How Far Away Are We From Our Own "Brave New World"?
I guess I'm
assuming here, but I think that most of us would consider the society in
"Brave New World" as something strange/messed up/wrong in many ways
(more of a dystopia than a utopia.) I certainly find myself disgusted with many
aspects of BNW society, but I also can draw many parallels between it and our
own society. Allow me to give a few examples:
1. Soma
When
I first read about soma, I immediately thought about how many states have
legalized or are in the process of legalizing marijuana for recreational
purposes. 50 years ago, virtually no one would have agreed to make it a legal
drug. But in the recent years, the movement to legalize recreational marijuana
has grown and, in certain states, is seen as normal and sometimes encouraged,
especially is somebody is feeling down. Of course, soma may have less
complications than marijuana, but the comparison still holds.
2. Romantic
Relationships
It’s
no secret that the past century has seen vast expansion and knowledge of birth
control. We have gotten to the point where, with a small tube injection in the arm, a woman no
longer has to worry about the possibility of getting pregnant. Many people have
multiple sexual partners in their lifetime, and it is no longer seen as shameful
if somebody sleeps with another person without having any emotional feelings
towards them. In recent years, many people have gone public about their polyamorous
relationship, and there exist a growing movement to normalize it. More and
more, our society is starting to regularize the type of romantic relationships
laid out in BNW.
3. The
Hatchery
Ok,
so maybe we don’t have factories where we engineer children, but I think there
are fair parallels to draw between the hatchery and our public school system.
In general, both have the capacity to plant ideas into children’s minds at very
young age and continue to have that ability until a child reaches adulthood. Of
course, children in our society still have parents and family that affect their
belief system and development, but the school system still has a large role to
play.
Other things that I saw in BNW that
reminded me of our society included (but was not limited to): the consumer
economy, lack of religion, and their view of the inhabitants of the reservation
as “savages” similar to the US media’s view of third-world countries. What do
you all think? Do you see the parallels I made as valid?
This was a really cool post! I also thought about how we can draw some disturbing similarities between our world and the world state. However, I think the difference is that in our time, we try to not judge people for what they do or say that there isn't only one right way to live life (as long as they are not hurting others). Our society has a lot more free will, whereas in the world state you are forced into a specific way of life. We still have a lot of diversity in the world, and I hope we're able to stay away from a world like the world state.
ReplyDeleteLike Ayat said, really interesting post! I think that while reading BNW I became somewhat caught up in all the ways that their society failed compared to our own. After reading your post, I think that I may have given us way too much credit because, as you mentioned, there indeed are a lot of commonalities shared between BNW and our world today. With those parallels comes the moral, ethical, and philosophical question of, "are we too in the midst of a threatening dystopia?" Personally, I think that there are dystopian and utopian elements to nearly everything, let alone our society. No matter, unlike in BNW, human progress can always be made and I hope that such in our world only continues to outshine the World State.
ReplyDeleteIt really is interesting how many things discussed in BNW are still issues today. I think the parallels you draw are definitely meaningful. Like Ayat points out, the stuff in BNW is enforced by the system, while in our present day it is still (partially) governed by free will. People use marijuana, birth control, etc. because they choose to. It just highlights for me how BNW doesn't illustrate phantom phenomenons, but uses familiar ideas to make its point.
ReplyDeleteI think these comparisons are really interesting, and really important, to think about when reading BNW. It's also really interesting to see how similar in ways our society is to the World State, though the World State was "created" in the early 20th century when many of the technological advances that we have today did not exist at all. For Huxley to imagine a dystopia with many of the technologies of today is quite creepy. Although there are many technological aspects of the World State that don't exist today, such as the personal flying machines.
ReplyDeleteI would say that Brave New World takes many aspects of our current system and takes them to an extreme. I think what makes the Brave New World society "work" is the fact that the society is all-in when it comes to their policies. There is no room for dissent or disagreement everyone is on board. In terms of marijuana and polyamory, our society still pushes back against the idea that these practices would become too prevalent which is what creates conflict. You could say that this conflict is what makes our society less-ideal almost than the one presented in Brave New World. I wonder whether the Brave New World society is really dystopic when compared to our current society.
