In Aldous Huxley's Brave New World it has
been established that no one wants to be a savage. Savages are known to be
dirty, crazy, and the definition of wrong. But it was not always like
this. They were once all living in one society in the time of Before Ford. In
the society from before they talked about families and love, very similar to
our lifestyle today. Put yourself in their position, let’s say you are leading
your normal life and suddenly one day some person named Ford comes along and
changes your world. How would the transition be from your life now to a brave
new world? Would you detach yourself from everything and everyone you
loved to become a clean lab made "person" without love and feelings
or turn into a savage, dirty and crazy but with love? The people who stuck to their same traditions and rituals became savages. How would you feel to be frowned upon for being yourself, having a family, and someone to believe in?
What is a savage?
ReplyDeleteThe present people of Brave New World consider what they know about the lives of the past to be savagery, if I am correct. The lives described in such a time sound very much like the lives we live today, and for it to be thought of as savagery just doesn't click to me.
They live lives where it is normal to "be with" more than one person at a time. In fact it is frowned upon to "be with" only one person. In our lives today, we, or at least I, consider that to be much more savage than the kind of lives we live today in which it is quite the contrary.
So what really is a savage? I guess it depends on who's asking and what the norm is.
I would have to agree with Gregory in that these "savage" people live their lives with customs similar to those that we practice today. I found the last question Amber asked to be quite interesting, for you asked "how would you feel to be frowned upon for being yourself...?" Isn't that something that many kids deal with today? We are always taught to be ourselves no matter what others think, and although we are not ridiculed as harshly as the "savages" are for being true to what we believe in, don't we often experience negative feed back from society for not fitting into the norm? To answer your question, I think I would rather be a "savage" who experiences true human emotion and life as it is meant to be, without control and stability, because I find it to be better than the alternative, a "person" who does not know the meaning of family or experience a bond with other humans.
ReplyDeleteIf Ford was to come and change my life of the norm to a brave new world, I would rather be considered a savage than be detached from true emotions. I wouldn’t turn into a savage because then I would already be one in how I live my life today. Only the “clean lab made person” as you say would interpret my way of life as savagery. I would not feel any different if I was frowned upon for who I am because I would surround myself with the same people who chose to be labeled as a savage and not enter the place of the new world where soma and corrupted people live. Depending on how you were brought up to identify the norm, anything completely out of the ordinary would be savagery. It just depends on our mindset and interpretation of life and the world to influence our opinion about what would be considered savage.
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