Brave New Familiar World
Okay, since when did authors become psychic? The self-centered pleasure-obsessed society in Brave New World is eerily similar to our own with regards to technology and social attitudes. The lack of regard for what is ‘right’ is paralleled by the love of what is ‘easiest’.
The bio-technologies that are described in the beginning of the novel are terrifying, if only because they are possible. Manipulating genes in unborn children has been a hot topic of discussion in biology for quite some time. In one aspect, genetic diseases could be eradicated before the children fully develop, but this also opens up the market for ‘designer genes’- allowing parents to choose the sex, eye-color, and other physical aspects of their child. Children would be subject to the same fashion fads that clothes go through seasonally. This technology could seem ‘cool’ at first, but is it ethical? Would it be right to change the genetic makeup of a child to conform to fads instead of leaving it up to nature? The people in Brave New World valued conformity all too much and overestimated their power, “What man has joined, nature is powerless to put asunder."
Even the mind-set of the population in Brave New World is familiar to our society today. People tend to have a preconceived notion that we deserve to have ultimate happiness. The people were obsessed with finding ecstasy, whether it is through the drugs they were constantly popping or the sexual promiscuity they enjoyed. All semblance of integrity was missing in personal aspects and family aspects. Those citizens did not respect themselves as individuals with individual rights, “everybody belongs to everyone else.” There is no single personality in that society, and the individual is disappearing even now where people find conformity more appealing that uniqueness. The nuclear family is even suffering, where marriages are failing at higher and higher percentages. In Brave New World the nuclear family has ceased to exist at all in favor of a system that strips all responsibility from procreation, where nobody has a family identity at all.
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Deanna, I love the point you made on genetic biology; it is very unethical to modify genes beyond eradicating disease because the designer child, a perfect child will never exist. There will always be a flaw in looks or in smarts; no one can truly have both. And so much control over genetic and social destinies is not fair to the child and adult they will become; they will constrained to a role in life that they cannot grow out of. Once a scapegoat, always a scapegoat. Family, can be destructive, but without the strife caused by familial ties, how can we identify ourselves? There has to be a happy balance; however, Brave New World is not the answer.
ReplyDeleteI completely agree with you! Our society is turning into the one found in Brave New World because of the loss of the individual. The citizens in the book don't have any individuality because their society doesn't want them too. Thats pretty much what ours is turning into. Individual people are praised now if their cloths are in fashion with everyone elses or their hair is worn in the current style. This value of conformity is just plain scary, especially when it leads to designer babies like you pointed out. To submit ourselves to society's demands is bad enough but when we start subjecting unborn children to it it's just gone to far.
ReplyDeleteIt's so funny to me to see all the things we've been talking about in all our different classes laid out like that. I mean, "designer jeans" and ethics and everything... It's kind of trippy.
ReplyDeleteWhole novel's kind of trippy, though, so maybe it fits.....??!
You're right--it's a terrifying thought. Because it IS so real, in a way, it IS so imaginable. Even besides the whole genetic manipulation, we've already been doing artificial insemenation for years, which isn't too far away from what's described in the novel. Is that where we're headed? Test tube babies?? I think people sort of shy away from that subject.
I like feeling your slight indignation in your writing. Keep it up.
Nice blog! I agree that the test tube baby making process is really scary! I am strongly against this happening and i fear that this method will become the norm in just a matter of time. Also i worry that the individual will disappear. It is already to begin too. Our society becomes more homeogenous each and everyday. Addressing "everyone belongs to everyone else"....I am still undecided about this issue. Although that is not how i want to live my life i feel i cannot judge others if thats how they want to live theirs, thus i am unable to criticize this part of the Brave New World society at this time.
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