Utopian Failure
A Brave New World By: Aldous Huxley (Hannah Park)
"'Unorthodoxy threatens more than the life of a mere individual; it strikes at Society itself. Yes, at Society itself...'" (Huxley 148).
Our Own Inescapable Dystopia
Nowadays there is not a moment without being able to connect with others through social media networks and taking pictures to send anywhere at any second. The tasks we once devoted to contemplation and delicate attention no longer needs so much of our effort. In some ways, this is proof of the extraordinarily efficient society humans have built within their hands. In the novel, Lenina is disgusted by the thought of looking over the ocean and spending time being alone. Our world also, between texts, Twitter, video messages, and Facebook provides us with less time to live at a normal pace. Ironically, the price of saving time on everyday activities and fueling efficiency has taken away time for ourselves. Everything has become so much easier. Students no longer even have to write notes; they can carry laptops, speak into their phones which will type the information for them, and search everything through the Internet. Phones are 58 times faster than IBM's fastest mainframe computer from 1964 and more powerful than computers from the Apollo spaceship when we landed on the moon back in 1969 ("American Dystopia More Reality Than Fiction"). There is no time for stopping and smelling the roses anymore; we look straight ahead and accelerate.
Mustapha Mond also seems to have pride in his society for having defeated obstacles such as dissension and war between the classes of people. In Iraq, by 2012 there were 4,487 in the U.S. armed forces killed and almost 32,200 wounded in action ("American Dystopia More Reality Than Fiction"). Even those who survived to come home had brain damage, missing limbs, mutilations, and horrific memories they could never erase. In our own society today, countries still go against countries, and people continue to bring each other down to their own graves. There is unrest in Syria as thousands of civilians and armed combatants are killed as protesters demand President Bashar al-Assad and his government step down ("Syria Unrest"). There is the growing tension between Russia and Ukraine over the disputed region known as Crimea (Smith-Spark). It seems people are constantly given chances to learn and yet they continue to drench the earth with human blood, and so the violent cycle continues.
In Brave New World, we can assume from Mond's statements that most pests and disagreeable factors of nature have been eliminated. Similarly, we have meddled with our environment's delicate variety of life. By messing with the world's biodiversity to satisfy human greed for expansion and land, we will not be able to make up for the ecosystems lost ("Climate Change Affects Biodiversity"). Rather than preserving species and their habitats, logging, illegal hunting, and other personal interests interfere with our ability to protect our planet. There are other issues such as climate change that lead to major changes in the food chain upon which we depend, water sources recede and disappear, and medicines and other resources we rely on may be harder to obtain ("Climate Change Affects Biodiversity").
As horrified as we are when we read about societies that rob people of their individualism and free will or turn the world into a slave for technological advancements, very slowly our society is morphing in this. I never understood how anyone could think a utopia was possible. In my eyes, we are permanently centered as a dystopia: not even the people within an insignificantly small town's walls can cooperate and always maintain peace so how do we expect an entire country or universe of people to? The truth is and always will be that there is no perfection attainable for us to create anything close to a utopia. Even when we work to establish stability on our own, there is always the human instinct and nature of our planet working against us. Just as Mond says the price of stability is happiness and truth, the price of any life is one positioned in an flawed world.
The Corrupted Youth of a Brave New World
BNW Wordle
misleading
illusions
comfort
distortion
void
controlling
intolerant
defective
vulnerable
safeguard
idealistic
impractical
temporary
bandage
structure
maintenance
avoidance
unyielding
intolerant
obstruction
stabilization
establishment
reception
self-destructive
enclosed
restrictive
Hatching and Conditioning Center
Fahrenheit 451 By Ray Bradbury
Shakespeare Investigation
GMOs A-Okay??
Those arguing for GMOs believe the statments that no research has been found suggesting GMOs are more or less healthy than organic foods. Agencies that endorse the saftey of genetically modified foods include the World Health Organization, U.S. National Academy of Sciences, and American Medical Association. Biotech crops have increased production by more than $98 billion dollars from 1996-2011. Yet, GMOs also cause great herbicide resistance in weeds that has only increased herbicide usage in the last 9 years by 404 million pounds from 1996-2011. Research has found in animals that genetically modified foods causes immune dysregulation, altered liver function, and changes in the pancreas, kidney and spleen. 57% of Americans have said if they knew products were genetically modified, they would not purchase them. In 2011, there were even blood tests that showed 69 Quebec women, 30 of whom were pregnant, found pesticides circulating in their bodies and fetuses ("Genetically Modified Food (GMO) – The Good, The Bad and The Ugly."). For most adults, GM foods were introducted in the mid-1990s and without the research that we have now, there was not much of a reason to veer away from them except fear alone. Now, however we know that genetic modification in foods not only harms animals, but may affect us and travel into the bloodstream of our next generation. Those kids, born into a world with no choice over GMOs, will grow up in a society that develops it as the norm. We may have had GMOs for a decade or so, but there will be children from the day they are born, eating GMOs all the time. They will grow up their entire lives taking in GMOs although we already know the destructive effects that may linger from such foods.
I personally really do not like the thought of GMOs. Organic just always sounds better, but doesn't it to us all? Of course if it was always easy we would all probably choose organic. Unfortunately, it is not practical. Not only are GM foods cheaper, but at least 80% of packaged foods contain GMOs (The Dr. Oz Show). When the entire world starts turning along in the direction of societal development, sometimes you follow without even noticing it. In the midst of busy work and lives to carry out, many cannot even afford all organic foods, especially when most of the grocery store is already heaped with GMOs. To keep up with the pace of the world, sometimes we humans are lost in the current and end up unintentionally floating down the stream.
Guy Montag
Guy Montag
Saturday, Apr 12, 2014, 05:30 PM
Books For Less, Buford Drive, Buford, GA, United States
Work Cited
- "American Dystopia More Reality than Fiction." CBSNews. CBS Interactive, 1 May 2012.Web. 06 Mar. 2014.
- Bradbury, Ray. Fahrenheit 451. New York: Del Rey Book, 1991. Print.
- "Climate Change Affects Biodiversity." - Global Issues. N.p., n.d. Web. 05 Mar. 2014.
- "Genetically Modified Foods: Get the Facts." The Dr. Oz Show. N.p., n.d. Web. 07 Mar. 2014.
- "Genetically Modified Food (GMO) – The Good, The Bad and The Ugly." Carrington. N.p., 29 Oct. 2013. Web. 07 Mar. 2014.
- Huxley, Aldous. Brave New World. New York: HarperPerennial, 1998. Print.
- Smith-Spark, Laura, Matthew Chance, and Journalist Azad Safarov in Kiev. "Putin: Russia Has No Plans to Annex Ukraine's Crimea Region." CNN. Cable News Network, 04 Mar. 2014. Web. 04 Mar. 2014.
- "Syria Unrest." - Global Issues. N.p., 5 June 2012. Web. 06 Mar. 2014.