Saturday, June 26, 2010
Community, Identity, Stability, Natural disasters?
Although I have almost completed Brave New World there is something I noticed in the first chapter that caught my attention. On page 10 Mr. Foster, a factory worker makes this comment, "If you knew the amount of overtime I had to put in after the last Japanese earthquake!" Mr. foster is a insignificant character he literally only says this line. It came as a surprise to me in the middle of a chapter about how they were mass producing perfect people to hear about a natural disaster. In the utopia setting where there is nothing natural, everything is synthetic and perfect, so it seemed so out of place to hear about something so natural and horrible. The society's life revolves around being happy and stable , so I would have guessed they would have a scientific solution to avoid earthquakes and hurricanes and tornadoes.
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DO you think it will ever be possible to develop a scientific solution to avoid Earthquakes, hurricanes and other natural disasters? I suppose that if you can create an unnatural way to propagate humans than you could avoid other natural happenings as well. But I personally don't think it's the same. In the book they took ova and split them and made them grow anyway they pleased, but to avoid natural disasters would take magic. Knowing when to expect them, knowing how to stop them, knowing what to do or where to go when one occurs to survive and be stable and happy. The society's life revolves around being content, so maybe Huxley wrote the book excluding things he cannot control like natural disasters, whereas creating humans in a way that doesn't involve natural reproduction is something that is controllable, existing and more real. For some reason, making babies in a factory by extracting ova and mixing and labeling sound more likely to happen or more believable than controlling Hurricanes and Earthquakes.
ReplyDeleteEverything has a shadow side, doesn't it? Tectonic plates, which make life on earth possible, sometimes slip, with disastrous consequences, now that humanity occupies so much of the Earth's surface. That isn't the tectonic plates' problem. That's our problem. The tectonic plates are acting as they should, and as they must. The "shadow" comes from our interpretation of the earthquake. I don't have as much to say about hurricanes...haven't been in one. But they are a consequence of having an atmosphere, right? Of living on a tiny blue planet, hurtling and twirling simultaneously through dark and infinite space? To be honest, I'm glad to be here. Yea, it's dangerous. I embrace the conditions of life, and know that as they bless me, they may also destroy me.
ReplyDeleteI think I was just as surprised as you were. I had to read over this one sentence over and over again to make sure I was not reading wrong. It would be more than great to know that there is a scientific solution against natural disasters. Like Breahnna said, and I agree with her, us humans would need magic. We have advanced so much in technology that it is not in any way difficult to believe that newborn babies are created in other ways. Trust me I would love to wake up one day and be told not to fear earthquakes or any other natural disaster. I would not have to worry about my bed shaking in the middle of the night.
ReplyDeleteI agree with what Anna is saying. To see that issue is shocking but it made me ask why didn't Huxley just leave that part out? I think he was trying to show that even in utopia's there is always some flaw. Even in this so called "perfect society" there are still natural forces beyond human control. Just like in today's world, people are cloning and experimenting with robotics and all sorts of things, but one thing that can not be controlled is natural disasters. I do wish that it could be controlled though because who likes living on the edge not knowing when the "big one" is coming if it even exists. It seems as if this book is connecting with today, although we are not producing offspring in a factory, new research is making it possible to control some genetic aspects of an unborn child. So i wonder, maybe Huxley is suggesting that later in the future this is what life will come to. I do not believe that perfection exists not even in utopia's. People can try their hardest to make things perfect and control all they can but there will always be something that they can not do anything about. At the rate today's society is moving, it seems like to me that media is like our utopia. They expect everyone to look perfect, be perfect, wear all the right clothes, and they want everyone to desire the life they have. Then there are the "normal" people like myself that would be seen as this natrual disaster, in this "media utopia" that i think has been created in today's society.
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