After reading through Amusing Ourselves to Death by Niel Postman and Brave New World by Aldous Huxley, one can truly see the connection and relationship between the two books. Postman's book perfectly compliments the dystopian future that we could potentially be facing in Huxley's Brave New World. These two books support each others main points, and even reflect/trade similar ideas with each other.
Throughout Amusing Ourselves to Death, Postman describes how our modern American society constantly strives to entertain. We can easily see this idea reflected in Huxley's novel, with conditioning centers teaching that various immoral practices are actually forms of entertainment. The higher authorities of their respective societies also strived for constant happiness within the societies through the use of hypnopaedia; leaving room for no political or religious disagreements. Because of this, the citizen's of the World State practically never had any negative emotions, and when they did have these negative emotions, they resorted to taking soma (also a reflection of our modern drugs/alcohol) to comfort themselves mentally and physically.
Postman states that our news stations condition us into accepting any death or tragedy (no matter how terrible) as our "news of the day". This idea is very similar to the death conditioning classes in Huxley's Brave New World.
Although these are only a few similarities between our world and Huxley's, could we possibly be transforming ourselves into a world of immorality and mindless entertainment? Could we be amusing ourselves to a Brave New World?
I think it is important to understand that in Brave New World, the society is based upon the idea of stability. Although we are finding more and more easy ways to amuse ourselves, the society in Brave New World was not entirely based upon amusement. Mustapha Mond, the Controller of the society, openly admitted that his society was created to keep a stable environment. I do not think that the increase in technology will directly lead to this society. Only a leader with the same ideas of Mond and Ford can create this type of culture, and because of democracy, there will be the obstacle of opposition. I think that the potential for transforming into Brave New World will only become a risk when more politicians start to exercise their beliefs for stability at any cost. However, this book is a good tool to show that a society based on easy happiness and stability should not be a goal for the government.
ReplyDeleteLike Lauren said, the controllers of Brave New World are people who promote progress and stability. The fact that in our society we have a measure of protection and stability deters the fact that we'll all evolve into Brave New World any time soon. However, the society in Brave New World, not just the controllers, had chosen mindless happiness over true freedom. You could say that all of the people in Brave New World were conditioned into living there lives without a choice over their own actions. This isn't true the society of Brave New World didn't just appear out of nowhere. Mustapha Mond tells us that in the past they had to give up all "old" things like the Bible and Shakespeare. This tells us that the people of the civilized world let the government take over the liberties for stability. Brave New World evolves from a world of so called imperfections with the people's conscious choice to give up their civil liberties for protection and stability. Brave New World doesn't occur because the World Controllers have a need to control but because the people have a need to be led. By looking back on history we see that totalitarian and dictatorships begin with society's trade of freedom for protection. So to say this wouldn't happen to our society because we don't have the technology or political structure isn't accurate. As soon as a society believes that it is better to live in bondage rather than to die in freedom then you have the makings of a Brave New World.
ReplyDeleteLike Joe and Lauren have said, I agree that our modern society much resembles Huxley's Brave New World society because in our society's major recession, our leaders would promote stability, thus it is possible to take the process of promoting mindless happiness by pre-programming people's minds to think or perform a certain way. Our leaders may also attempt to control our citizens by promoting mindless happiness, such as television since leaders have a choice of what to broadcast, thus they have the ability to dictate what they promote. Although very unlikely, it may be possible because like Joe mentioned, society would in chaos without proper leadership and stability, thus people may be willing to be under the control of leaders, as shown in Brave New World when the World Controllers controlled the people's minds and actions by pre-programming their minds. Although many may oppose the idea of leaders that may resemble dictators or absolute rulers, it is possible because they usually offer stability and order to countries in the state of need.
Delete