In Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, he shows us what he thinks the future holds for the human race. The story takes place in the future, where the World State is simply an extreme version of today’s world, but is it too extreme? In society today, knowledge is no longer as appreciated as it has been in the past. Could we be headed towards a brave new world in our world just as in the story? My answer is yes, and there is much supporting evidence from Neil Postman’s Amusing Ourselves to Death backing this up my statement.
Why does our society praise fun over brains? In the past, intellect was honored and cherished. Why do we not honor our scientists, philosophers, and innovators anymore? Due to our recent lack of admiration for intelligence, our youth is no longer inspired to learn, and are now inspired to be movie stars and such. This depravation of learning has had a negative effect on society's acumen.
Another factor that leads me to believe we are headed toward a brave new world is that drugs are easily and readily available. In every city you visit, there will be plenty of every drug, and this rampant problem has only been spreading at an accelerated rate since the 1960’s. Not only that, but they continue to get stronger day by day, making it much easier for today’s generations to push away their problems with the mind alterations instead of dealing with their real life dilemmas in real life. What I think is the reason for all of these stronger drugs that keep coming out is in order to control society. Drugs are making everybody ignore the rest of society. This increase in drug usage parallels Huxley's version of a society controlled by the distribution of drugs. Although soma is not a common drug of today, other substances are being used and are having a similar effect. Huxley's Brave New World is slowly becoming a reality as a growing majority of our society continues their dependence on drugs.
One last factor that helped frame my decision is the sex aspect of everything. Sex is everywhere in our society: television shows use it to get ratings, advertisers use it to sell products, and even entertainers use it to gain fans. With divorce rates higher than ever today, sex is becoming very prevalent. When someone sleeps with someone else in today’s world, you do not know how many partners they have had before you, or what diseases they could be carrying, unlike in the World State, where there were no diseases, but slowly, society is losing its morals and gradually becoming one big orgy.
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