"Existence vs. Essence in A Brave New World"

Essay by lisaocA+, March 2003

download word file, 7 pages 3.7 1 reviews

"Existence vs. Essence in A Brave New World"

The human being is an entity of pure essence. It is generated by a blend of intangible human characteristics, which branch from the individual's soul and mental power. This fundamental entity is nearly inevitable. A utopia is an imaginary society organized to create ideal conditions for human beings, eliminating hatred, pain, neglect, and all of the other evils of the world. It is in this nature of society that a person's mental freedom can deteriorate, and its "inevitability" can easily be defeated. Without mental freedom, many distinctive qualities of humanity are lost, and man is reduced to the eminence of animals, whose lives are based upon instinct and existence, rather then free thought and essence. In a Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley, the society portrayed is one where state control and social stability preside over all free thought and expression, which consequences in a loss of morals, imagination, and truth -in short, a loss of emotion, and therefore individuality.

The society does its best to eliminate any sensation of pain, which means that every concentrated emotion, every passion, has disappeared. These artificial beings lead superficial lives, where there existence is just maintenance of well-being, and their individuality is ignored. A society described as such, would be an unfavorable society to inhabit, for a society without imagination and emotion gives life diminutive value.

At first inspection, the Utopia in Brave New World does seem perfect in many aspects. Unhappiness, intellectual curiosity, disagreement, suffering, disease, and war are all outlawed. Ignorance can very well mean happiness. Even if it were forced upon the society, their conditioning would not reveal that "knowledge". Soma is the societies panacea, relieving the "Brave" New World of all its distress, yet more so of it's truth. Truth...