Zafira

I saw it the first weekend so I dont really remember a lot about it but I do remember how it portrayed the U.S. The play made the U.S. seem horrible. I went to the middle east last christmas and not all Americans treat them as badly as the play made it seem. They made the kids in her class seem like assholes when really not very many kids would act like that or ask a teacher about her religon or anything along those lines. I just think that play was way to anti-america. I have interacted with many people from that culture and I have never seen any americans treat them like people did in this play.

Identity

In the book the Brave New World by Aldous Huxley there are many different messages he is trying to get across to the readers. He shows everything from drugs and alcohol to society and class. When I read this book the thing that jumped out at me the most was the loss of individuality. In the book the Brave New World Huxley shows that there is a strong connection between conditioning and the loss of individuality. I am going to show how our society has loss individuality through our own present day conditioning.

In the first chapter of this book there is a lot to comprehend. There were many new ideas that I had never heard of because Huxley made them up. There was one idea though that I found very interesting and re-read over and over. This was Boanovsky’s Process, a way of mass-producing so called people to achieve “Community, Identity, Stability”. The Bokanovsky process is a process in which one egg splits and buds into numerous amounts of eggs. This way instead of just having one set of twins they can get a hundred sets of twins. This was a great form of progress that enabled them to have the same identical person working the same identical job whatever that job may be.

Although this may sound like a fantastic idea and form of progress I have a great problem with it. If these people are mass-produced to be the same and to do the same how are they people at all. These are not people they are machines or robots at best but not humans. The way that they mass-produce these people is how Huxley is trying to show our manipulated society. In our society today things are being advertised to us millions of times everyday. When one of these things becomes popular more and more people buy it. They do not buy these things because they truly like them they buy them because people are told to like them. There are many different ways to be told to like something anywhere from peer pressure to celebrities advertising. These fads that go around make people into something they are not just to try and fit in with the rest of society. When people fall to these pressures they lose a little bit of individuality each and every time. Huxley is clearly trying to show the extreme in the Brave New World but his point is still true. People in society our losing their individuality each and everyday when they throw on that polo t-shirt or get that new I-phone. I am not saying that everyone has loss their individuality; however, I am saying how easy it is for people to be manipulated into liking something when really they only like it because society approves it. Huxley is dead on with his extreme way of showing our loss of individuality through conformity and that is one way I see it in our present society.

In the second chapter the children are being showed how the babies are conditioned. The DHC shows how the babies are conditioned to hate books and flowers. The reason for hating books is so no one will read something and have it decondition them by there knew knowledge. The reason for hating flowers is a little more complicated than that. The DHC explains that at one point they were conditioned to like flowers and nature so they would consume transportation to go see the nature. The flaw of this was that this was all they would do. They would only consume transportation, which wasn’t enough. They decided to start conditioning so they would hate the country but love all of the country sports. This way they would have to consume transportation and everything they needed for the sports.

The word conditioning may seem like a long stretch for our society now but in reality it is closer than we think. We are conditioned to like certain things and to hate other things our entire life. Electric shock might not be the way our society does it but that is the way Huxley goes to the extreme. In our society kids are being conditioned from the day they are born. They are conditioned by their parents and by their peers. When children grow up their parents pressure them to do certain things and to not do other things. Although some parents may be better than others they all pressure their kids somehow. Parents pressure their kids by using the way they have been pressured in their lives. As kids grow up they rebel but where does that rebellion come from? That rebellion stems from other pressures they feel from society. These can be pressures from their friends from T.V or just the society as a whole. These pressures that people face in their lives are their form of conditioning. The difference between Huxley’s conditioning and our society’s conditioning is that not everyone is conditioned the exact same way. Even though most people believe in God they did not all believe in God by being pressured in the same way. In our society people have different experiences and different lives but our society is still conditioned as a whole. It may not be to the extreme that Huxley has show in the Brave New World but it is clear that these pressures that everyone faces in life serve just like conditioning in the book. For our society they may be different pressures but because of them we lose a little bit of who we are by conforming to them.

The loss of individuality is clear in the Brave New World but I think people over look it in our present day society. It doesn’t really matter if we are losing individuality from pressure or advertising or anything else that deals with conformity. All that matters is that we see that the people in our society are losing their identity. Aldus Huxley goes to the extreme in his book through conditioning and mass-producing but his point is clear. When the extreme is pointed out it is easier to see and then relate it to the real world. Huxley is making us see clearer and helping us see what is happening in our society.

