As I was looking over Aldous Huxley's Brave New World again, I noticed how much the people of Huxley's utopian world saw knowledge as savagery. This was especially apparent in chapter seven where Bernard and Lenina met Linda, a Beta class who got stuck in the "savage" reservation.
When Linda's characer first came up, I believed that she would have settled into the world of the savages and accepeted her new life with satisfaction despite the repeated conditioning she had in the utopian world. However, Linda completely rejects the life of the savages and the new knowledge she has obtained. The knowledge only brings her pain and regret. In this way, Linda is also similar to Lenina who also rejects knowledge on reality and tries to use soma as her escape route. This shows that Lenina and Linda find more happiness with the less they know.
So overall, the residents in Huxley's utopian world truly believe they are happy and have what they want as seen in Lenina and Linda's case. Even the lower-class Gammas and Deltas accept what they are and cause no trouble due to their repeated conditioning. Overall, the people are able to remain satisfied while being ignorant.
So, despite the disturbing nature of the utopian world. is being ignorant and feeling satisfied possibly better than having knowledge and being subjected to pain?
Happiness is subjective. The people of Huxley's utopia aren't really happy, they were just conditioned to believe that they were. The peoples' happiness is just a general happiness that they were told brainwashed to have. This is happiness without knowledge.
ReplyDeleteHappiness with knowledge is so just so much.. more. It's not just general, you can be happy about specific things and just spend hours being happy about it. Yes, there will be times when you aren't happy because something goes wrong, but that's just the price you have to pay for genuine happiness. Things are better when you don't have too much of it. So it's better if you're not happy all the time. It's better to feel things because in the end, the happiness you feel afterwards is much more worth it than a general happiness.
When I think of "Utopia" I always think of perfection. In this case of Linda, is this perfection? I think not. As the Deltas and Betas are well conditioned to not starting problems and can live with the life they have, they have to endure a more in depth pain for their satisfactions. Happiness can be defined in satisfaction, Lenina obtains not true happiness but having her satisfaction.
ReplyDeleteKnowledge is worked for, and so is happiness. True happiness isn't obtained just by not doing anything but being satisfied with what you have or have worked for. Having the knowledge doesn't mean you're subjected to pain. Either way if you live, you're subjected to choices and hardships. With the innocence you have is becoming corrupt you learn the truth. With the new information you have, you seek an answer. Searching for an answer is pain but you have to know pain to know happiness.
Happiness is different for every single person. There is no universal thing that will bring happiness. For example, some people say money brings happiness while others will disagree. This so called "happiness" that the citizens of the utopia fell seems more of a state of mind than a state of emotion. They do not feel happy, but rather they are programmed to be happy.
ReplyDeleteEverything tends to even out in our world. For as long as you are happy, there will be an equal amount of time that you are not happy, whether it be sadness or just plain boredom. Being happy all the time does not sound fun to me. I do not believe that you would know what happiness is if you are feeling it all the time. Being sad for a while is not be the greatest feeling
and everyone will agree with that. However, when that sadness ends that is when you realize true happiness.
The Utopian society in Brave New World reminds of me how knowledge was perceived centuries ago, such as the Scientific Revolution. During that time, too, the Church was in complete control and wanted its followers to believe in whatever they thought was right. The church went as far as to even condemn and kill those who went against them and their "laws". Furthermore, this was prevalent even before the birth of Christ, such as the classical Greek era, when several philosophers were either locked in prison or either killed for their ideas, such as Socrates. The ones of our past that had true knowledge suffered while those who remained in the dark continued to believe what the oppressors "preached". People of the Utopian world are not human but robots that are simply being controlled by higher authorities. Robots do not have feelings, nor can they feel pain. The main question would be to choose to be a perfect but heartless robot in a Utopian world, or either a human with flaws in the natural word. Knowledge always seems to come with a price even though you may not notice it at first, for it changes the outlook of our lives.
ReplyDeleteI think that knowledge increases your chances of being hurt or pained emotionally because you understand the events that occur around you and begin to let it affect you. However, I think that it is important to be aware. Happiness is something I strive for everyday, but I do not try to achieve it through ignorance. Although this book is irrelevant to the current curriculum, One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, features a man named Ivan, who is a perfect example of someone who is not ignorant of his surroundings and his situation, but is happy. He lives in a prison camp where people were tortured and lived in poor conditions, but he was happy with his life because he knew there was nothing he could do about it. Happiness is a result of accepting the life and situation that you are presented with, and learning to appreciate the good things more than complaining about the bad things. Although knowledge makes this goal harder, it is far from impossible. Ignorance allows others to have control over you, and I think it is important for everyone to be in control of their own lives and understand their situations for their own safety. It should be our right as human beings to be able to learn as much as we can.
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