Brave New World
Utopia or Dystopia ?
“But I don't want comfort. I want God, I want poetry, I want real danger, I want freedom, I want goodness. I want sin.”
Is America a dystopia ?
America also known as the land of the free is presented as a safe place where anything is possible. A place where miracles happen and people are able to escape their foreign land to come to a place of salvation and hope. We are said to be peacemakers and have alliances to our neighboring countries. However these brightly lit pictures we have painted of ourselves are very misleading. We are far from perfect and as a country have our own flaws. We are often referred to as a conceited county only interested in our own gain. So the question is how free are we? Is America and our society today really the best it could be? And with our generation are we headed toward a dystopian society? America is a dystopian because we rank ourselves into categories, we are tested on our knowledge and morality in all the wrong ways, and we live in a world where superficial beauty rules.
Today in society as people we have established a hierarchy of social class and we all strive to fit into one. From jocks to nerds to the popular kids, verses the freaks and the thrill seekers although it sound cliché these are very real. From an early age we are taught to think a specific way and based on our family’s economic status and looks we are cast into categories that define us our whole lives. Even if we aren’t aware of it we have our own deltas which I assume would be the elite like the president and governors. Then of course beta theta and ellipse which would range from celebrities to middle class families. Our fault is in the fact that when we are born as bad as it sounds we are already ranked and put into a category. Now of course there are the few who have those amazing miracle stories of how they changed their life and became rich and famous but those are a slim few.
We are constantly taking test that rank us and place us in yet another category and group. There is little room to be different and unique. The pressure that is piled on at such a young age is outrageous and as time grows on it only deepens. We are so focused on fitting in that we fail to see our faults. This is why books such as Brave New World and The hunger games are so relatable because they mirror our everyday life in many ways. The Capitol in the hunger games sits back and watches as two innocent people are selected to fight to the death with other contenders .Most readers cringed at the thought thinking that is so barbaric to sit back and do nothing, however in our society today kids in low economic countries are taken from their homes and trained to kill everyday while here in America we sit knowing this and idly do nothing.
Women send an average of 15,000 dollars on make up a year, isn’t there something wrong with that statement? Our society is fixated on beauty it is the one obstacle that people would kill for. However superficial it may seem it plays a significant role in our society. From plastic surgery to designer clothes our money goes toward our looks more than donations for the poor. The concept of beauty becomes distorted over time and because of this we find ourselves constantly changing in order to keep up with the latest trends .You see when you are so enveloped with the need to be relevant and beautiful often there is little room to think about anything else. The government feeds us these images on TV (similar to Brave New World) and they are these images of beautiful people on a beach so happy and worry free they make it look irresistible so what do we do? Go out and buy the product of course! We willingly hand over money at the thought of being happy and beautiful.
The society we live in today is and will always be a dystopia we live in a world where we fight to get to the top, and to be the most successful. However the one thing we are is powerful I feel as though we wouldn't want to be a utopia we are a real and raw society and our faults help shape us. Of course there is always room for corrections but we are who we are. Hopefully in the near future we can make changes so we won’t have to ever get to the Brave New World point.
Welcome to the new age !
Shakespearean allusion
This quote is from the Shakespeare play the Tempest. Miranda who was raised on an isolated island was only familiar with her father and the servants that looked after her.So naturally upon seeing other people for the first time she is uncontrollably exited and says this quote.However what she is actually encountering is drunken men sauntering around after their ship has wrecked. The irony is this new world she has encountered isn't so much of a dream.John the savage often uses Shakespearean quotes throughout the novel. John uses this quote because it helps him express the anxiety and excitement of arriving in a foreign world where everything is new. The irony in Brave New World of course is that the utopia John thinks this world is happens to be a dystopia,where people are controlled and lack original thoughts.The main conflict in both stories is the issue of civilization versus being savage. John's use of Shakespearean quotes illuminates his need to express his pain and passion. We see he often can relate to made up characters rather than the people around him. His obsessive need to feel wanted threatens to blind him from the brutal reality that he like Caliban from the tempest is truly alone in a selfish world.
Against /for GMPs
juhgu
Holding out for a Hero !
Saving our future
Thursday, Mar 20, 2014, 12:00 PM
Uganda, Africa
works cited !
Attarian, John. "Brave New World and the Flight from God." The Imaginative Conservative. 05 Mar. 2014 <http://www.theimaginativeconservative.org/2013/08/brave-new-world-and-the-flight-from-god.html>.
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Beck, Barry. "Shakespeare's The Tempest." Personality & Consciousness. 4 Aug. 2013. 07 Mar. 2014 <http://pandc.ca/?cat=carl_jung&page=the_tempest>.
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"Brave New World and the Flight from God." The Imaginative Conservative. 05 Mar. 2014 <http://www.theimaginativeconservative.org/2013/08/brave-new-world-and-the-flight-from-god.html>.
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DiSalvo, David. "The Era Of Genetically-Altered Humans Could Begin This Year."Forbes. 26 Jan. 2014. Forbes Magazine. 04 Mar. 2014 <http://www.forbes.com/sites/daviddisalvo/2014/01/26/the-era-of-genetically-altered-humans-could-begin-this-year/>.
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Dispatch, Tom. "American dystopia more reality than fiction." CBSNews. 1 May 2012. CBS Interactive. 06 Mar. 2014 <http://www.cbsnews.com/news/american-dystopia-more-reality-than-fiction/>.
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Englhardt, Tom. "Forget the 'Hunger Games': Dystopia Is Alive and Well in America | The Nation." Forget the 'Hunger Games': Dystopia Is Alive and Well in America | The Nation. 25 Nov. 2013. 07 Mar. 2014 <http://www.thenation.com/article/177346/forget-hunger-games-dystopia-alive-and-well-america>.
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Huxley, Aldous. Brave new world. New York: Harper & Bros., 1946.
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"Report: First Genetically Altered Babies." ABC News. 04 May 2014. ABC News Network. 06 Mar. 2014 <http://abcnews.go.com/Health/story?id=117472>.