On Social Class and Work

Although I may disagree with you on many things Mustapha I do believe you have this one correct. I understand that their needs to be all different types of people to get things done. For if some is really good at everything who would want to do the pesky work of what should be a lower class job for a lower class person. If there were only Alphas they would go mad. They would constantly be fighting for who got to do the good jobs instead of working in harmony and loving what they do. The lower classes are necessary to a stable community for without them it would be chaos. Alphas are great and can do amazing work but we only need so many of them and we need a certain amount of the lower class to do and love the jobs the Alphas can not stoop down too.

Ending

The story ends the way I expected it to because I had already read this book in high school. If I go back to when I first read the book I would say this is how I was expecting the book to end. This book almost has to much of a mixed ending. I was expecting Bernard and Hemholtz to be exiled to an island where they starve to death or something along those lines. I am not saying I wanted this to happen but just that this is what I was expecting to happen. Bernard and Hemholtz being exiled to a place that they will like a lot more is good but happy endings to me dont really exist. I like books that are realistic not ones that end happily to make the reader happy. I thought Bernard, Hemholtz and John were all going to be sent to a so called island but then really be killed. It wasnt all happy though since John decided to kill himself and take the easy way out. I guess that part was realistic and not a happy ending which I like more but still Bernard and Hemholtz had nothing happen to them which I find unfair for John. They got to go to the island while he became the crazy savage.

Proposal

Theme— Control society

“Bokanovsky’s Process,” repeated the Director, and the students underlined the words in their notebooks…….. “Community, Identity, Stability.” Grand words. (Ch. 1)

This page and a half relates directly to my theme. It’s all about mass production of people. Identical people all made from one egg and one embryo that buds and divides from eight to ninety six buds. Major instrument of social stability the DHC says which to me is a major way to control society through the use of this science and technology.

“Heat conditioning,” said Mr. Foster…….. All conditioning aims at that: making people like their inescapable social destiny.” (Ch. 1)

This paragraph talks about conditioning. It’s about heat conditioning but I really chose this paragraph because it shows and says that people are conditioned to like what they do and who they are. Making people like their inescapable future lives in the so-called utopia.

“On their way back across the channel, Bernard insisted on stopping his propeller…… Thank Ford, she said to herself, he’s all right again.” (Ch. 6 section 1)

This works well with my theme because it shows how the conditioning has blinded them. Bernard really sees what is going on. Lenina can only see how she has been conditioned. She has no imagination. She is like a robot a robot that does not know she is one and is happy doing as she has been programmed to do. Bernard wants to be free and can kind of see the utopia for what it is, a prison.

“They’ll grow up with what psychologists used to call instinctive hatred of books and flowers……. Hence those electric shocks.” (Ch. 2)

This section shows how they condition for the benefit of the society. The example of the flowers and how it used to be conditioned to like them but people would only consume transportation and nothing else shows how they use conditioning to balance the society. Now they condition them to hate flowers but love the country so they will play these elaborate games that consume a lot. They use this conditioning to make everyone do what they want them to do and like it.

“In a crowd he grumbled…… A gramme is always better than a damn, she concluded with dignity, and drank the sundae herself.” (Ch. 6 part 1)

This section shows the role of soma in society. Soma is a drug that they are conditioned to like and take if they are in a bad mood or if they just want to be really jolly. Bernard says he would rather be himself and not take it but no one else sees that other than Bernard. Everyone else just thinks of soma as normal when in reality it’s a way that the society can be controlled by keeping everyone happy.

No idea

Theme- The government controls society through the use of science and technology.

- Conditioning
- Bokanovsky's process
- Soma
- Economics

Maybe something like Huxley shows how any government can easily use technology and science to control thoughts, feelings and actions of its people.

Brave New World Post 1

The beginning of the Brave New World is a hard concept to grasp. Many things seem weird but which ideas are really plausible and which ones are merely just outrageous. One thing that jumps at me that is clearly outrageous is the sexual relations of the kids. They talk about how this is natural and even helps them so when they are older they do not have sexual needs. To me this is just creepy and weird. I would rather not think about it all together. On the other hand when it comes to exposing the newborns to heat if they are to be workers and the other treatments they use so they can excel in whatever their destiny is seems plausible but sad. They have no choice in their life it seems like. They may not see this because of the treatments they are happy to do whatever it is they are supposed to do but for someone looking from the outside on them its sad. They know only what the so called utopia wants them to know and nothing more. The Brave New World is trying to make everyone happy and satisfied and have this great utopia but making people something they are not through treatments and therapy and everything else they do is not a utopia its a prison. A prison that nobody wants to leave because they do not know anything else.