John Savage and Mustapha Mond discuss civilization in chapter 17. Mustapha Mond tries to persuade him that overcoming unpleasant emotions and situations leads to a better world. John says two startling things: 1) “What you need is something with tears for a change. Nothing costs enough here;” and 2) “But I don’t want comfort. I want God, I want poetry, I want real danger, I want freedom, I want goodness. I want sin.”
The novel ends with the death of John Savage. What conclusion(s) about the society of Brave New World does John Savage's death suggest? What advice, if any, is apropos for us?
After reading this, I immediately thought of Zach B's cost/benefit analysis in the previous discussion. The benefits of society have value because of their costs. We only cherish love in our world, because it costs tears, pain, time. Not to get too romantic, but people die for love. Nothing can compare to its value. Not even comfort, not even happiness. Life is all about the grief people must suffer through to appreciate the joy. If there is no cost, there is no value. In the brave new world, no one can truly enjoy happiness, because there was no grief before it. I'm not sure that I know what to make of John's death just yet. Is Huxley saying that God and poetry and danger and....life really, are dying? We are becoming too preoccupied with comfort?
ReplyDeleteThroughout all of our discussions we have focused heavily on the influence of society, especially within a utopia where there seem to be rigid boundaries and expectations. I would argue that real emotions are definitely what leads to a better world. The choices that we make in life always have some emotional consequence too, whether that be anger, jealousy, love, etc. and it is these emotions that influence our character and self. We do not grow and learn as an individual without experiencing some form of emotion. The tragic ending with John's hanging expresses how tortured he was that he could never again return to a society where there were real emotions and real experiences. Only adding to this is the fact that he had no one to empathize with or discuss what emotions he was feeling. Because he was genetically different than everyone else as well, I believe he and Mustapha Mond knew that he could never assimilate into civilization even if he somehow succeeded at suppressing his real emotions. In response to the second part of the question- I believe John is asking for free will here. He is arguing that there are things in life that are beautiful such as poetry and awe inspiring such as God. Things worth putting up with the pain and uncertainty for. Without these things, especially for him, there is no life. There is no purpose. The second aspect of the tragedy is that he is the only one who realizes this; the citizens in civilization do not have a real purpose in life. Their purpose is to perform duties and to perform them precisely and not cause drama or rebellion. As John, and I for that matter, see it, this is not any world I would want to stay alive for.
ReplyDeleteTrying to understand the controllers reasons for stability were utterly shocking and hypocritical. They discuss that there is a price to pay for stability, one that i would say is more costly than most. By surcoming to the controller's conditioning you are giving up your self worth. These people that they have created know nothing about love, hatred, jealousy, admiration, accomplishment. They are mere puppets within their society knowing nothing but synthetic sensations that are fed to them through soma and scent organs. They are stimulating all the wrong senses trying to keep them happy. As for the modern world, it is growth, family, children, and a spouse that people look forward to. The beauty of growing old, and seeing all stages and aspects of life has come to be a beautiful thing and they are stripping that away from them. From a religious aspect people expect respect at death and hopefully and afterlife, these people are conditioned not to feel anything from death and are rarely visited, they are merely replaced by more embryo's giving their life no worth other than to fill space.
ReplyDeleteI belive that within John's death he is searching for freedom, liberty, two things in which most of the people in the utopia wouldnt understand. His tragic death was a way to speak out that though the reservation may have been a negative place in the citizens eyes, it was more real and fulfilling than their "utopia". For the reservation held emotion, danger, secrecy and an opportunity to learn and explore within its boundries. Life without these true emotions isnt much of a life at all. Without the bad you cannot understand the good, and without the pushdowns and hard work you cannot fully appreciate accomplishment. John's death represents growth, determination, a need for liberation which in all is what most people hope for in life, just not in such a radical sense, which is why i find Huxley's utopia to be disfunctional and sad.
Kaili W.
In response to Tanya,
ReplyDeleteI do agree that the human race may be becoming too reliant on comfort and immediate gratification. From previous questions it seems that many people agree that we need to go through some hardship to understand the good in life. Though we have this understanding, we seem to be leaning away from it with our genetic research and trying to find ways to simplify day to day processes and eliminate disease. Ideally these would be great things, but if we continue to eliminate the experiences and functions that help us learn and expand our thinking and keep us congnitively busy, if not too bold to be saying, we might as well start shifting into Huxley's utopia because we would be eliminating the things that make our world so great, its uncertainties and moral fights. It is these blockades that liberate us and give us freedm, freedom to rebel, and freedom to research or improve to make things better, all of which do not exist in the BNW.
kaili W.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Katelyn S. that a life worth living is one with a purpose. One can't appreciate enlightenment without uncertainty; one cannot appreciate happiness without pain or suffering. Life on Earth was never meant to be easy. It is in the moments of struggle with emotion and pain that humans grow as people. What separates us from other animals is that we have the ability to have emotions and think logically and abstractly. Taking away emotion or pain would take away any motivation to change. As Brave New World shows, the consequence of no change results in the creation of a monster. A monster that no one questions because there is no need to improve or stand up for social injustices.
