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Brave New World: The Path Our Society Chooses

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The Path Our Society Chooses Brave New World is a novel written by Aldous Huxley that describes a dystopia where people are controlled by pleasure and happiness. They are content with their oppression because they are happy with how their lives are. Contemporary social critic Neil Postman points out how our society could very well become similar to that of Brave New World. Our society can be compared to the Brave New World civilization in terms of technology, ego, our thoughts on current events, and how we can be controlled by what we love. Our excessive use of technology has raised some concerns over our future as a society. Neil Postman believes that, “As he [Huxley] saw it, people will come to love their oppression, to adore the technologies …show more content…

And, in many cases, it can be more effective,“In Brave New World, they are controlled by inflicting pleasure. In other words, Huxley feared that what we love will ruin us”. “The boys still sang their horrible song about Linda. SOmetimes, too, they laughed at him for being so ragged. When he tore his clothes, Linda did not know how to mend them: (138). Linda continued to live how she wanted to even though she was in an entirely different society with different morals. This made her hated and teased by everyone there. “‘Whore!’ he shouted ‘Whore! Impudent strumpet!’ ‘Oh, don’t do-on’t,’ [Lenina] protested in a voice made grotesquely tremulous by his shaking” (199). Lenina also did what she wanted, and she got embarrassed and made fun of for it. Similarly to our society, people who are addicted to something like drugs or alcohol will certainly be ruined by it. It can damage their health, relationships, and budget. Another media that is excessively used is technology, more specifically, social media. Many of the site users,“Rather than using these sites to create meaningful relationships... use them to display or gain popularity” (Paul). Technology is also often used as a means of bettering one's …show more content…

He does state that “what Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one”. This is absurd because there will always be people who love to read books, whether it be digitally or an actual copy. When we play with others as children, we “practice rule-following and impulse control” (Gray). Interacting with others teaches us how to act, socially. However, “in recent decades we have been making it harder and harder for children to find opportunities to do that without adult interference” (Gray). Since it has been getting harder and harder for children to interact and learn from each other, their rule-following abilities and impulses do not get developed. Therefore, if someone is told not to read a book, they are only going to want to read it more. And there will always be those who will use books as their escapes. Books are meant to be enjoyed by the reader, so if they are given the freedom to read any book at any speed, then the readers will thoroughly enjoy it and want to keep reading. The only way that people will want to stop reading books is if it no longer feels fun to them- this can be caused by any number of reasons, such as, they are given a limited amount of time to read it or they do not have a choice in the book. It is possible that we will arrive at a future where no one will want to read books, but it would only be achieved by putting in

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