Our Modern Day Soma In Brave New World, author Aldous Huxley describes a drug called soma. Soma is taken by the majority of the World State’s population. This drug is often taken when someone is dealing with something “unpleasant”; it helps to relax them and keep them “happy”. However, soma has a dark side to it. The World State uses the soma to control the citizens by keeping them oblivious to the harsh reality of their world. Our entertainment is like soma’s effect on the citizens of Huxley’s Brave New World; it has made us blind and ignorant to reality. In our society today, our reliance on electronic entertainment is quickly becoming an addiction. Much like the citizens of the World State with soma, we are dependent on our entertainment devices, such as television, Iphones, computers, and tablets. These
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Television shows an unrealistic view of our society that distracts on what is really happening in our world and our lives. We use television as an escape from our problems like how Lenina use soma to escape from her problems. “ Lenina felt herself entitled, after this day of queerness and horror, to a complete and absolute holiday. As soon as they got back to the rest-house, she swallowed six half-gramme tablets of soma...” (Huxley 140). We use television as a source of companionship and comfort instead of forming actual relationships with real people. It also has become a substitute for our emotional and spiritual needs that we would have originally receive from social and family gatherings. The problem with television is that it makes us secluded from the world and takes away from human interaction. Television is casting out any form of communication and is making us become less of a community while giving us an illusion of being part of community. “ Television does not extend or amplify literate culture” (Postman
Television shows an unrealistic view of our society that distracts on what is really happening in our world and our lives. We use television as an escape from our problems like how Lenina use soma to escape from her problems. “ Lenina felt herself entitled, after this day of queerness and horror, to a complete and absolute holiday. As soon as they got back to the rest-house, she swallowed six half-gramme tablets of soma...” (Huxley 140). We use television as a source of companionship and comfort instead of forming actual relationships with real people. It also has become a substitute for our emotional and spiritual needs that we would have originally receive from social and family gatherings. The problem with television is that it makes us secluded from the world and takes away from human interaction. Television is casting out any form of communication and is making us become less of a community while giving us an illusion of being part of community. “ Television does not extend or amplify literate culture” (Postman