AP sample test
Hi:)
Please add your thesis for the Huxley and Orwell prompt here. Thanks!
posted by erdecker @ 6:22 PM
29 comments
JM AP English Government
A resource for John Marshall's Advanced Placement English and Government class. Woo-hoo!
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
Please add your thesis for the Huxley and Orwell prompt here. Thanks!
About Me
- Name: erdecker
- Location: Lanesboro, Minnesota, United States
Enchanted April at Roc Rep Jan 2016 (Sound Design). Donnybrook's Dilemma Murder Mystery Jan 10 (Donnybrook actor). Valentine's Murder Mystery at Plummer House Feb 13 (actor). Ole and Lena in Love at Rochester Sons of Norway March 19 (Director).
29 Comments:
[STEPHEN HANDLON]
The student agrees with Neil that: Huxley’s version is more relevant because liberal democracy HELD and unlike Orwell, Huxley states that no external force is needed to oppress us (tyrannical government) because what we love can restrict our rights as well
I agree with Postman's thesis that Huxley and Orwell feared different causes for the downfall of Democracy: People may fall from Democracy because of the hate from an ouside source that restricts the truth, information, and freeedom from them, but people could also abandon Democracy because of their excessive love of information, irrelevant things, and trivial distractions.
Huxley's idea of "what we love will ruin us" is true in todays society, our love of technology and the pleasures we are allowed which rules over Orwell's idea of "what we hate will ruin us" which is false in today's society.
Postman's assertion that Huxley is more relvent in today's society is accurate because Orwell feared things like the removal of books, which would be impossible now adays, and Huxley feared that there would be no use for books for all you needed to know was presented to you as a child in conditioning.
In agreement with Postman's thesis, it would be Huxley's idea of "what we love will ruin us" that goes along with the society of today; because we take too much advantage of the technologies that we have, and don't realize that it distracts from the important things.
Kyle Kubat
I agree with Neil Postman's conclusion on the different causes for the uprooting of democracy proposed in the novels by Huxley and Orwell: Huxley's society restricts information, lies to the people, and the people come to love their oppression which is more applicable to today, unlike Orwell's Big Brother vision which has not succeeded because liberal democracy is still in place.
Huxley's vision is more relevant in todays society dealing with the amount of technology seen as restrictions; where as, Orwell's vision saw technology and information being concealed as a downfall which in today's society is not an issue.
Orwell feared that the truth would become hidden from us, while Huxley feared that we would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance, Huxley was closer to the truth, for the internet has so much information on it, not all of it true, we can't tell which is actually a fact and which is fiction.
The US government shows too little affect on our need for pleasure, and Americans show too little apathy for change to consider Neil Postman’s false claim of Brave New World’s greater relevance today than 1984’s.
Yes, BNW is more relevant today because knowledge could eventually be considered irrelevant to happiness, and yes Huxley and Orwell feared from two different stand points, however I don't think that what we hate and what we love are so different that we can separate them into two different categories; it is only what we are willing to do for love, it's our capacity/ability to love that gets us in the end.
Contemporary society is a place, like the Brave New World, addicted to fun where a large proportion of youth don't want to read, adults have sex without meaning behind it, and drugs are popular; therefore, it can be observed that because while what Americans in particular hate (terrorists, restrictions on freedom, etc.) still seem like rather distant influences, the things that infect our society seem to have, like Postman says, begun to control us due to our love for them.
In both Orwell's "1984" and in Huxley's "Brave New World", a horrifying future is portrayed, however the emotions expressed by the characters can be considered as different as black and white. Orwell shows a society where the citizens dislike the corrupting powers to the point of hatred, while Huxley shows a society so oblivious to it's own corruptions that the citizens can't help but be happy or at least content with it.
(Sarah Anderson)
[Suzy Kent]
In today's society Huxley's idea of 'what we love will ruin us' is true; in a way Huxley's idea is completing the puzzle by tying everything together, including things such as pleasures, greed, and technology, which is allowing us to 'undo our capacity to think'; today especially we see that some people have 'undone their capacity to think' when it comes to the current financial mess, and also when it even comes down to using Google instead of an actual book or even computting simple math with a calculator when the mind is able to also; Orwell's idea of 'what we hate will ruin us' may be true in the future, but Huxley's idea of 'what we love will ruin us' is true today, even though Orwell and Huxley have created a very narrow fence of which to walk, in which it may not take much to fall one way or the other.
Michaela Antolak
Both Orwell and Huxley believe that oppression will be present in the future, but the way that the oppression comes to be are different. Orwell believes that an external force, the Big Brother, will force oppression on society, while Huxley believes that the people will accept their oppression.
When Huxley and Orwell wrote about our civilized world's demise they both went to oppisite ends of the spectrum; love and hate.
Huxley's vision is more relevant today because all around, people are being ruined by things that they love, mainly money. The housing and banking crisises can all be traced back to the love of money.
Orwell believed that the lives of people would be forcefully oppressed and controlled while Huxley believed that it will be the people's own desire to be oppressed and downsized into a predictable and controllable entity, more correctly portraying society today.
We're supposed to write the thesis for the paper we would write, right? Not the whole paper...
In accordance with Postman's assertion, American society today is more prominently being ruined by self indulgence than by executive denial through culture and technology.
Postman's assertion that Huxley's vision is more relevant today is correct because in today's world, people's pleasures (the things they love) are the things that can tear them (the people) apart and ruin their lives.
Postman's assertion that Huxley's vision is more relevant today than Orwell's is true because of modern luxuries, government, and scientific advancement.
Postman's assertion that Huxley's vision, " what we love will ruin us", is seen all around in our society today that is being separated with our infinite love of technology, money, and our egos.
I agree with Postman's thesis that says Huxley's idea that what we love will ruin us. We self indulge in so much that is distracts us from important things. Our extreme love for money and our massive use of technology sometimes side-tracks us from thing we should be paying more attention to.
uhh it was hard for me to tell whether the student agreed or not. but i'd say the thesis was that both Orwell and Huxley had contrasting prophecies. Orwell feared that hate is destructable while Huxley feared that love is destructable. But if i were to take an EDUCATED guess on whether or not the student agreed with Neil, I would say that the student agreed because his examples from Huxley are relevant today. (books can be allowed, but no one wants to read them)-it's not entirely ultimate, but it is not obsolete either.
I agree with postmans thesis that Huxley was right. What we love is more likely to destroy us than what we hate. What we love we let all to close to us and its much harder to notice something you love and enjoy taking control of your life. However, at quick glance Orwell's "what we hate will kill us" seems more logical.
Postman asserts that Huxley feared "what we love will ruin us", which is true in today's society that our love for new technology and understandings have pushed us to extreme measures.
Postman is correct in asserting that Huxley's vision of the future is more relevant than Orwell's. Huxley's work Brave New World, lends itself to the assertion that what we love will kill us; and so far it has led us true: food, television, and sloth.
Postman correctly asserts that our Orwellian nightmares did not occur, because of our heightened attention to “that which we hate” in comparison to our ignorance and embracement of “that which we love”.
As today's culture becomes increasingly focused on trivalities Huxley's prediction that people will lose interest in the important things becomes increasingly accurate at the expense of Orwell's assertion that people will overthrown the current order.
Postman's assertion, that we missed the implications of Huxley's BNW while congratulating ourselves for dodging Orwell's anti-utopia, accurately reveals our contemporary world of instant gratification.
Post a Comment
<< Home