ReplyDeleteAs John Savage perceives the world, emotions, both positive and negative, are needed for one to truly experience life. Through his comments quoted in the question above we see that John Savage recognizes the need for struggle to experience ultimate joy. Living in the society of Brave New World, John Savage no longer has the right to experience any emotions, the utopian society has taken away their citizen’s right to feel anything on an individual level as they have been brainwashed, influenced, and even produced by the state. John Savage, though he tries to explain his values to others who have no capacity for understanding, feels pressured to conform to the society’s values. He feels trapped in this world where he is not allowed to feel or express emotions which in turn alters his right to truly live. If John cannot truly live than he would rather die than live in superficiality. Therefore John expresses his only right left, as his right to emotions and true life have been taken from him, and kills himself, fulfilling his right to death.
ReplyDelete-Sarah B.
I agree with Scott K.’s response to Katelyn S. that Brave New World has created a monstrous society that nobody questions as there is no need to improve or stand up for social injustice. Yet, I would agree this even further, that the citizens of Brave New World do not even have the ability to initiate change, even if they had a desire to, because they have been conditioned in such a way that this language does not exist. For example, Bernard feels an innate need for something different or better, but has no capability to understand the concept of change, growth, or what it entails. Brave New World is a society of complacent, ignorant individuals that would truly be virtually impossible to motivate to a goal that is not instilled in the society’s values. Therefore, John Savage, who tries to communicate to them the reservation’s values, is deeply frustrated and angered by his inability to motivate the complacent and ignorant, which is the same dilemma which the civil rights leaders faced who we are currently studying in class.
ReplyDelete-Sarah B.
I think that the end of the book shows the strong connection between humanity and emotions. John has trouble moving from emotions, to an emotionless world, and then back again. Mond tries and argues the points of stability and happiness. But what is happiness without emotion? John's argument of the dehumanization of the citizens of the World State seems to be the argument that most people feel today. Because we have emotion, we can't understand what John is feeling, a world devoid of emotion. I think the conclusion of BNW centers around the disconnect between the emotionlessness of the citizens and their humanity.
ReplyDeleteAt the end of the novel, as Mustapha Mond and John Savage were talking, I could understand John’s frustrations. Mond was convinced, as he conditioned his people, that emotions caused instability and therefore needed to be abolished. John came from the reservation where a sense of community was very strong, teeming with emotions and life experiences. The two cultures couldn’t mix. I think Mond was just creating a community of robots and John could see this. He knew that the people did not know what happiness was truly because there was nothing to measure their emotions against. I believe Mond’s goal to create a happy society failed because no one was happy. They had to have experienced sadness in order to understand happiness and there was no opportunity for them to feel sad with the soma in their community. The event of John’s death could symbolizing the fact that Huxley is warning us that if our communities continue to follow the path this community has, then everything that defines us as a human will be killed off. Our discriminating capability is what differs us from animals, and in this book, the people have no discrimination or decision-making situations. All emotions, including love, are void. So, I believe Huxley is using John’s tragic death as a warning to future societies.
ReplyDeleteIn response to Tanya M...
ReplyDeleteI agree with Tanya in referencing Zach's cost-benefit analysis. One cannot judge an emotion without having other emotions to judge against. It could be that in the society everyone is sad because they have never experienced anything sadder or happier. I feel this is a very key point made clear through the character of John Savage.
After finally reaching the end of the book, it all seems clear to me what Huxley was trying to propose within his novel. No matter what we do, humans cannot be manipulated to the point that we have nothing natural about ourselves. When removing emotions, we are removing our way of life. When removing the importance of family, we are removing love and connection. When viewing Brave New Worlds utopia, I have observed that the only thing I have seen is the slavery of the people for a “better” world. In no way can these ideals of removing the evils and dangers from a society create a better world. On what basis would one live on then? We need emotions to guide ourselves throughout our lives. How can a society prosper if there is no dream to become something? A dream is followed by good and bad times, featuring numerous emotions. The result of removing the hindrances from this utopia was the manipulation of the societies mind into believing a false goal that only proved to be futile. I do believe that there is a future that Huxley was trying to portray back when he was writing this book, and on some cases he was right. People are constantly looking for a better opportunity in anyway possible. However, we cannot manipulate ourselves into something that we are naturally not, whether this is physically or mentally. This mask that Brave New World’s utopia wore around them only blocked their view for a better future. We need the imperfections, the evils, and the individual mentalities to grow. Without them, we are only adding hindrances to our path to become a stronger society.
