A Foucauldian Reading of Huxley’s Brave New World

2017 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 12
Author(s):  
Bilal Tawfiq Hamamra
Keyword(s):  
New World ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
World State ◽  
Production And Consumption ◽  
The World ◽  
Mind And Body ◽  
Human World ◽  
Brave New World ◽  
The Mind ◽  
Systematic Control

Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World (1932) is a nightmarish depiction of a post-human world where human beings are mass-produced to serve production and consumption. In this paper, I discuss the manipulations of minds and bodies with reference to Foucault’s biopower and disciplinary systems that make the citizens of the world state more profitable and productive. I argue that Brave New World depicts a dystopian systematic control of mind and body through eugenic engineering, biological conditioning, hypnopaedia, sexual satisfaction, and drugs so as to keep the worldians completely controlled, collectivized and contented in a totalitarian society. The world state eradicates love, religion, art and history and deploys language devoid of any emotions and thoughts to control the mind that judges and decides. I argue that Brave New World anticipates the Foucauldian paradigm of resistance, subversion and containment, ending in eliminating the forces that pose a challenge to the ideology of the world state.

Old Lives

2020 ◽  
pp. 61-88
Author(s):  
Maren Tova Linett
Keyword(s):  
Old Age ◽  
Disability Studies ◽  
New World ◽  
Thought Experiment ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Old People ◽  
World State ◽  
The World ◽  
Brave New World ◽  
Age Reading

Chapter 2 takes a disability studies approach to aging by viewing Brave New World (1932) as a thought experiment that explores the value of old age. Reading the novel alongside Ezekiel Emanuel’s claim that it would be best for everyone to die at around age seventy-five, before their abilities begin to decline, the chapter reads the absence of old people in the World State as an aspect of its dystopia. The chapter first argues that the persistent youth embraced by the society robs life of its narrative arc and thereby of an important aspect of its meaning. It then explores the reasons suggested by the novel that such a sacrifice of life narratives is not worthwhile, even to avoid periods of possible disability or frailty. Brave New World makes clear that the excision of old age has significant political, moral, and emotional costs.

scholarly journals SOCIAL AND POLITICAL IDEAS OF ALDOUS HUXLEY THROUGH BERNARD MARX’S CHARACTER IN BRAVE NEW WORLD

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Muh Haris Zubaidillah
Keyword(s):  
Literary Criticism ◽  
New World ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Aldous Huxley ◽  
Happy Life ◽  
World State ◽  
Political Ideas ◽  
The World ◽  
Brave New World ◽  
Descriptive Method

Social and political ideas have important role and influence in society life. Because, it can change human's thought or mind. In this case, Aldous Huxley as author constructs a character in the novel Brave New World and it is his ideas. He includes his ideas through one of characters in his book. It is seen in character Bernard Marn's feeling, such as; Bernard Marx's feeling as nature of human, Bernard Marx's Feeling to Soma, and Bernard Marx's Feeling to the concept of happy life in The World State. So, the researcher feels a necessity to analyze political ideas of Aldous Huxley through Character Bernard Max in Brave New World. Based on the problem above, the researcher needs to analyze the political ideas of Aldous Huxley through character Bernard Mar in Brave New World by analyzing the character dialogue used the descriptive method. The descriptive method on the research involves a collection of technique used to specify, delineate or describe naturally the occurring of changing characterization without experimental manipulation. The researcher needs to analyze about what are the social and political ideas of Aldous Huxley through the character Bernard Marx constructed in the novel Brave New World. The researcher analyzed it by using Historical Literary Criticism. All the data are taken from the novel Brave New World written by Aldous Huxley. The analysis of data deals with the descriptions social and political ideas of Aldous Huxley through the character Bernard Marx constructed in Brave New World containing: Bernard Mary's feeling as nature of human Bernard Marx's Feeling to Soma, and Bernard Man's Feeling to the concept of happy life in The World State. The literary work is very dominant to socialized ideas, opinion, and massage as values to the society. Therefore, it has great influences to deliver values to the society through the reader. So, it can be concluded that author has power of his work and can include his ideas, opinion, and massage also values in his work as like Aldous Huxley. Then, political ideas of Aldous Huxley through character Bernard Marx in Brave New World are author's politic (Aldous Huxley), he attempted to express his ideas in a work.

