1984 Blog 1

Newspeak takes away the individual thought process so people cant think for themselves. It takes away antonyms and synonyms so people cant rebel against the Party. It relates a lot to “Brave New World” as how the government is trying to take away individuality so the people cant think for themselves and they wont cause any problems or be any sort of threat to the Party. First example is how Bush said we were going to war to take away the nuclear weapons Iraq supposedly had seemed as it was a pointless reason for us to go to war on terrorism because as we all know there wasn’t any nuclear weapons found. Another example is when Dave Obey came to our school and when questions were asked by students and it didn’t seem he knew the answers he would play off words and other ideas to make it seem as though he was answering the question when truly he wasn’t answering at all.

Cloning

There are so many different things I think of when the topic cloning comes to mind. My opinion on cloning is I disagree with it; I think it is immoral and we should leave human creation to Mother Nature. Through the notes I have read about the movie I missed they talk about therapeutic cloning which clones organs of the human body that can be donated to people with troubled or non-functioning organs. It seems this could be a great aid to the medical field but the thing I am most scared of especially after reading “Brave New World” is if we start to clone little things such as animals and organs I don’t think there is anything that can stop us from cloning human beings. In the article it mentions parents being able to choose the gender and things such as genetic engineering is terrifying to think of; there are obvious advantages to do cloning and have genetic engineering such as eliminating diseases at birth but just to think if this scientific intelligence would fall into the wrong hands such as Hitler for instance he could and probably would have created a superhuman race that could have ruled the world. It’s scary to think of what the future can bring and we have to learn to chose wisely as to what is best for that future.

Brave New World/Karl Marx

1. I believe Karl Marx thinks class conflict is inevitable in a capitalist society is answered in one sentence from the packet itself, “Capitalist work to protect capitalism while workers struggle to destroy capitalism” (Pg/229). Of course there will be class conflict when there are two groups in the same society with completely opposite intentions.

2. I disagree with Marx’s idea of communism. We had a discussion in class that I completely agreed with, when we talked about the article and how Marx wanted a stable society by taking away private property, we also brought up that would take away competition. I think competition is what strives an individual in a society to go the extra mile and achieve the impossible. In the United States if we were to follow Marx’s idea of government who knows what we as a country never would have accomplished.

3. I find Marx’s theory on class conflict and the view of class in “Brave New World” are very similar. Marx wanted to take away all private property and competition to maintain a stable society; by taking away these things Marx believes there will be no conflict in society because there can be no wars in his governed society. “Brave New World” is almost the exact same theory; in “Brave New World” their idea is to maintain a stable society they teach specific jobs to each of the five groups and teach them nothing more and nothing less. It is not exactly stated in the book but in my mind their idea is to abolish all individual thinking, which makes since to have a perfect stable society because if no one is able to think for themselves than there is no one to stand up against the government. Soma plays a key part in this book mainly because it is the perfect drug for the people, not only do they love this drug, it is what keeps each person inline and content with their pointless lives.

Brave New World #1

Bernard stands out among the other two Helmholtz and John mostly because he seems to be a major character. It is sort of hard to tell with Bernard; we can see he doesn’t believe in the lifestyle of the people around him for example when he holds his ground and will not touch the soma but then there are few occurrences where he seems to give in at the most random times such as after his day out with Lenina. Bernard seems to understand what seems wrong with the World State is that it is a disguise or a false sense of happiness almost as if everyone is just covering up the pains in life along with other emotional troubles.
Soma plays a big roll in this society, it is the drug almost everyone uses to be happy and free of pain or sorrow. This is the ideal happiness in this society but what only few seem to understand such as Bernard this happiness is just a cover up of the truth. By taking the drug soma one is impaired to think for himself as if he gives up his individuality to become so-called happy and content with life.
The connection to ecstasy is like hitting the nail on the head. The video in class made the connection even more clear that ecstasy is a drug used to calm one’s self and to let free of stress, pain and sorrow. When interviewed some people at a party they said ecstasy enabled them to open up in ways they cannot when they are sober. To me personally that is a bunch of bologna because how can we be sure of anything coming from a person high on drugs. In the book soma is meant for almost exactly the same exact thing, but the difference that comes to my mind isn't straight forward in the story, I believe soma is a drug their government promotes the use of so that people are unable to get wise and think for themselves. One can do what he wishes with all the brainwashed people who are content with whatever is given to them and no one to even think of speaking out against it.