bad that one might misinterpret as perfect
In the book Brave New World, there are connections that can be drawn between the book and our current day society. Neil Postman has come to the conclusion that Brave New World has a closer connection to today's society than the book 1984 by George Orwell. After a little bit of thinking I would have to completely agree that he is right. Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World is much more similar to the world that we live in, in 2017. Huxley's ideas that our society is numbed by things that we love and that everyone is almost happy to be somewhat oppressed is almost too real. It is pretty easy to see and make connections after evaluating our society that we live in. I agree with Neil Postmans assertions claiming that Brave New World is most relevant to our society.
The utopian society in the Brave New World can be compared and contrasted between our contemporary society using individualism, community and the human experience. The fictional novel by Aldous Huxley, published in 1932, is about a utopian society where people focus stability and community over individuality and freedom, but an outsider is introduced to intervene with the operation of the utopian state. In the contemporary world, people need to show individuality in their communities in order to survive, and to be human, one must show emotion, which is the opposite in the Brave New World.
In modern Western civilization, based on Aldous Huxley’s personal views, he implied warnings about the future of modern society throughout Brave New World. Huxley implied the dangers of technology, a big government, degrading humanity and its implication; therefore, modern citizens should be consequently thinking those dangers and how it still applies to modern civilization. If Huxley observed the daily life of modern students in western civilization, he would point out how life in Brave New World is similar to life today through technology, consumption, and how we see each other.