The contrast between Brave New World and 1984 is interesting and I think the debt between the two has even permeated the latest trends in Dystopian fiction. Most young adult dystopian books can either be catagorized into a terrorist regime dystopia like 1984 or Huxley's scientific revolution that he portrayed in Brave New World. The Hunger Games follows more of the path of 1984, suppressing the masses through violence and terror, squashing the thoughts of revolution through sacrificing children. It more about dominance through power than dominance by default. In a terrorist dystopia like 1984, the people know that there is something wrong but are often too afraid to stand up for themselves. In a scientific revolution, the people haven't even realized that something is wrong. They are truly blinded by their dystopia, thinking it is utopia. An example of this is the Giver. The town in which the Giver takes place is perfectly regulated. Everyone has a particular job, a particular role in society (all graduating students are given their occupations at a coming of age ceremony) and they are often blinded to the horrors going on in their own world (elderly people and sick infants are killed off to insure a stronger community). The people of the town are even cut off from history, rather delegated the task of remembering to one person. Jonas doesn't even question the society that he lives in until he is given memories of the world beyond and before his community.
Huxley, in his speech, mentioned that while we will never be able to get away from terrorism, scientific revolutions will become more popular as they are proven more efficient. And the efficiency of a scientific revolution has merit. You create a people who can't fight because they can't think for themselves, who are happy living in the world you've given them because they don't know of anything else. And just like you can create a society founded on ignorance, you can destroy one too. I think, particularly in America, the next generations are being raised to not think for themselves, to not test an opinion's merit or source but to take everything in. Society is devaluing the individualized education that comes from a parent, which creates different ideas in each person, but glorifying state education, which has become standardized and regulated. Students aren't encouraged to listen to the ideas of their parents but to fight against them. They are bombarded with so many "truths" that the truth sounds like a lie. The next generation will have to believe what the government tells them, because they won't have come up with their own opinions and beliefs in their own time. Simple things that we don't even believe are conditioning- peer pressure, ridicule- will start to change the shape of our society, before we have a chance to know it's changed.
No comments:
Post a Comment