Saturday, August 14, 2010
Are Your Thoughts Really Your Own?
Today, we find the world Aldous Huxley painted within the covers of Brave New World both dark and chilling, and I believe that this viewpoint would be reciprocated in his characters' eyes were they given insight into our world. This we can be sure of due to their extensive moral conditioning performed at ages as early as 7. In the book, each caste (Alphas, Betas, Gammas, Deltas, and Epsilons alike) has similar thoughts, respective to where it stands in society. For example, the Beta's think that all Epsilons are stupid. These thoughts are conceived within their own minds, true, but they were initially spawned from what they were told as youths in the conditioning center, so the thoughts are really not their own. I believe it is safe to say that today's society would view this practice as unethical and a gross misuse of the human psyche. We develop this perspective by comparing their morals with ours. Yet are our minds not developed in a similar fashion? As young as pre-school age, our moral compasses are intact, comprised of ideas planted by our parents.These morals we keep with us into adolescent and adult life. Our thoughts and actions are then derived from these morals. So can we say our thoughts are really our own? Is Huxley's world appalling because we deem it so, or because other's thoughts- drilled into our minds- say so?
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This is a really difficult question. To attempt to answer it, I had to think about specific truths from my childhood. For example (albeit a really, really lame example), where did my love for cats come from? I have grown up with cats my whole life, and it would seem I had no choice but to give in to my family's adoration for cats. I have always thought cats were great because my family thinks cats are great. Because of this, I have developed a ridiculous cat obsession and cannot understand hatred for felines.
ReplyDeleteBut to answer your question, I think we find Huxley's world appalling because of other others' thoughts. In our culture especially, we depend on other people's opinions to form our own. If someone says something that makes sense at first glance, and others agree with it, it's easy to agree with it as well without any second thoughts.
We cannot avoid all the biased opinions, brainwashes, and stereotypes, because they have been around since we were born. They were exposed to us while we were growing up, and those contribute to our shaping of the minds. Many people do get affected by the influences, but I think the person is able to overcome the influences if the person's personality is certain way. The study with the identical twins did prove that not all the environment related variables affect the differences between the personalities of the twins, and like this, if we are to be one way, we will always be that way, unless we hide it and act differently, following the others like Bernard did.
ReplyDeleteWith the second question, people should be feeling quite appalled at Huxley's world, for it is disturbing how the author portrayed the future of human world. But it has been "drilled into our minds," that this novel is amazing and worth-reading. Ultimately, it seems to depend on the person's interests and the ability to think beyond just the words typed onto the pages.