The concepts of Ayurveda and Pāli Literature in connection to Psychotherapy

2017 ◽  
Vol 2 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Kolarkar Rajesh Shivajirao ◽  
Kolarkar Rajashree Rajesh
Keyword(s):  
Mental Disorders ◽  
Laws Of Nature ◽  
Code Of Conduct ◽  
Economic Consequences ◽  
Ultimate Truth ◽  
Traditional System ◽  
The World ◽  
Mind And Body ◽  
The Mind ◽  
The Buddha

The perfect balance of Mind and body is considered as complete health in Pāli literature as well as in Ayurveda. Pāli literature and Ayurveda have their own identity as most ancient and traditional system of medicine in India.The universal teachings of the Buddha are the most precious legacy ancient India gave to the world. The teachings are a practical code of conduct, a way of purity and of gracious living. There is a scientific study of the truth pertaining to mind and matter, and the ultimate truth beyond. In fact, the Buddha should be more appropriately known as a super-scientist who studied the entire laws of nature governing the Universe, by direct personal experience. The Buddha's rational teachings are clearly explained in the Eight-fold Noble Path, divided in three divisions of Sīla (morality), Samādhi (mastery over the mind), Paññā i.e. ‘Pragya' (purification of the mind, by developing insight). In Ayurveda Psychotherapy can be done by Satvavajaya Chikitsa and good conduct. Aim is to augment the Satva Guna in order to correct the imbalance in state of Rajas (Passion) and Tamas (Inertia). Sattvavajaya as psychotherapy, is the mental restraint, or a "mind control" as referred by Caraka, as well as Vagbhata is achieved Dnyan (education), Vidnyan (training in developing skill), Dhairya (development of coping mechanism), Smruti (memory enhancement), Samadhi (concentration of mind). According to WHO, Mental disorders are the common problem. The burden of mental disorders continues to grow with significant impacts on health and major social, human rights and economic consequences in all countries of the world.

Aesthetics of the presence of women in Afghan cinema

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Abbas Mohammadi
Keyword(s):  
19Th Century ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Positive View ◽  
The World ◽  
Human World ◽  
Different Dimensions ◽  
Male Dominated ◽  
The 19Th Century

Cinema consists of two different dimensions of art and instrument. A tool that mixes with art and represents society in which anything can be depicted for others. But art has always sought to portray the beauties of this universe. The beauty that lies within philosophy. Since the advent of human beings, men have always sought to dominate and abuse women for their own benefit. In the 19th century, cinema entered the realm of existence and found its place in the human world. With the empowerment of cinema in the world, filmmakers tried to achieve their goals by using this tool.Many filmmakers use women as a propaganda tool to attract a male audience. In many films, when the hero of a movie succeeds in reaching a woman, or in doing so, she is succeeded by a woman. In this way, of course, women themselves are not faultless and have helped men abuse women. Afghanistan, a traditional and male-dominated country, has not been the exception, and in many Afghan films women have been instrumental zed and used in various ways to benefit men, and we have seen fewer films in which women be a movie hero or a woman in a movie like a man. This kind of treatment of women in Afghan films has caused other young Afghan girls to not have a positive view of Afghan cinema.

scholarly journals Autonomia świata a podmiotowość człowieka w ekoteologii

2010 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 117-131
Author(s):  
Jarosław Horowski
Keyword(s):  
Modern World ◽  
Ecological Problem ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Contemporary Culture ◽  
Inherent Value ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Teleological Argument ◽  
Christian Worldview ◽  
The World ◽  
Human World

One of the most difficult problems, which is to be solved by contemporary culture, is the ecological problem. It concerns the culture because the hedonistic and consumerist mentality of man plays an important part in it. Biocentrism states that the ecological problem results from traditional Western attitudes to the non-human world based on the belief that humans are the central and most significant entities in the universe. Biocentrism puts forward a teleological argument for the protection of the environment. It indicates that non-human species have inherent value as well and each organism has a purpose and a reason for being, which should be respected. Biocentrism states that the anthropocentric attitude to the non-human world results from the Christian worldview based on the Bible where it is written that God gives man dominion over all creatures. The author analyses the main issues of the Catholic concept of the relationship between human beings and other creatures. He indicates that ecotheology respects the inherent value of non-human creatures because, as the Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the modern world Gaudium et spes says: “all things are endowed with their own stability, truth, goodness, proper laws and order”, but maintains that the purpose of the world is connected with its relationship to God. The author considers also what is the human subjectivity in behaving towards the environment and what is the dependence between the autonomy of the world and the subjectivity of man in ecotheology. In the end, the author comes to the conclusion that according to ecotheology the ecological problem results from the broken relationship between the human and God and in consequence it the broken relationship between the world and God.

scholarly journals The Midlife Crisis of the Network Society

2018 ◽  
Vol 6 (4) ◽  
pp. 107-110 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nikki Usher ◽  
Matt Carlson
Keyword(s):  
New World ◽  
Middle Age ◽  
Digital Technologies ◽  
Vantage Point ◽  
Network Society ◽  
Present Moment ◽  
Midlife Crisis ◽  
News Organizations ◽  
The World ◽  
Brave New World

The network society is moving into some sort of middle age, or has at least normalized into the daily set of expectations people have for how they live their lives, not to mention consume news and information. In their adolescence, the technological and temporal affordances that have come with these new digital technologies were supposed to make the world better, or least they could have. There was much we did not foresee, such as the way that this brave new world would turn journalism into distributed content, not only taking away news organizations’ gatekeeping power but also their business model. This is indeed a midlife crisis. The present moment provides a vantage point for stocktaking and the mix of awe, nostalgia, and ruefulness that comes with maturity.