ReplyDeleteThe death of John Savage shows the necessity of emotions for human beings. Throughout BNW, Huxley shows us the importance of having all emotions to find true happiness. How can one know they are feeling happy when they have never felt sad? BNW shows us how relative emotions are and how one can only classify an emotion by comparing it to other emotions previously felt. This shows that the people in BNW are living life completely emotionless. Just by looking at your own past experiences you know how unappealing that lifestyle would be. People strive to be happier, to fall in love, to be better, and that can only come from knowing what it feels like to be worse. John Savage shows us that, although we may not want to admit it, we want pain, we want suffering, because with those aspects comes more happiness. As the saying goes, “what goes up must go down”, but of course the reverse is true as well. It’s these rollercoaster of emotions that make our life thrilling, exciting, worth living. John Savage shows that the right to emotion is worth dying for and Huxley shows that our emotions, but good and bad, must be treasured.
ReplyDelete- Julia H.
John the Savage's death suggests that one cannot separate humans and emotions. They are important part of what makes us human, and it is important that we acknowledge this. John felt that he was really a human anymore living in the World State. Instead, he took in too much emotion at one time. He had been living recently when all emotion and imperfection was taken out of society. When John the Savage was able to get away from this "perfect" world, he was over stimulated with emotion. He couldn't handle the intensity of how he was feeling and he ended up stopping his life because of it.
ReplyDeleteAlso, I believe Huxley is commenting on the change that went on between the 1920’s and 1930’s. He writes from the extreme perspective that the elimination of pain and imperfection leads to the lack of social oversight. The roaring twenties were a time when economic prosperity was widespread around the world after World War I and nobody thought about the consequences of our actions. People would spend money and live life how they wanted to, satisfying their immediate needs. Toward the end of the 1920’s and into the 1930’s, there was a global economic depression and it made people realize that life is not all just glamorous and easy, as it may have seemed.
Scott K.
In response to Tanya M-
ReplyDeleteI agree with what you are saying. Although comfort is an important part of human life, it is not the main purpose. Feeling comfortable does not lead to true happiness because there was no grief experienced as well. Happiness comes when we look back and realize how hard we worked to achieve it, not by it just being given to us. The moments we remember are usually the ones with the most emotion and it is these moments and emotions that make life special, worth living. After John Savage’s mother died, he remembered painful memories of his mom with Popé, but also happy memories of his mom singing him songs. It is these emotion-filled memories that remind us that we have done something in our lives. Going off what you said about love, people long for the feeling to be loved; some people even die for it. But how can we know the feeling of love if we have never been heartbroken? It is these kinds of questions that Huxley implants in our heads to teach us that keeping the pain in our lives really has its benefits.
- Julia H.
The reason John commits suicide at the end of Brave New World is that the society provides him with no motivation to achieve. All individuals, from intellectuals to basic workers, are driven by the desire to better some aspect of their life. Scientists search for a solution to a disease, while a factory worker seeks a promotion to a task more stimulating. If the need for this constant self-improvement is gone, there is no need to live, because there is no sense of personal achievement. The society in the book does not allow for this basic human need. It stifles the pursuits of society's intellectuals by threatening them with exile and not allowing a purpose for their work, as I mentioned in my post on the last topic. It also destroys the motivation of individuals in lower positions in society, however, because it engineers them to not feel any motivation. If the people in the lowest factory jobs are happy being there due to alcohol in their vial, they will never push for more greatness. John, having grown up outside of the society, recognizes the lack of struggle to achieve, the fact which ultimately leads to his demise.
ReplyDeleteIn response to Tanya M.
ReplyDeleteYour post made me recall Nietzsche's argument that suffering is integral to the appreciation of life. The main concept behind this argument is one of preoccupation with comfort. We need suffering to appreciate the good in life, so that we have some basis to value emotions against. What's more, if we take steps to eliminate suffering, it takes up time and energy that could be spent enjoying what one has. This is clearly a problem in the Brave New World society. Tons of energy is devoted to the promotion of comfort that one has to wonder what these people are missing out on based on the way they allocate their time. Many of the higher caste people in society work manipulating the lower castes, and it causes me to wonder what good could be created if these intellectual members of society used their time enjoying something emotionally and not to mitigate emotion.
In response to Connor-
ReplyDeleteI agree that we need imperfections and evils to grow as a society. As we saw in BNW, society seemed to almost regress in our eyes due to the removal of these necessary evils. To control everything removes the freedom of choice, which moves our society forward. What if Thomas Edison was genetically modified to be content with what he had? He would have never invented the light bulb. Without freedom and emotion, we are removing a huge part of our life. We cannot move forward as a society without defects. Defects allow us to see how we can move forward. To move forward, we need freedom of choice.
