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Trivial Culture In Brave New World

Decent Essays

Tayler Walker
CP English 4
Ms. Jack
27, January 2017

A trivial culture focuses on the trivial or unimportant aspects of life. In the book, Brave New World by Aldous Huxley, they are preoccupied with entertainment. What matters most to the people in the World State is staying entertained. When the people are not working, they want to take soma, have an orgy or play complicated games, they enjoy escapist pleasures that don't inspire them to think about the harder questions of life. Huxley feared we would become a trivial culture preoccupied with feelings instead of facts. While we're not living in a Dystopia, we're not living in a Utopia either, this world is somehow in the middle, slightly leaning towards dystopia, Things that used to be important …show more content…

For example, paper maps used to be important, but now you never see them. Or people blow away politics and worry more about fashion and how they dress in today’s world. This loss of values has added to the deterioration of modern society. On the other hand, the society displayed in the book is rather hard to classify as one or the other. The majority of the people seem truly happy for the most part, however, those running it and those who are aware realize how whacked it seems. In Brave New World, to determine utopia and dystopia, we have to look at the new world from our own time and from the time before Ford. Brave New World seen as a utopia is shown, because they are, healthy, wealthy and highly reproductive. In the World State there is never any conflict, everybody gets along with everyone and everyone loves everyone. Love in the World State, is not like love in society today, they have no feelings, and can love whoever they want to love. Their is no regret in love or pain in love, unlike the world we live in today, it is simply considered recreational in the …show more content…

It is the opposite of utopia which is an imaginary place in which the government, laws and social conditions are perfect. A dystopia is significant in novels because it warns the readers that there is a problem that can be solved in the future, just like the society we live in today. Brave New World can be considered dystopia also because many aspects of the novel are contributors in making it have an imperfect society. The World State can also not be considered a dystopia because some people and some things are considered “perfect”. An example of this is when Huxley says, “The world’s stable now. People are happy; they get what they want, and they never want what they can't get… and if anything goes wrong, they have soma” (Huxley). The world is stable because all of the people in the World State are conditioned to be identical. All people are happy due to the drug soma. No matter what issues arise, the people are enslaved to the drug and rely on it for personal happiness. This is shown as a utopia because if there is a problem in the world state, it can be fixed with soma. And after they take soma everything is perfect again. It's like an easy way out. The dystopian setting in Brave New World is brought about by technology and by higher authorities. As technology increases, the use for human beings in work force

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