Psychoanalytic psychology

2020 ◽  
pp. 81-126
Author(s):  
Gavin Miller
Keyword(s):  
Sigmund Freud ◽  
New World ◽  
Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy ◽  
Collective Unconscious ◽  
Traditional Societies ◽  
Brave New World ◽  
The Mind

This chapter begins with science fiction’s use of proto-psychoanalytic wisdom inspired by Nietzsche. Texts such as H.G. Wells’s The Island of Doctor Moreau (1896) and The Croquet Player (1936), John Christopher’s The Death of Grass (1956), and Alfred Bester’s ‘Oddy and Id’ (1950) present civilization as a fragile veneer concealing displaced instinctual gratification. Superficially, such conservatism continues in George Orwell’s 1984 (1949), and Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World (1932). However, both these novels challenge Freudianism by thematizing Freud’s pessimistic model of the mind – a critique intensified in Barry N. Malzberg’s The Remaking of Sigmund Freud (1985). Dreams, moreover, are celebrated in Ursula Le Guin’s Jungian novel The Word for World is Forest (1972), which estranges the colonization of traditional societies, and counterposes rootedness in the collective unconscious (thereby developing an aesthetic pioneered by Frank Herbert’s The Dragon in the Sea (1956)). Generic re-evaluation of psychoanalysis continues in Daniel Keyes’s Flowers for Algernon (1966), which (like Bester’s The Demolished Man (1956)) endorses psychoanalytic psychotherapy, and the unreliable narrative of Frederik Pohl’s Gateway (1977), where the protagonist’s psychoanalytic psychotherapy reconciles him to a future reality of brutal capitalist exploitation.

scholarly journals Lessons from science fiction: Frederik Pohl and the robot prosumer

2020 ◽  
pp. 146954052094422
Author(s):  
MJ Ryder
Keyword(s):  
Science Fiction ◽  
New Technology ◽  
Ecological Impact ◽  
Business Management ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Production And Consumption ◽  
The Social ◽  
The World ◽  
Vital Resource ◽  
Impact Mass

The diverse fields of business, management and marketing have long explored the concept of the ‘prosumer’ – the producer-consumer who not only consumes those products produced by industry, but also has some hand in their creation. But while the term itself is often credited to futurist Alvin Toffler , the concept he describes (and that which Ritzer et al. adapt) is a central concern of science fiction, which has much to offer our understanding of modern-day prosumption and is not limited by the language and limitations of purely scientific academic discourse. Indeed, one of the most important voices in this area is author and editor Frederik Pohl, with his co-authored novel The Space Merchants and short stories including ‘The Midas Plague’ and ‘The Man Who Ate the World’. In each of these works, Pohl seeks to satirise the mindless robot-like behaviour of human beings, while also posing a word of warning for the social, economic and ecological impact mass-prosumption. This is a particularly relevant message given the rise of ‘surveillance capitalism’ – the real world manifestation of the dystopias that Pohl and his contemporaries describe. In this paper, I argue that science fiction isn’t just a useful tool for social theorists, but rather, a vital resource, as it provides a speculative framework through which to interrogate the potential impacts and implications of new technology, and the links between production and consumption, technology and work. Furthermore, it provides the means through which to imagine possible futures and the lasting impacts of consumption that go beyond describing the world as it is, and move into the realms of what the world may become.

What Is Our Sacred Responsibility in the World?

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Madhuri M. Yadlapati
Keyword(s):  
Religious Ethics ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Relationship With God ◽  
The World ◽  
Human World ◽  
Human Responsibility ◽  
The Relationship

This chapter examines four particular ways in which faith has been expressed as a commitment to one's responsibilities vis-à-vis one's community and God. It discusses Hindu epic illustrations of dharma, or sacred duty; an allegorical extrapolation of Christian responsibility in C. S. Lewis's Narnia series as well as his discussion of the relationship between faith and works; Islamic understanding of human beings as God's caliphs (khalifa) and the responsibility for jihad; and Jewish articulations of human responsibility in a covenantal relationship with God. These examples concern a specific interface of religious ethics and the commitment to faith, by which one embraces a tremendous sense of responsibility for the very fate of the human world.

Brave New World or Blind Alley? American History on the World Wide Web

1997 ◽  
Vol 84 (1) ◽  
pp. 132 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael O'Malley ◽  
Roy Rosenzweig
Keyword(s):  
World Wide Web ◽  
American History ◽  
World Wide ◽  
New World ◽  
Blind Alley ◽  
The World ◽  
Brave New World
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