I believe that John’s death shows the reader that a society like Brave New World may bring peace but it does not bring happiness. The people of Brave New World are content because they have not experienced joy or pain. However, John argues that he would rather experience pain to enjoy happiness then to not have any pain but not have happiness too. To enjoy something you most feel pain first and this is sometimes what makes the joy so great. If anything a Brave New World tells us that a world with pain and happiness is better then one that contains none to little emotion at all.
ReplyDeleteIn response to Natasha
ReplyDeleteI do not agree with Natasha that the main reason John killed himself is that there is a lack of motivation to move forward or achieve a goal in the people of BNW. I believe the biggest problem that John has with BNW is that there is none to little emotion. John wants to feel pain so badly that he begins to punish himself. John does not care that the people of BNW lack motivation. Some people are perfectly fine with staying exactly where they are for the rest of their lives. You can have zero motivation and still enjoy life. However, without pain you can not really know what happiness is. Therefore, I would argue that John’s biggest problem of BNW is the lack of emotion.
In response to Scott K,
ReplyDeleteI agree that there were many influences around the time period that Albert Huxley wrote Brave New World. With the roaring twenties occurring, many changes in society were concerning for many people. The idea of the traditional life was changing at an alarming rate, causing social distress between groups. With women becoming more independent and open about themselves, many people from the older generations were appalled by the change in how things used to be ran. We also can identify that only years later we witness Germany and their strive for a pure nation. The idea of weeding out the imperfections in their country and creating a dominant race doesn’t fall to far from the idea that the utopia in our book presented. The idea of creating an optimally perfect world was something that Hitler desired, and was willing to take. Nazi Germany had the idea of removing all imperfections, and even trying to engineer better people. So it seems that with the book Huxley was able to predict the future that our world was going in. It will be interesting to see if any of the predictions that he made for the society in his book will come true in our society at any time or place.
Connor B.
In response to what Tanya said up top...
ReplyDeleteI think Tanya's right on the spot. There is so much that the people of BNW aren't exposed to. The monotony of their life is due mostly to the lacking of opposites. They have no reason to act or feel the way they do, other than just to follow their norm. Their bliss is in their ignorance, and their souls are devoid of any true depth and essence. There has to be a cost for everything worthwhile in this world. Those items that John Savage mentions are elements that hold a close portion of the hearts of all humans and are linked to intense feelings, be them bad or good. The social stability of BNW is all for nothing without the elements of life that make it so pristine.
John C.
The death of John Savage at the end of the novel suggests the importance of emotions in humans as well as the idea that a stable community is not necessarily better. John emphasizes the idea that you cannot feel happiness without suffering and humans cannot fully understand certain things in life without dealing with the struggles that should come along with it. John was determined to hold onto his own values but with all the pressure from the society that he was now living in it was just too much for him to handle and decides that death is better than living in a society that does not even know how to express oneself. I think Huxley is trying to suggest that the consequence of a stable and conditioned society is a loss of the morals, values, and emotions that should come naturally to individuals.
ReplyDeleteMacKenzie L.
In response to Scott K.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Scott when he said that we cannot separate humans and emotions since emotions is what essentially make us human. The people in this society will never comprehend happiness since they cannot feel and express their emotions. They have been too conditioned and brainwashed to know any other way of life and now if they do come in contact with a problem they will just take soma to calm themselves. I like the connection that Scott made to the 1920s and 1930s to show how Huxley may have been warning future societies that good times will eventually come to an end. The roaring 20s came to end with the Great Depression illustrating to us that happiness and success may be followed by sadness and failure. Without the struggles in life we wouldn’t be able to grow as a society since we would never be able to learn from our mistakes that made it a failure in the first place. Overall, feeling happiness means nothing in life when that is all you have experienced. If you cannot even understand happiness because you have not been given the opportunity to feel anything else than you cannot fully understand the quality of life.
MacKenzie L.
The death of John Savage shows that the facade that represents the world in BNW is so omnipresent and ingrained in every aspect of this world that it is impossible to change the institutions at this point. The suicide lends further creedence to the point that society must correct the ills that would lead to the irrevokable state of affairs in BNW: material excess and a lack of morality. At this point, we may still be able to do something about it, but after some time, the trends will become permanent fixtures of society.
ReplyDeleteRajiv R
In response to Erik...
ReplyDeleteThe death of John is clearly an indicator of the lack of balance within the society. What would be considered normal now, a combination of a life filled with pain as well as pleasure, represents an outlier in this future. These people, such as John, and even Bernard to some extent, have no haven for their feelings, their yearning for more dimension and complexity in their lives. The story of John reminds me of the story within the song 2112 by the band Rush. After the main character discovers the beauty of music, which has been suppressed in the future society, and is subsequently denounced by the leaders of the society, he decides that not living is a better option than living in a world without music. I find this analogous to John not wanting to live in a world with out balance.
