Brave New World VS 1984

It was hard to think of similarties between these two vastly different societies, but I did find a few concepts of these two books that was similar. Firstly, both civilizations rule by controlling their people. In BNW, the ten world leaders use social conditioning, brianwashing, and drugs to keep thier people in line and happy. They teach them to not disobey the World State because they are taught to like what they do. The idea of controlling the people is also seen in 1984, but to a much more severe degree. The Party does not use social conditioning a birth to teach the people, but they impliment ways of influening the people's thoughts and habits. The telescreens, for example, are a way to keep tabs on the people and make sure they are not doing anything suspicous. The Party also uses propaganda, and changes history in favor of the Party to make the people believe the Party is good. Finally, the thought police are the most controlling aspect of the party; arresting and sometimes killing people just for thinking bad thoughts about the party.
Another similarity I found, was the fact that both societies use social class as a form of control. Brave New World makes each citizen an Alpha, Beta, Delta, Gamma, or Epsilon at birth and teaches them their place in the World State. In 1984, the citizens can either be a part of the Inner Party, Outer Party or the Proles. These social classes are used by both societies use social classes to control the people without being able to advance or retreate in the ranks.

Brave New World Similarities Today

It was difficult to come up with good similarities between Brave New World and modern America let alone three but here is what I came up with. The first comparison between the two societies is the obvious fact that Brave New World (hereby known as BNW) keeps the same city and country names. London is still London and America is still America. The second comparison I found between the two was that the people were always entertaining themselves. It is true that BNW did this to stay happy and to not be bored. This is not so different from modern America. People generally don't want to be doing nothing. We go to movies, play golf, go on vactions just like the people in BNW. However, it is not written if BNW people do anything else for fun, but we both try to entertain ourselves to avoid bordom. The last comparison I could thing of was the fact that there is some order in both societies however different they may be. We have local police that keep order in the cities as well as a central government to keep order in the country. BNW has a much larger populus to take care off and the World State is only controlled by one guy, the fact that John and Bernard were taken to Mond by the police reminded me that there is order to this society as well as modern America.

John vs Lenina

John and Lenina obviously come from two completely different cultures and lifestyles. The reader can understands this seperation by observing the reactions to each others actions. Lenina, grew up in the World State. Everything thing she has learned and understands came from the conditioning of the DHC. The hypnopedic treatments have taught her that everyone belongs to everyone else. She sees nothing wrong in two people who like each have sex without any other emotions. This freaks John out because he grew up on the reservation in, what we would call, a normal upbringing. However, in contrast to Lenina's hypnopedia lessons, John has learned his veiw of the world by reading the plays of Shakespeare. These plays have taught him about loving one person and being with them forever, a concept Lenina does not understand and thinks its a terrible idea. John's ubringing can also be seen as different than the World State by his reaction to his mother's death at the hospital. He has learned from Shakespeare that death is a bad thing and does everthing he can to prevent his mother's death. Unfortunatly, the World State teaches everyone that death is not a bad thing and is necessary for the society to operate. From the reations of Lenina and John when they are together makes it obvious that both characters have learned about the world in two different ways. Lennina through the DHC and hypnopedia and John through the reservation and his reading and understanding of Shakespeare

Brave New World

Here are my thoughts regarding Brave New World. I did not find many comparisons to Huxley and More. One thing I did find was the fact that everyone in the society is content with their lives. Exept for a few people in Brave New World, both societies are designed to keep everyone content and happy. Both societies do not have crime or fight in any wars. Everyone gets along with everyone else. These are the comparisons I found in Brave New World that seemed similar to Thomos More's vision of Utopia. Oviously there are many differences, but there were some similarities between the two societies.
The best thing about the World State in Brave New World is the fact that there is nothing bad in the society. What I mean by this is the fact that there is no crime because everyone is happy with what they have. There are no wars to fight because the World State controlls everything. Finally, the genetic upbringing of humans is grossly disturbing and incredibly wrong in my eyes, the one good that I can find in it is that it has eradicated most of the harmful diseases so everyone lives healthy long lives.
I have many problems with Brave New World, but the assignment is to pick the worst aspect of the society. I would choose the Conditioning facility. I seems to me that all they do is clone different classes of humans in mass quantities just to have some controll over the population. The fact that nobody gets pregnant to me defeats the purpose of humans. I was always taught that humans were put on Earth to conrol everything and multiply. The fact that the World State controlls controls the population is wrong. The whole purpose of sex is to make babies. I know that todays society prevents pregnacy quite heavlily, but I believe that humans should be in control of children, not the government.

Utopia: Book 2

This book talked a lot more about Utopia itself than the last one. So this post will have a lot more to talk about. Firstly, page 21-22 talked about the cities of Utopia. The fact that all the cities look and act the same would make the society more equal so nobody felt superior of someone else. Each city sends three representatives to the capital to discuss island-wide policies. This is similar to our Congress which works well in our society. Each city concerns itself with cultivating the land it owns rather than worry about how much land it has. This is good because it would prevent one city from trying to gain more land from another and fight wars. I did disagree with the fact that the houses of Amaurot do not have locks. I would not feel comfortable with some stranger being able to walk freely through my house. The fact that every city has a system of administrators making the community decisions is a great way to keep order but prevent tyrannical rule. As for the fact that every citizen has a job to do and that nobody is allowed to be lazy seems too harsh to me. I agree with the concept in theory, but I believe that nobody should be forced to work. The Utopian day is divided into 24 hours with 6 dedicated to working and 8 devoted to sleeping. This is a great idea because it leaves a lot of free time to do whatever except for debauchery and idleness. The Utopians focus on constant upkeep of the things they build. This is contrasting to the Europeans who build, wait for it to deteriorate, then rebuild. The Utopian way is much more efficient and requires less resources. I did disagree with the concept of family limiting. I feel that families should be as large or as small as they want. These were just some of the concepts that I found interesting during my reading. Feel free to criticize them.

Utopia: Part 1

This is my summary for Thomas More's view on the perfect society. I was not 100% sure how I was suppose to do this so I will just discuss what I wrote in my notes. The first concept of the first society that I found was apparent on the first page. Thomas more lived in the monarchy time period so he believes that the perfect society is a monarchy. I disagreed with this concept because we know today that societies work better when the people have the say in their government. Second, on page 10, this concept came from the character Hythoday, but because Thomas More created this character I still counted his ideas as Thomas More's. His solution to stop crime would be to not punish thievery with death, but rather have the thief return the item to the person and then be forced to work for the rest of his life. I agreed with this concept because to me it seems this would eliminate crime, not the criminals. Finally, on page 18, Thomas More presents his finally idea for Book 1. He believes that a society can never be ideal until private property is abolished and communal should be established. I disagreed with this because it sounded a lot like communism which history shows does not work. Like I said this is what I took notes over. I was not sure what else to write about.