Hello, bloggers out there. I am currently reading Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley, which conveys the future prediction that civilization is heading towards Utopianism. Science, religion, truth, and suffering are cut off from society. Advancements in technology and the increasing love for it reduces the human's capacity to learn. Instead, it will replace reality with pleasure, peace, and security. The government is in control of their civilian's behaviors and even natural diseases. I believe Huxley's main point is that the human desires for joy and luxury will blind them of the truth and knowledge about life itself. I am close to finishing this book, and I have to admit that it is pretty challenging. There are some phrases that I do not understand and the vocabulary is complex. However, I have been able to follow the storyline. I agree that is weird but it is also intriguing.
-Taureece Wilson
Taureece: I haven't started the book yet, but I agree with what you said about human desires blinding us from the truth. Isn't that why we choose to focus on the benefits of technology and the internet rather than the consequences? Another thing I noticed is the similarity between the "pleasure, peace, and security" that this utopian society is supposed to have and the utopian society in the novel Fahrenheit 451. It seems as though both societies attempt to end suffering by cutting society off from knowledge and replacing it with technology, which, as we saw in Fahrenheit 451, doesn't work very well. However, I also disagree with one of Huxley's points. You said one of the novels messages was that "Advancements in technology and the increasing love for it reduces the human's capacity to learn." I don't think technology reduces our capacity to learn; it changes the way we learn. We look for easier shorter ways to do things, but we don't stop learning just because new methods of technology have been introduced. In fact, we might even be able to learn more because we have more resources available to us, but it's how we use those resources that changes. Lastly, I've also been having some problems with the vocabulary! At first, I looked them up during my reading, but then I realized I was stopping too much, so I started writing the words down. It's a very long list.
ReplyDelete- Lina Elasmar
Now that you mention that technology changes the way we learn, I find that more logical. Also, that is a nice connection with Fahrenheit 451! Both utopian societies refuse to accept reality and it supresses their civilians to discover more about life. Would you say that if our civilization relies to much on technology, it will lead to an utopian or a total disregard in truth?
ReplyDeleteI'm not really sure. I'd have to read the book to understand how technology could lead to that because it does sound a bit extreme and unlikely. But then again, talking to you right now on this blog is something people never could've imagined doing a century ago right? So maybe not in the immediate future, but eventually when technology gets too extreme, we could definitely have problems. I don't know whether it would lead to an utopian society, but I don't want to write the theory off as something completely impossible and ridiculous.
DeleteTrue (:
ReplyDeleteGood luck reading!
Oh yeah, sometimes it seems that technology can make someone feel less stressed. Or if they're sad, they can find happiness in things like Youtube and Netflix (I do that :>). In AOTD Postman states, "Huxley feared that what we love will ruin us." It would be amazing to live in a world like that, but then nobody would truly know anything :(
ReplyDeleteI agree technology really sounds like an escape from your problems. When ever you feel as if the world is against you, you just head to the cyber world.
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