Comparing Brave New World to Modern Day

 

Prediction to future technological warfare in Brave New World

When thinking about the greater good and scientific advancement, most people believe that they are always beneficial to society but brave new world gives us the negative perspective of technology advancements. In the novel, brave new world written by Aldous Huxley, warns it readers about technological disadvantages and harms. Particular these disadvantages are evident in the field of biology and technology.

Firstly, scientific advancement of which Aldous Huxley warns us is about biological technology used. The huge production of humans is achieved and made through process of bokanovsky process. The Director said , “But a bokanovskified egg will bud, will proliferate, and will divide […] every embryo into a full-sized adult” (Huxley pg.3-4). Humans are being genetically modified and engineered in the experimental laboratories rather naturally. In the real world scenario, it is seen that cloning is a huge scientific advancement that has been made and is still being developed but is considered unethical when living things are brought into the matter of especially human cloning. This idea is also evident the book of thousand splendid suns where the Taliban controls , brain washes and teach lies , deny other religions , restrict from having freedom of thought from the people of Afghanistan also where weapons are a form of power such as guns and drones. Moreover, connecting to present world we can see that embryonic stem cell research is a real thing where an egg cell is fertilized by a sperm to create a human embryo or basically create life. Keeping in mind this process can be seen unethical by some people as they have different values and beliefs. Just like the bokanovsky process this process is also is messing with an embryo and altering gods work. In Brave new World person intelligence is dependent on the amount of alcohol injected into their individual embryos before the process of life starts. Mr. Foster says that, “”We can make a new one with the greatest ease-as many as we like” (Huxley pg.128). Epsilons have a heavy amount of alcohol injected in the decanting process whereas alphas and betas do not go through that process because Epsilons being a lower class society. Today’s science is capable of modifying a person DNA but is not able to fully develop a human being by its own yet cloning of animals has been done in our world. For example, Dolly the sheep is a cloned animal who lived a normal live which offered hoped to scientists to use cloned cells in medicine also it was seen that cloned animals age quicker than normal offspring. But this first cloning done my humanity was a big step towards the future and biological advancement. By making a world where human beings are massively produced biologically, Brave new World illustrated those advancements in the aspects of biology, which display it being dangerous despite the wellbeing and betterment of the human race.

According to Huxley, advancements in technology can also be a threat to mankind and the society. Among technological advances, one danger is the growth of pharmacology or the in taking of drugs by people and its side effects. The director says that, “One cubic centimetre cures ten gloomy sentiments” (Huxley pg.46). Soma helps the users into a dream world, providing them with total relief from fear and providing them with happiness. This relates to the character Abigail William, from the crucible where she is acting as soma to the society. Abby manipulates people to get what she wants; her intentions are solely to benefit herself. She does not care about the consequences of her actions as well as she is able to manipulate the town to hurt the people she does not like. Just like the soma which is acting as positive thing for the people of brave new world but in reality a negative one, we can see how medical advancements such as x-ray devices, MRI machines and medical drugs help a person restore his/ her health and making the average human life expectancy much better as years are passing. Technology effects entertainment by altering all the games to be played by humans. Mustafa Mond says that, “All conditioning aims at making people like their inescapable social destiny”(Huxley pg. 13). Game make less organization, making a person bound to a superficial entertainment as it defies the ideology to be creative. This relates to a thousand splendid suns because men in the book do not care what happens to a women, so do the people of brave new world not care about connecting on an emotional level with each other, everybody serves their purpose within society and each person is there for anybody to use (even sexually) which is similar to a thousand splendid suns where the wife only role is to serve their husbands purpose and fulfill their needs just like Laila providing Rasheed with an heir. This can also relate to our present teenagers gaming mindset where advancement in gaming technology have caused massive violence and hatred among teens making them do crime. For example Grand theft Auto is a game about stealing, shooting and hurting random people. Due to his game one of the incident that occurred in United States was the one teenager who shot two police men and was prisoned due to his crime. Similar to biological disadvantages, technology can be a dangerous factor towards the society if used inappropriately and without the regarded for the well-being of the human race.

Society must ensure that technology and scientific advancements is changing to suit human needs but rather changing human race to suit science. Moreover the world one day without individual free will and sense would make it impossible to overcome these factors.

Works Cited

Huxley, Aldous, Margaret Atwood, and David Bradshaw. Brave New World. London: Vintage ,

2007. Print.