Rajiv R
"...the quantity of pleasure being equal, push-pin is as good as poetry." Jeremy Bentham
ReplyDeleteBut is it though? The people in the Brave New World are happy. Perhaps not perfectly so, but they are. They are comfortable. They are satisfied. They generally fit well in their positions and enjoy their work. They have many kinds of happiness. I'd go as far as to say that they have every kind of happiness... except the kinds that matter. Every base impulse is satisfied, but every higher impulse is neglected. They have food, but they don't have freedom. They have pleasure, but they don't have love. They have health, but they don't have life. Perhaps some people (Let's call them the Epsilon Semi-Morons) can be satisfied with just their base desires fulfilled, but the Bernard's, Helmholtz's, and John's of this world need more. There are two forms of happiness presented in this book. Those who live on the reservation have the ability to achieve higher pleasures, at the cost of an inability to achieve the baser pleasures. Those within "Civilization" are faced with the exact opposite situation. I think the most important question brought up by this book is whether these two forms of happiness are exclusive. Are we, either as individuals or as a society, forced to choose between higher and lower desires, or is it possible to achieve both?
Zach B.
In response to Erik:
ReplyDeleteI think your point is really important to the main question of the book. If utopia is impossible, then what situation would be ideal, if admittedly, not utopian? I believe the ideal society would be one which offers the benefits of each society, and thus, one in which the Savage could be happy.
In response to those who say it is impossible to know sadness without happiness etc.:
I think we need a language clarification here. True happiness, at least by what appears to be your definition(s) does not require happiness. If your confused... well, so am I. Happiness isn't the lack of sadness. It is something else entirely. If true happiness is a combination of the fulfillment of the base and higher desires, which Huxley seems to indicate if each society shown is only partially happy, then it suggests that the reason we believe the existence of sadness is inherent to the existence of happiness may be a bit more complex. I believe the reason lies within our higher desires. If humans have higher desire to, for example, help others, then if no one needs help the desire cannot be fulfilled. So the issue is not that without sadness we can't know happiness (it isn't difficult to know happiness... just ask Mr. Sanders if you can taste some of the English Dept.'s Bacon Supreme), the problem is that without some sadness, if not in the individual than at least in society, I don't think many of our higher desires can be fulfilled... hence unhappiness.
In response to Julia:
ReplyDeleteI have never thought of emotions in a relative sense before. It makes complete sense though that to have truly experienced happiness one must also have experienced sadness and etc. If it is true happiness to feel both emotions then, Brave New World shows us a flawed sense of happiness. Therefore, the citizens of Brave New World have never been truly happy in their life, just entranced in a soma stupor. Julia’s right that with pain comes happiness, and this is the point that John Savage was striving to get across to Mustapha Mond. In John’s death, he is affirming his believe that it is impossible to live in a world void of these emotions if you are capable of feeling them, and feeling them intensely.
Katelyn S.
I think that John's suicide can easily be said to have been a result of his frustration from his inability to convey his emotions to the society of the Brave New World, because they are bred to be complacent with the mediocrity that society provides. With everybody being absolutely satisfied in every aspect of their lives, albeit from their hypnopaedia, no one understands John's feeling of loss. Thus he takes his only possible escape route from BNW, where he could not live with the societal lack of emotion.
ReplyDeleteI think that John savage's death suggests that aldous huxley really doesn't know what the end game is to his view on the negatve possible aspects of progress. He conveys that there is no concrete solution to all the questions which he introduces throughout the book.
ReplyDeletePersonally I found the ending quite fitting. It stayed consistent with the stories overarching lack of hope and fit Huxleys pessism towards social and technological 'progress'.
In response to Zach:
ReplyDeleteFirst off, just to pick on you, if your confused or you're confused, I don't know either. (Perhaps you've been spending too much time using various messaging devices?)
On your point, however:
I would agree that a language clarification is needed, but maybe I would put it differently. Happiness can be divided into two types-one that is synonymous with complacency, akin to your "base desires," I think, and another that exists relative to sadness, similar to your "higher desires." My best metaphor would be one I think everyone can relate to. Let us say that we have some high schooler who is satisfied to simply attend school. Whether he fails or passes, he is still "happy." This is the state in which the people of BNW exist. On the other hand, if another student wishes for good grades, that A produces gratification because a C or D would have resulted in sadness. I think that this is comparable, then, to John-that should Lenina have truly loved him, then he would have been happy because he had experienced the loss from missing out on his previous crush on the reservation. Thus, this is the type of happiness which BNW so sorely lacks.
