Is Society Ready For A Brave New World

Essay by PaperNerd ContributorHigh School, 12th grade November 2001

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Is Society Ready for a Brave New World? "Murder kills only the individual "“ and after all, what is an individual?"(Aldous Huxley,148). Aldous Huxley's novel Brave New World provides the reader with a bleak out look into the future of a Society, a Government, and a loss of individuality. According to the MIT Press Bookstore "Celebrating the Freedom to Read"; In Corona-Norco, Calif. Unified School District Brave New World was challenged, meaning that the story contains objectionable material; therefore, it can not be deemed a mandatory reading. The school district came to this conclusion on the terms that this work portrayed a negative picture of the future to the children. While some may see this piece of literature as negative and repulsive others see it as another way to view the world and the idea to always conform to society's followings.

According to Todd Peterson in a class lecture for his senior class at West Hills High School, Brave New World marked a step in a new direction for Huxley, combining his skill for satire with his fascination with science to create an anti-utopian society; in which a totalitarian government controlled society by the use of science and technology.

Through its exploration of the pitfalls of linking science, technology, and politics, and it shows that such a link will reduce human individuality. Huxley's novel seems in many ways, to prophesize the major themes and tragedies that dominated life in the second half of the twentieth century. Brought up in Todd Peterson's Class lecture again, Hitler came to power in Germany a year after the publication of Brave New World. World War II broke out six years after. And the atomic bomb was dropped thirteen years after its publication, which imitated the cold war, which according to the United States Central...