Although Huxley's vision of the future was proposed almost ten years before Orwell's 1984 proposition, it is evident that the future held a world much more like that of Huxley's Brave New World. Despite Orwell's accurate depiction of the 1980's in some other part of the world for a period of time, Huxley's idea of the future is what has become closest to reality in today's society.
It is hard to deny the sex obsessed culture of the West. To some, it is still considered taboo, but for a large part of our society, sex is a comfortable subject. This would be all well and fine, however, it is hard for those who are not ready to be consumed by sex to avoid its influence in culture today. Try and watch tv without seeing any Viagra commercials or other male enhancement tools displayed in infomercials at any time of day. On most satellite television packages come with a pornography channel for a few extra bucks. This leads into the loss of parenting in our society, as in Huxley's parenthood has become an explicit word. Despite how parents may try and protect their children from the influences of sex that infest our society, essentially there is no control over whether or not your children are having sex. This is not so much a matter of will power as it is of the accessibility of sex. There is no age limit for buying condoms, nor is parental consent necessary for a young girl to go out and get birth control at a clinic. I'm not saying that wanting to protect one's self from STDS and pregnancy is a bad thing, but that everyone should be exposed to sex at a point where they are mature enough to understand it and be ready for it. Much of this will come from the parents' preparation for their children, which has become of little influence today.
But in some cases in our world of 2009, the parents of future generations have too much influence. Although there are many aspects of genetic engineering that are favorable for the future, there are some cases in which it is not necessary; only done for the appearance of our super babies of the future. Genetic engineering has made many steps forward and continues to, such as in locating genetic mutations as well as debilitating diseases, and has begun to find a way to eliminate them. Perhaps it was necessary in the beginning to experiment with such traits as eye and hair color in order to understand how to move forward to mapping out genetic diseases and eliminating them, but this is no longer the case. Just as in Brave New World, parents can chose what color eyes, hair, skin tone: everything that characterizes the appearance of their baby. There is no futuristic benefit for the child in doing this, it simply encompasses the vanity of our culture: a mirror image of Huxley's prediction.
Hence, it is clear that Huxley's vision of vanity and sexuality has become a reality. Although our society has not escalated to the extreme Huxley depicts in Brave New World, there is much evidence that our world is rapidly moving towards a world without parents and without any knowledge of the confines of the past.
4 comments:
I liked all the different examples from today's culture to Brave New World. I never really considered the viagra commercials, the easily accessible pornography, and the sexual freedom of today until you mentioned it. It seems as though Huxley were right about the future than some would think. Sex IS, in most cases, a comfortable subject. We discuss it in school from 5th grade in Family Life Education and later on in high school and the years following that. We are introduced to sex so early on and this can, in fact, lead to outcomes like in Huxley's BNW.
Do you think technological advancements are to blame for this sexual revolution? Or is it just cultural? Before television sets and interent, I'm pretty sure pornography and sex was not as accessible.
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Yes, I do definitely think that technological advances are at least somewhat to blame for it. Pornography and other sexual deviance existed before technology but now it is so easy to get to.
You made a lot of the same points I did about sex, but you have some examples that I didn't think of before. For example, the fact that sex is a fairly comfortable subject for us in our culture. I mean look how last week was in class with the index cards. "I have drugs" "I want sex" "That's not fair, you got sex!" =) Haha, anyway, I agree with the overall idea as well... we really are living the same way as the people in Huxley's world, although not yet to that extreme.
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