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| 1984's Big Brother |
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My response
In this class people may have a question when I gave the title of book called 1984. That's a weird name when I first encounter this book through youtube when I tried to search for analysis of Lord of flies that I have to do homework for my English class. Brave new World also came out after I have looked at 1984 . After watching both of these books, I decided to buy Brave new World . There is a big similar and big differences between both books. Both of them are book about totalitarian society but the method of controlling people are difference one are soft ,while another are way more harsh.
Would you rather be happy but not free? Aldous Huxley builds up his argument in his famous novel, Brave New World. People in this dystopian world are living in happiness because they are conditioned to hate books so they can stay in factory all day. Also they got be in moral teaching while they are sleeping called hypnopedia. The high caste people are condition to look down at the lower caste for example "Delta Children wear khaki. Oh no, I don't want to play with Delta children. And Epsilons are still worse. They're too stupid to be able to read or write. Besides they wear black, which is such a beastly color. I'm so glad I'm a Beta." Deltas and Epsilons are the worker caste and Betas and Alphas are the high caste.
This kind of conditioning is repeated until
"the child's mind is these suggestions, and the sum of the suggestions is the child's mind. And not the child's mind only. The adult's mind too—all his life long."
Also these novel is associated with Ford, the father of mass production. Just like children that has been mass-produce in the world.
And when they got stressed the get a gramme of Soma - drug that is used for people to be "ecstasy". What a happy life.
If every people are happy is this the best solution? Aldous Huxley has answered in his collection of essays Brave New World Revisited. He believes that Brave New World is a nightmare for people. He describes this world of people becoming automaton and "Man is not made to be an automaton, and if he becomes one, the basis for mental health is destroyed."
Unlike Brave New World, 1984 has presented us as a "hard-totalitarian". 1984 society uses fear and punishment to control people, while Brave New World society uses science/mind control/sleep-teaching/drug to control people. Also, 1984 is also associated with "Big-Brother", a person who looking at what people are doing in every second of their life and control them.
What do you think?
Would you live in the world of happiness?
Maybe what Margaret Atwood saying is true:"utopia is the good place that doesn't exist."
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Reference
'Everybody is happy now' (2007, November 17). The Guardian. Retrieved from https://www.theguardian.com/books/2007/nov/17/classics.margaretatwood
I encourage people to adding their opinion because without a comment the meaningful conversation cannot happen.
ReplyDeleteI was interested by Phu's summary, so read his source article. I was relieved that the citizens in Oakland were able to force their government to back down on the surveillance. Fighting crime is important, but I think that citizens are right to have "a visceral distrust of the authorities" as Phu's chosen source describes it.
ReplyDeleteEven when politicians are sincerely trying to do good rather bad, that is no guarantee that they are actually doing what is good. Too often, politicians commit great evil thinking that they are doing good: perhaps Mr Duterte now killing his citizens the way Thaksin did in his drug wars against Thai citizens really does believe he is doing a good thing for the Philippines, but he is wrong. He is committing evil in his disastrous policy against drug users and dealers. A strong, healthy constitution would make it legally impossible for any government to do such things.
And as Phu's cited novels suggest, with the rise of technology, it is more important than ever for the public to know what the government is doing far more than the government should know about the citizens.
yes i really agree with you Peter.
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ReplyDeleteIf there were a Utopia, it would be boring.:)
ReplyDeleteThe reason democracy is not the best system but less risky one is that totalitarian can perform better when the ruler is benevolent. Besides, Democracy without restriction is anarchy.