Social Conditioning; Warning, We Have All Become Basic
In this paper I will use Aldous Huxley’s novel Brave New World and Kirby Ferguson’s Everything Is A Remix, to argue that we are socially conditioned to like, think and believe certain things by our environment. And while that may be beneficial in certain circumstances, on a collective level it brings us down as individuals, and therefore as a society.
We are resistant to change. We like comfort, and we can only be comfortable when something is familiar to us. It should be no surprise that the technological advances most quickly adopted are the things that we already have some exposure to. The iPhone 6 may be a new piece of technology, but it is still an iPhone, something many of us …show more content…
Those who produce items for our consumption are aware of this pattern: and it is not exclusive to physical products but even those that are entertainment based. Whether they flash commercials at us, add a new color, or play that catchy song over and over, it is all in a desperate effort to get us to be familiar with their product. Unfortunately, once this happens the work is almost complete. Similar to how the agonizingly repetitive pop song that we all originally hated and scoffed at, is now one that we love, the industries are capitalizing on our resistance to true novelty. In Huxley’s, Brave New World, we see this concept in the social conditioner they employ most often, hypnæpadia, or the repetition of moral phrases while one is sleeping. In their dystopia, it is employed as a means to condition ones mind to be “these suggestions and the sum of the suggestions is [their] mind.” We may be able to disregard this subject as preposterous and …show more content…
It requires us to stop and think for ourselves, but it is possible. Analysis of our desires and our possessions can reveal to us the source of our values. Some of our desires are beneficial to society; murder is certainly something to be discouraged. There are behaviors that people could be naturally inclined to do but could be harmful for the majority. Social conditioning can help someone to feel comfortable and have a sense of belonging. Within its easily defined rules and guidelines we can flourish with ease. We scoff and remark when someone deviates from our expectations, even more so, we isolate them to their detestable behavior until the discouragement pushes them toward our mold of success and charming politeness. But where is the line drawn? As a collective whole, we reap the positive effects of discouraging behavioral extremes. But are we attempting to micromanage everyone so that they do not deviate from our internal definition of a model citizen? Are our expectations going too far? If they continue will we will end up rewarding “standard men and women: in uniform batches”? What atrocities in the desire for “stability” will we
In this paper I will use Aldous Huxley’s novel Brave New World and Kirby Ferguson’s Everything Is A Remix, to argue that we are socially conditioned to like, think and believe certain things by our environment. And while that may be beneficial in certain circumstances, on a collective level it brings us down as individuals, and therefore as a society.
We are resistant to change. We like comfort, and we can only be comfortable when something is familiar to us. It should be no surprise that the technological advances most quickly adopted are the things that we already have some exposure to. The iPhone 6 may be a new piece of technology, but it is still an iPhone, something many of us …show more content…
Those who produce items for our consumption are aware of this pattern: and it is not exclusive to physical products but even those that are entertainment based. Whether they flash commercials at us, add a new color, or play that catchy song over and over, it is all in a desperate effort to get us to be familiar with their product. Unfortunately, once this happens the work is almost complete. Similar to how the agonizingly repetitive pop song that we all originally hated and scoffed at, is now one that we love, the industries are capitalizing on our resistance to true novelty. In Huxley’s, Brave New World, we see this concept in the social conditioner they employ most often, hypnæpadia, or the repetition of moral phrases while one is sleeping. In their dystopia, it is employed as a means to condition ones mind to be “these suggestions and the sum of the suggestions is [their] mind.” We may be able to disregard this subject as preposterous and …show more content…
It requires us to stop and think for ourselves, but it is possible. Analysis of our desires and our possessions can reveal to us the source of our values. Some of our desires are beneficial to society; murder is certainly something to be discouraged. There are behaviors that people could be naturally inclined to do but could be harmful for the majority. Social conditioning can help someone to feel comfortable and have a sense of belonging. Within its easily defined rules and guidelines we can flourish with ease. We scoff and remark when someone deviates from our expectations, even more so, we isolate them to their detestable behavior until the discouragement pushes them toward our mold of success and charming politeness. But where is the line drawn? As a collective whole, we reap the positive effects of discouraging behavioral extremes. But are we attempting to micromanage everyone so that they do not deviate from our internal definition of a model citizen? Are our expectations going too far? If they continue will we will end up rewarding “standard men and women: in uniform batches”? What atrocities in the desire for “stability” will we