Brave New World Existentialism
Hi again! If anything from Brave New World struck you as existential, offer your example here with text support for credit. There will be three more of these in the next 10 days about BNW - comment once for full credit, twice for extra-credit, three times for the fun of it, (and yes, four times to be an over-achiever).
posted by erdecker @ 7:07 PM
10 comments
10 Comments:
Sorry that this doesn't relate the to comment posted, but I just have to wonder about people who write books on utopias. I mean, this book alone describes monstrous scenes about horrors we fear in our nightmares. "The Giver" presented instances of outright vile measures taken to dispose of life and discard the lives lost. Why is that, though we all seek some form of utopia for ourselves, many of those who write of "perfect" socities account such horrors?
Is there something in human nature that sees a utopian society as something that is only abhorrent in esscence? Or is it merely that we can't seem to grasp how one could be achieved that calls for us to make them revolting; either that or secretive to the point corruption.
Again: sorry that it's kinda off topic, but I frequently have to stop and say "Eww" as I'm reading this book.
On an existentialist note, the mere fact that they see nothing wrong with depriving babies of oxygen brings to mind the fact that it doesn't matter, it isn't you.
"But queer that Alphas and Betas won't make any more plants grow than those nasty little Gammas and Deltas and Epsilons down there." p.49
This quote from Lenina as she and Henry are flying by the crematorium shows the existentialist view that the world is indifferent and that human existence is unexplainable. In death, the world doesn't care who you were. Everyone, regardless of class, becomes smoke. If this is the case, then why are we even here?
I think that the ending of the book regarding certain characters locations for the future has existentialist elements to it because of the way the powers that be give them responsibility for their own actions.
Andrew
Here I present my existential conflict.
When the hypnopaedia programmed the people to buy things, but also programmed the subconcious of the classes to produce, it was just so that the economy would flow. But why even have an economy if people have to be programmed to buy things? They should save the trouble of making or buying and just program them to do nothing.
There we have it--if it is easiest to do nothing then why exist? Why exist to just be programmed into activity? I say, there is no meaning to the lives of those in the "New World" anymore.
Jenny
Jenny- I think the meaning of citizen's lives in a brave new world is all about giving power to the people who are in power.
Andrew
Going off what Kristen C. said I think that people write utopia books like BNW and the Giver to show us that they don't work. In order to have a society and government like that the people have to give up a lot of their personal freedoms. Their whole lives are controlled by the Government or the ones in power, and really they have to be conditioned and programed to go along with the system. Which brings me to my next point. They always are saying things like " Everyone is happy now" and "But that was before everyone was happy" I think this is interesting, is everyone really happy or is it more of a ignorance is bliss thing. How can you be happy when there is no such thing as emmotion? Isn't happiness an emmotion?
-Mandy
A very exestentialist moment is when Linda takes a massive amount of soma and goes on a constant soma-vacation. John does not understand her reasoning, but Linda shortens her life with massive doses of soma because she is living in the moment, her existence is her reason for living, and she does not care about the cosequences if she is able to keep recieving soma. She is just another existentialist mouse running on a wheel.
-David
In a reading from Humanities on existentialism I found a statement about BNW. "Modern man is actually close to the picture Huxley describes in his Brave New World: well fed, well clad, satisfied sexually, yet without self, wihtout any except the most superficial contact with his fellowmen." This statement is hard to argue from the context of the book, but what I find confusing is whether or not this lifestyle is existentialist. On the outside, a simple yes answer seems obvious. However, previous statements from the same reading by James A. Dyal lead me to believe otherwise. "Another prevalent way of behaving nonexistentially is to choose not to be ourselves through conformity-to let one's self become swallowed up in the generalized man of common response and attitudes. While it seems that the characters in Brave New World live an existentialist lifestyle believing we will all die and while we live we are to live our purpose, I wonder if that sense of conformity reverses the label. Each person is literally constructed to perform a certain job. Lessons taught while the public sleep and lifestyle rules repeated constantly create the conformity and sense of complacence that I do not see present in existentialism. Your life, a good life, is handed to you on a platter. You don't question it, you are complacent. Existentialist or no?
I could be really off on this but in a way, I think that Mustapha Mond is an existentialist. He is unique in his understanding of the world. Very few know the things he does. He understands, to a point the old world, but he rules the new one. He said "Happiness is a hard master-particularly other people's happiness. A much harder master, if one isn't conditioned to accept it unquestioningly, than truth". Most people don't know the truth.
He has to decide what people can and cannot handle in the new world. He has to think about the consequences of his actions, especially about what he will allow to be published.
Existentialism as Zach said is "the plight of the individual who must assume ultimate responsibility for acts of free will."
This not only applies to Marx as Zach stated, but even more so to John The Savage. When he clamed "the right to be unhappy" that was him ultimately claiming responsibility despite his individual plights.
Also, VERY existential blurb(s)are when Bernard is aware that all the others are entranced by the Solidarity Service but all he can think of is Morgana's ONE eyebrow (TeeHee).
Again Bernard is plighted with his individual awareness regarding hypnopaedia and his cynicism of how it has programmed the people tp think in certain ways.
Now, he must assume responsibility for his acts of free will and does so by choosing not to take soma when he "should," to date Lenina without "taking" her immediately, etc.
Post a Comment
<< Home