Brave New World är som bekant den bok jag tycker är historiens absolut mest viktiga och klarsynta; inte heller har den blivit mindre viktig och klarsynt sedan den skrevs 1931. Här är en intressant artikel om boken, där den som inte läst den också får en kort sammanfattning. In Brave New World, society is divided into castes: Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta, and Epsilon. Words such as “mother” and “father” are considered obscene, as children are created via a process of in vitro fertilization and grow up subjected to Pavlovian conditioning and hypnopaedia. The aim of this educational process is to give the individuals a sense of happiness: They must feel happy—satisfied—with belonging to their caste and carrying out their jobs and roles. In order to heighten and strengthen happiness, as well as to satisfy any needs, the citizens take soma, a perfect drug that provides pleasure. In Brave New World, freedom is lost and happiness is won, or imposed. There are neither values, nor emotions—at least, nobody stops to look. The only thing that seems to be important is having an easy life without problems and without boredom. What matters is having fun. There are no problems because all difficulties are countered with soma. Despite the reduction of human beings into the mindless gears of a social machine, everything appears to function in a convenient and ideal way in Brave New World. In George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four, manipulation and propaganda drain people of their independence and freedom, subjecting them to an ideological dictatorship. But in Brave New World, a lifestyle is imposed by means of psychological and genetic manipulation. In a system more akin to a liberal dystopia, where happiness is achieved through consumption and social networks are places of “maximum fulfillment,” technology and science—rather than propaganda—are the tools that program individuals against independent thinking. Behaviorism and genetic biology strip citizens of the intrinsic value of choice. In this perfect society man does not have God (instead he has Ford), nor does he have free will: He does not decide, he does not choose.
Posted on: Tue, 26 Aug 2014 13:28:05 +0000
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