Friday, August 9, 2013
Can We Really Blame Them?
As I was reading through the beginnings of Brave New World, I was shocked on how radically different the society of the World State was compared to that of our current world. The people of the World State regarded the many things we take pride in, such as family or chastity, as putrid, even going as far as to throw up when the subjects arise. They engage in immoral behavior such as erotic play, sleeping with various people, and most even take pride in their actions. They view their actions as normal, as commonplace as breathing. By our society's standards, these actions are considered to be atrocious and sinful. Nevertheless, we have to be open-minded and accept them for who they are, for we have to consider the circumstances that these people had to experience for them to think like this. The inhabitants of the World State had no choice or control over their thoughts; they were clearly brainwashed as they grew up, having thousands upon thousands of words repeated to them as they were sleeping. Just as children in our society are constantly told that violence is wrong, so did the inhabitants of the World State get brainwashed that their practices are right. I believe that neither the inhabitants of the World State nor the people who brainwash them should be blamed for the outcome of their society.
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I agree. The World State has conditioned and forced its members to think, feel, and behave a particular way. The totalitarian government and society has embedded false morals and standards into the minds of everyone. However, I believe that the first generation of the World State in the beginning is to blame for the hideous way it has been brought up. We definitely cannot blame the "brainwashees" for their being of such.
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ReplyDeleteI agree. The way in which the World State runs makes people care for mainly happiness and not wanting to feel any pain. This allowed for the usage of Soma and the idea that everyone belonged to everyone. Later in the story, a man named John who was not raised in the World State had very different ideas from the World State's people and many of his ideas are ideas that we think of a right in today's world.
ReplyDeleteI agree that the inhabitants of the World State are not to be blamed for their way of life. The reason behind it is because they have been brainwashed from since they were children into doing things that we as a society today would frown upon. In addition to the regular inhabitants the people who brainwashed future generations in the World State should also not to be blamed, instead it should be the founders of the World State who allowed it to happen.
ReplyDeleteI think the World State should not be blamed for the way their society turned out. The idea behind the World State was to create a world filled with happiness, strict rules, and void of pain. The World State are not fully at fault because they brainwash the children through various conditioning to prevent wrongful thoughts. In addition to this they are divided into a caste system; where the Deltas and Epsilon have little intellectual abilities. The ones responsible for this society's outcome should be the ones who created the society base on artificial happiness.
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