ReplyDeleteI love this post! You make a lot of interesting points. I agree that our society seems to be moving towards the dynamics of BNW. A lot of the ideas Huxley lays out throughout the book are eerily similar to how we function today, except on a much more extreme level of course. One point you made that was especially interesting to me was how you drew a parallel between the Hatchery and our school systems today.
ReplyDeleteGreat post
This is a really interesting post! I also think that the fact that social pressures are hugely important to people's lives in BNW is similar to our society. People like Bernard and Lenina feel the pressure of society quite strongly when they try to behave in a way that breaks from the norm (in particular when they break rules about romantic relationships). Similarly, our own society puts a lot of pressure on people to follow the behavior of the majority in who we love, and how we do it.
ReplyDeleteI love the format of your post! I find it refreshing after reading other essay shaped posts. The number of parallels that we see between brave new world and today is kinda creepy. Also a lot of issues that we discussed in brave new world are still issues in our modern society. I feel that in a lot of ways we are a simply more mellow brave new world.
ReplyDeleteThese are really interesting comparisons, as unfortunately, like you said, a lot of them are is a position where they could come to exist and be viewed without stigma. However, I don't think we will ever get to the extreme in the book. Ruling out fiction, like manufacturing humans into predetermined castes, a lot of aspects of the books are imposed on the people of the society without volition. Thankfully, we have the ability to make choices for ourselves, and despite what some people consider to be right or wrong, we can continue to belive and practice as we please without consequence.
ReplyDeleteGreat Post! I also thought about how disturbingly similar our society is to the world state. However, I think the difference is that in our world, we tend to focus on fulfillment over things like gaining surface level shallow happiness like through drugs and look down upon drugs instead of embracing them. Our society also has a lot more free will, whereas in the world state you are born into a specific way of life (much more so, and with even less social mobility than in our world). Additionally our world is much more diverse and connected than that of the World state which seems to be the EU alone, and seems to exclude non-western cultures.
ReplyDeleteFor the comparison of soma to real life, I don't know much about Marijuana's legalization for recreation bit I guess it's being done in hopes of that leading to some sort of decline in the consumption of other, ore dangerous, drugs? I may be wrong, but in any case, the main difference here is that the government in the US doesn't really encourage consumption of Marijuana, whereas the WS basically tells everyone to do soma. Overall, it's a nice comparison though!
ReplyDeleteInteresting ideas I see where you are coming from however I do think we are pretty far from a Brave New World Society. You talk about public schools and hatcheries and I think you make an interesting comparison. I think a comparison you could make between the messages that were played in peoples sleep to tell them who they are to representation in media. The epsilons are told that they are worse than others and although we might not have anything as extreme. Think about the push to have minority representation in media, to show people who are treated as less than that they can do things. When there was less representation less women and people of color thought they could do things because they never saw that they could.
ReplyDeleteI think you make some interesting comparisons. I think the defining difference between the similarities you write about is that the government is using things like soma, manufactured relationships, etc as tools to keep the population complacent. I don't think that marijuana or birth control are really being used as a tools, but rather as allowing people more freedom to live the way they want to.
ReplyDeleteThese are some interesting parallels. However, I would like to point out that in Brave New World, soma is used almost 100% if not 100% as a pleasurable drugs. In modern society, marijuana is often used in a medical setting rather than a recreational setting. I believe that this has helped lift the taboo at least in our society. I would like to make the argument that Soma is worse because there are no clear medical benefits. Soma has made a society of people who don’t care about anything other than instant gratification and feels
ReplyDeleteI do agree with you that BNW has elements of today’s societies. Personally, I felt like BNW is just our society but extreme and that’s why there’s so many parallels between the two. In general, I think that all the ideas/concepts in BNW can be identified in our own.
ReplyDeleteI really like your ideas regarding The Hatchery. However, I think there is an even better parallel with society today. Through sperm banks and genetic manipulations we are somewhat able to control ideal traits of kids. Although there is no brainwashing quite yet, it will be interesting to see how this technology evolves in the coming years.
ReplyDelete