At the end of the novel, with the death of John Savage, Huxley is showing how we must have the pains in our life in order to fully develop. John's "radical" thinking and desire for libery and freedom were uncomprehended by the citizens of the utopia. The basis of what our country is built on was mocked by the citizens. John was unable to fit in to an utopian society since his creative thinking was hindered. As this book concluded, it personally made me appreciate how the bad days are there to teach us and allow us to grow.
ReplyDeleteFarah S.
I agree with the response Rajiv had to Erik. I know the song that Rajiv is referring to and find it very appropriate when talking about this subject. BNW relied heavily on the force of one power and one ideology, instead of the balance that we are exposed to in our lives. John knew he was missing something from his life. Decided to physically harm himself was his way of trying to feel what has been lacking. Lives in the BNW were never completely whole, they were very one sided leaving the citizens incomplete.
ReplyDeleteJohn Savage’s death has made me realize that emotions define us as humans. Emotions are the source of our ingenuity and the reason we continue to advance as a society. Without emotions, we would feel content with our place, and would have no reason to try to make our lives better. Emotions are also the source of our creativity. Our art, music, and movies are all the product of our emotions. Helmholtz Watson is the best example of this in the book because of his frustration with the lack of creativity in his job. I think that by taking away the ability to invent and be creative, the government in BNW was taking away much of its citizens humanity.
ReplyDelete-Andrew G
In response to Daniel
ReplyDeleteI agree with your point that in order to be truly happy you must know sadness. Reading your post me think about when the book was written and how context and intended audience could have affected Huxley’s message. The book was published in 1932 at the height of the Great Depression, which means that people were all too familiar with sadness and probably longed for a world without it. Europe was witnessing the rise of authoritarian states that seemed to exert and incredible amount of control over their citizen’s lives. This leads me to believe that this book was Huxley’s own way addressing the concerns of the time, and giving hope to the people.
-Andrew G
John's death at the end of BNW show how how necessary the extremes are for us to succeed and be happy. John is incapable of conveying his discontetnment with the "new world" because all of its inhabitants can not recognize pain and longing in the context that John is expressing it in. The people in BNW have been conditioned to think nothing of death and to instead concern themselves with immediate pleasure. They may seem happy, but do they really know true happiness when they have not experienced pain? I think the message that Huxley is getting across is that emotion is necessary for progress because with out both good and bad emotions, humans have nothing to drive themselves to achieve.
ReplyDeleteIn response to Zach and Andrew:
ReplyDeleteI completely agree with Zach when he says that happiness is a combination of "base desires" and "higher desires." As to whether or not they can coexist, I believe Maslow's hierarchy of needs can help. Maslow's hierarchy essentially says that in order for us to have our "higher desires" fulfilled, we must first have our "base desires" fulfilled. Huxley's society meets those "base desires" yet it is unable to develop further because the orchestrators of the society have eliminated the possibility of "higher desires" by eliminating the bad aspects of our current society as well as the good ones. In doing this they have created a sort of complacency among the people, thus eliminating the need to improve the society because everyone is (more or less) satisfied. Andrew says that our progress as humans is driven by the emotions we express--more specifically, the desire to eradicate negative emotions. Advancement is achieved not when those "higher desires" are met, rather it is achieved in the absence of those "higher desires."
Sarah K.
I think the takeaway message from John's death is this: society today costs us too little, and unless we make some changes, we may end up the same as the Brave New World he discovered. We live in a society based on instant gratification. Sure things cost money, but they really don't cost much emotionally. Consumerism has replaced the way in which we used to value things by telling us that we can easily replace things if they fail us or we grow bored with them. This is best reflected in Huxley's portrayal of sexuality in his dystopia. And because nothing takes on any worth any more, emotionally speaking people become self centered and impatient. This also leads to incredible greed and abuse of power. Really, it seems, unless we can correct the consumerism and instant gratification that is rampant in society we will be no better than the Brave New World.
ReplyDelete- Nathan F
In response to Scott K:
ReplyDeleteI totally agree with his analysis of the death of John the savage. I definitely think that there is a price to pay for covering up and concealing one's emotions. It may seem healthy or happier at first, but the end result is often misery. I think people often cover up their emotions because they are afraid of them, and do not want to face them. Ignoring your feelings is actually more harmful in the long-term. However, this is what the society in Brave New World tries to do. The end of the story is clearly Huxley’s criticism of the utopia he has created.
John the savage was not fooled by the mentality that overcoming unpleasant emotions and situations leads to a better world. He knows that you have to learn to appreciate the good things in life, that if there are no emotions or unpleasant situations you take everything for granted. Even though John lived in a place where he was an outcast, and conditions weren’t the greatest, he still acknowledges that his old life, where he knew to appreciate it, was better than the utopia where people are practically robots. The entire utopian society is brainwashed, stripped of their individuality, which prevents change.
