On e day,after 8 hours of tiring school time, I picked up the thickest book on my book shelf to go to sleep - it said "The Brave New World"on its cover. After 5 minutes, I confronted with a fantasy world in which babies were "hatched". Immediately, I knew that this was the wrong book - I would not be able to fall a sleep reading this book.
Though I was very tired, too tired even to open my eyes, I decided to explore the new world a little more because I wanted to visualize the possibly future society in my head (I should admit that one of the other reasons why I continued with the reading was that the author described the female protagonist in a very sensual manner).
The Brave New World portrays a sharp contrast between the world that is highly structured and mechanized - the expected-to-be a future society - and the world in which humans live their lives without much technology - the contemporary society. The latter community is called the "barbarian society" for in the eyes of the brave new world inhabitants, they - people living outside the scope of technological influence - were just savages.
Aldous Huxley, the author of the book, makes the readers question, however, whether the brave new world is really an advanced society. He throws a cynical question about whether the joy and the happiness that people from the brave new world enjoy are REAL pleasures. Huxley himself insinuates his answer later in the scene where the female protagonist from the brave new world gets puzzled when she was asked whether she was happy. All the joy and contentment felt through artificial medicines were fake. Nobody in the brave new world was truly happy.
The book introduces one of the key memes that should be conveyed onto the next generation. Understanding of the very virtue of "humanity" - what it means to be a human - is what makes people happy. With the advent of more advanced technologies, humankind might forget how lucky they are to be humans. I sincerely hope my grandsons and daughters to actually "feel" and understand the authentic values of humankind
Though I was very tired, too tired even to open my eyes, I decided to explore the new world a little more because I wanted to visualize the possibly future society in my head (I should admit that one of the other reasons why I continued with the reading was that the author described the female protagonist in a very sensual manner).
The Brave New World portrays a sharp contrast between the world that is highly structured and mechanized - the expected-to-be a future society - and the world in which humans live their lives without much technology - the contemporary society. The latter community is called the "barbarian society" for in the eyes of the brave new world inhabitants, they - people living outside the scope of technological influence - were just savages.
Aldous Huxley, the author of the book, makes the readers question, however, whether the brave new world is really an advanced society. He throws a cynical question about whether the joy and the happiness that people from the brave new world enjoy are REAL pleasures. Huxley himself insinuates his answer later in the scene where the female protagonist from the brave new world gets puzzled when she was asked whether she was happy. All the joy and contentment felt through artificial medicines were fake. Nobody in the brave new world was truly happy.
The book introduces one of the key memes that should be conveyed onto the next generation. Understanding of the very virtue of "humanity" - what it means to be a human - is what makes people happy. With the advent of more advanced technologies, humankind might forget how lucky they are to be humans. I sincerely hope my grandsons and daughters to actually "feel" and understand the authentic values of humankind
박규태 새끼ㅡㅡ
답글삭제I always wanted to read that book, yet I have had no chance till now...
답글삭제So you think such mechanized society is not a good one? But what is the criterion of true happiness? I know this sounds crazy, but our brains are very suggestible to chemicals; a doze of dopamine can make you 'happy'.
Yes, that is artificial happiness, but when we look at the consequence, what is the difference?