Bernard must exert force, even as an Alpha male, to get things done by lower castes. This is telling of why Bernard is not happy with society and finds himself different from others. Supposedly, while growing up alcohol seeped into his brain and stunted his growth, resulting in…
In the book Brave New World by Aldous Huxley the society conditions its people and this is a form of social control. This approach to social control makes the citizens happy and trouble free because of the conditioning they are unable to be any way other than content. The conditioning that they receive happens before they are even alive in the society. One example of the type of conditioning the society uses to control the population is when the Director talks about, “oxygen-shortage for keeping an embryo below par” (Huxley 14). They do this conditioning to keep certain people in a certain environment and some of these people are called Epsilon.…
American Romanticism vs Chris McCandless 1.The book Into the Wild, by Jon Krakauer, is a novel about a boy named Chris McCandless, while on the road he shows the three main ideas of American Romanticism. 2. While on the road Chris showed many signs of the trait individualism. 3. One example is in the letter that Chris wrote to Franz “Move around, be nomadic, make each day a new horizon.”…
In a social experiment conducted by Solomon Asch of 1951, Asch studied the impact of how social pressure from the majority can affect a person to conform (McLeod). The experiment consisted of one participant in a group of actors and all were asked to match the test line to a line most similar. In revealing their answers, the participant was asked to answer last out of the group while the actors all purposely answered incorrectly. With over 12 trials of the experiment, nearly 75% of the participants conformed to answering the question incorrectly at least once. This trend of conformity is also seen in today’s social influence.…
The Myth of Individualism draws readers in with a captivating introduction through a controversial story about an individualist who kills to prove a point. This became a constant throughout the book, having examples used from topics that related to pop culture, politics and historical events to say the American values of individualism, mediocrity and self-sufficiency is overall fabricated. Therefore, American values are effected by the social structures on our lives which prove to be the thesis for Callero’s book. The book offers a weak first chapter with a strong fourth chapter that all fits into the message of Callero’s bestselling book. Callero’s book offered a first chapter that was the weakest out of the 214 paged body of work.…
If every person in today's society had identical personalities, purpose, and a similar or same physical appearance, the community as a whole would struggle. With no individuality among the people, a desired utopia turns into a dystopia. A person of esteemed position abuses his power. As many dystopia novels such as the "Divergent" series and "Anthem" show, a society will become blind, as well as its balance of power, wealth, and knowledge is thrown off when individuality is renounced. Individuality serves an immense purpose in both a group identity and one's respective self that maintains a positive balance in society, which prevents an adverse, dystopian community.…
Bernard was the only individual in the novel who felt as though he never belonged. Always isolated , felt that there was more to life that sex and soma. Bernard actually wanted to have an emotional relationship with Lenina which was unorthodox in this type of society because emotions meant weakness, and the government controller could never allow that. This relates back to Marxist theory of conscious awareness. If one individual begins to act different from the norm, that individual could have an influence on others, thus meaning challenging the status quo in Brave New World.…
“Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of others.” (Phil 2:3-4, New International Version). There are two main characteristics within an Individualism Worldview. The first imperfection is called Utilitarian Individualism and the second is Bellah.…
Individuality is the greatest threat to a utopian society, if one person doesn’t like the way the leader is running the show, then why should you continue to follow their lead? This is the problem I tackled in my final project, as I produced a seminar that was telling students from a fictional institution how to run their utopian societies in a way where they could eliminate or control individuality. Of course their are many different ways to see a utopian society, sometimes it is optimistic, Where To Invade Next (2015) while others are much darker, 1984 (1984). I quickly decided to ignore the optimistic utopian societies, since many times the citizens are the rulers. Instead I focused on the utopian societies that were completely controlling…
As William Shakespeare says, “We know what we are, but not what we may be” (BrainyQuote). Often times in society, people allow material possessions inhibit their ability to become what they are capable of being; accepting who they are currently. Illegal and legal substances such as drugs cause people to lack free thinking and cause addictive behaviors that can lead people to not seek opportunities to succeed. The influence of others pushes people to take part in the use of things like drugs in order to appear normal in society. In Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, the government pushes the drug Soma as a replacement of religion and brainwashing tool inhibiting people’s ability to think freely and lack individuality, as a way to maintain supremacy and power over the people.…
Religion teaches people how to use their freedom for the good of themselves and others. It is practically the sole means of counteracting the materialistic aspects of life by taking people’s minds beyond the physical, material aspects of life. Religion teaches men that being good is in their self interest because they will be rewarded in the afterlife. By working towards the common good rather than personal gain, people are forced to work together. Through these features of American democracy which de Tocqueville noted, Americans are able to balance individualism with the good of the community.…
Is Social Stability Worth It ? Social stability means that your whole community is equal. We all earn and do the same as others around us, which makes us even. Social stability can also help keep our society in balance.…
In a conversation between Bernard and Lenina you can sense Bernard is uneasy and distressed about trying to be like everyone else, as well as trying to fit in where he clearly doesn’t, he says, “Everybody’s happy nowadays. We begin giving children that at five. But wouldn't you like to be free to be happy in some other way, Lenina? In your own way, for example; not in everyone else’s way” (Huxley 81). Bernard’s low confidence and self-esteem is resulting in rejection from the Alpha- class and is evidently leaning him to believe he is stuck in society where he will never truly belong and live as the individual he so desperately wants to be.…
In the novel “Brave New World”, Bernard Marx is one of the main characters in the story. Although Bernard is not really heroic, he is the main protagonist of the story. Bernard is an Alpha Plus, however, his physical appearance varies from those in his social caste, and he is made fun of because of it.…
As Bernard is giving the Deltas and Gammas an order, he stops. Looking at the Gamma and “Bernard’s physique was hardly better than that of the average Gamma. His self –consciousness was acute and distressing” (Huxley 64). This is important because Bernard, being an Alpha, is supposed to be beautiful, and he almost looks like a Gamma, which is one of the lower class citizens. He feels that he is different.…