ReplyDelete- Meg G
I also think that Huxley is alluding to the ignorance of the people of the world state when John dies at the end. The people think that they are happy and satisfied, but really are not aware of their surroundings. They don’t know what they are missing, and perhaps more importantly, what they avoid in the real world. John suffers from this dose of reality when he returns to his true self. In the end, he simply cannot deal with what he faces. I think that his anger at what he had experienced was also a factor. The mass of helicopters and the scrutiny of his self-whipping may have been the last straw for him.
ReplyDelete-Jeff M
I agree with Swathi that the people in the utopian society did not know happiness because there was nothing to measure their emotions against. If the people never really experience any variety of emotions, then they don’t know what happiness or sadness is. Even if they do experience it, such as when Bernard was feeling sad and outcast, they do not think of it as acceptable. There is not a range of emotions, simply that universal complacency in the society. I agree that Huxley is forewarning people on a future society like this with the death of John, who represented our current society; with real emotions, pain, suffering, and joy.
ReplyDelete-Meg G
Aldous Huxley's main point, which he makes through John Savage and the multiple reversals of current societal status quos, is that we cannot have good without bad. As a result of the citizens of the world state in Brave New World not know pain, sadness, hate, or disappointment, they have never felt the emotions of comfort, happiness, love, or success. Without standards by which they can compare and contrast their quality of life, the people of the Brave New World continue to rot in a world of mediocrity and falsely blissful ignorance. From John Savage's death, we learn that we must not only accept all of the negative emotions in our lives, but embrace them. Through embracing the low points of our lives, we can better appreciate the wonder that a life well lived can bring.
ReplyDeleteI think that what John is saying at the end to Mustapha Mond has to do with the disillusionment a purely scientific and mathematical society creates. I feel that when science and math are emphasized without any regard to literature nad human spirit, people get lost in a mechanical world where nothing particulary matters because damages and losses can be calculated just the same as gains. When he talks about needing tears for change, he is pushing toward the same goal as Malcome X to a certain extent. He is saying that to move the complacent you need to impassion them. You need the uncertainty of God and love, you need the fear that an imperfect society creates. William Faulkner said in his nobel prize speech "I decline to accept the end of man. I believe that man will not merely endure: he will prevail. He is immortal, not because he alone among creatures has an inexhaustible voice, but because he has a soul, a spirit capable of compassion and sacrifice and endurance." I think that Johns death also speaks to Faulkners definition of man. In Kafka's "The Trial," the main character is eventually taken in by a court system comparable to 1984 and Brave New World. After he is systematically killed, the executioner turns and says "Like a dog." That is what happens in the brave new world. People live hollow, passionless lives and eventually are put down. John, though, died a man, full of sound and fury.
ReplyDeleteIn response to Nathan F:
ReplyDeleteIt's certain that Aldous Huxley is trying to imply to the reader that there are some fundamental problems with society that could lead to the creation of a dystopia in the vein of the one shown to us in Brave New World. But I'm not so sure that Huxley believes we aren't sacrificing enough to keep society in a favorable position. Rather, I believe that he is trying to show his audience that we are sacrificing the wrong things in our society, and therefore creating a moral imbalance. We seem to be, in general, sacrificing hard work and effort and significance for instant gratitude. This removes motivation from our society and can cause harmful complacency. Huxley wants us to realize that we must sacrifice protection for both pain and happiness.
I think that John's death shows us that there is no perfect society. On the reservation, John has his problems with Pope, Linda, and Lenina when she comes. When he moves to the "new world," he still faces problems with Lenina and Linda. No matter what measures are taken, nothing can make a society perfect. I also feel as though it is implying that we should not force things to change, rather we should let them develop on their own. This includes all aspects of society: human growth, economy, death, relationships. John feels as though things are meant to happen on their own, and for those that we cannot explain, there is religion, a God to believe in that you can credit those occurrences to. When John is forced to live in a different world, change who is is and conform, he cannot do so, and becomes so frustrated that he ends up taking his own life.
ReplyDeleteamy j.
In response to Erik and Norman: After reading both of your posts, it clarified some of the answers to the questions we have discussed in class. One question is which world is Huxley trying to advocate here. Is he advocating the savage world or "civilization," something else, or even anything at all. I think Huxley is advocating some middle ground between the two worlds with John's death. Such extremes make it difficult for a person living in either community. I think Erik's right when he says John's death shows a need for balance between pleasure and pain. The citizens of the Brave New World are constantly in need of gratification, whether it's soma or sex when they're really young. In a much less extreme form, this relates to our use of technology where we need instant information. On the other hand, the savage reservation is an example of pain with the whipping and beatings that John described. Erik's point shows that Huxley is indirectly advocating a balance between the two. When we talked in class, it was not clear whether he was even advocating anything.
