Blog Post #13

Brave New World was written by Aldous Huxley and is centralized around the idea of a Utopian society.  This society is called the World State and everyone from birth is caste into their group in society.  The books seems to deal with themes well beyond its time.  Many people argue whether or not Huxley was simply writing a fiction or a warning for future generations.  We see these issues develop early in the novel.  The embryos of the babies are destined for different classes, the lowest level being Epsilon.  These embryos are deprived of oxygen and soaked in chemicals which could be linked to fetal alcohol syndrome.  However that diagnosis was not known at the time.  The kids are conditioned to like and dislike certain things such as literature.  This prevents certain castes from gaining too much knowledge.  Other modern messages that seem to prevail are things like drug use and birth control.  Throughout the novel the people use a drug called soma to control their emotions.  The peoples lives are controlled by this drug.  And the constant birth control strips all love from the book.  This presents one of the books main conflicts.  John so deeply wants to love a woman but she can only think about sex.  All desire, commitment and individuality is stripped from the characters except John (an outsider) because their lives are so heavily controlled but the World State.  This I believe is how the book fits directly into our class.  The books has a reoccurring theme about the dangers of new technologies if they are not used properly. In the book we see birth control and drugs being abused, which I believe is happening in America today.  We see the government trying to regulate (to an extreme) the citizens lives.  Technology has a lot to offer.  It can cure disease, educate more people and open new doors we never knew existed.  But I believe Huxley is warning us all in his novel about the dangers new technologies present.  Are these dangers already among us?  Are we replacing real interaction with computer screens and cell phones?  It is important that no matter how heavily we rely on technology in our classrooms or in life, we still always stress individuality.