ReplyDeleteNorman's point about complacency connects Brave New World to our current discussion about complacency during the civil rights movement. I don't think it was necessarily John's inability to convey his emotions to the Brave New World that caused him to commit suicide. I think it was the fact that they didn't care. They enjoyed the ignorance. He could not find a way to move them into action. This is the question we are addressing in class now: what does it take to motivate the complacent? For me, it all ties into the ballot or the bullet. Take action, or face the death of freedom, individuality, character that comes with complacency. In John's case, face the true bullet.
I completely agree with Katelyn in the fact that real emotion is what leads to a better world. What is the purpose to life if there is nothing to struggle for? If there is nothing we are fighting for, nothing that we feel so strongly about, can we really be satisfied when it is given to us? John becomes very frustrated with the fact that the "new world" does not want to feel emotion, and avoids doing so by taking soma. We see him lose it when he blows up a the deltas and throws the soma out the window. In the end, we see him struggle with his feelings for Lenina, who he now sees as unpure, being somewhat scolded for showing emotion when his mother dies in front of the children being death conditioned, and watching people throw their real life and true feelings away with soma.
ReplyDeleteI feel as though Huxley is not only warning us that the monitoring of the control of the government is necessary in order to keep this emotion. Society cannot be run completely by given laws- it must be able to shift and change with society. The people begin to lose their own morals to the will of the government, creating a loss in all real emotion. In not surrendering his morals to the government, we witness John lose his identity anyways, to the point where it all becomes too much for him.
amy j.
The ultimate conclusion here is that life needs contrast. For order there must be disorder, for knowledge there must be the unknown, and for happiness there must be depression. John's suicide is because of his realization that he has become a product of society, his biggest fear. Perhaps he feels that his great search for the truth can end in death. Lenina was symbolic of his largest temptation to be drawn into society again and upon her visitation and his unceasing attraction to her, he realizes that the society which he hates so bitterly is inescapable. He escapes in death. has he upheld goal to seek out truth? has he accomplished his goals? well, it can at least be said that he pursued his dreams, but he did not hold onto his beliefs. can a society like that truly stop all turbulence in their system (John Savages? Will it ever swing back to normal? Huxley hopes we wont have to find out.
ReplyDeleteIn the end, John is defeated. he has made as little progress as his enemy society.
I really agree with something that Amy said:I also feel as though it is implying that we should not force things to change, rather we should let them develop on their own. I think that this is a beautiful conclusion to the book. Alongside the other conclusions about contrast in life, unknowns, ambiguities, along with the other lessons Huxley teaches about values and morals, he offers this las tb it of advice. It is almost a guide to his case. Follow this course, but not too hastily, you cannot seek it too eagerly, you must let it happen naturally. Quite fitting in the end of Brave New World.
ReplyDeleteThe death of John Savage at the end of Brave New World is a metaphor for the death of traditional and conservative ideas in a world that is technologicaly advanced to the point of almost perfect sttability. John's last few words exemplify how the hardships and attachments of life are what make a life beautiful and worthy of living. Although this society is supposedly stable and comfortable for all of its inhabitants, John's quotes show how scientific progress has turned the society into a shallow and joyless place to live. In the end, John, the representation of old-world ideals, can not survive, and longs for the things that made the uncivilized society so special: love, excitement, and hardship.
ReplyDeleteIn response to Erik...
ReplyDeleteI believe Erik makes a good point in mentioning John's outcasted status in both of the world's he lived in. On the reservation, he doesn't fit in do to his status as being the son of a Londoner, yet in London he can't fit in because he was not raised the way that everyone else was raised, and can't enjoy the hedonistic lifestyle that the Londoners live. So on the one hand, he suffers on the reservation due to his parentage, and on the other hand, the excesssive pleasure-seeking drives him away from London due to his upbringing. No matter where John goes, he will never truly fit in, so from this we see that we need a balance of hardship and pleasure in order to live a truly fulfilling life.
The events preceding John's death included him giving into the suggestions of the masses of people who gathered outside his home. His actions were conformed by the societey he hated. John often whipped himself for his lack of continuing to remember his mother's death. He took her death very seriously. When, I think, John killed Lenina he was overcome with extreme dissapointment that he caused death, something that has caused him so much grief, that instead of whipping himself for his actions, he viewed it as a sin worthy of his own death. I think he realized that he will never be completely free while alive and that death is his only way out. We can conlude that we can never escape the society that we live in just as John couldn't. Also, that it does have a real influence on our actions, just as it did on John's. And John concluded that the only way to completely free ourselves from the society and its' influences is through death.
ReplyDeleteLuke M.
In response to Ben Y.
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed your view that John represents old civilezed things and that his death is a representation that old-world ideals cannot survive. But what if John had newer-world ideals. He still would have been outcast and probably ended up with the same outcome. It doesn't matter what his ideals were, it's that they were different than what his society wanted. Plain and simply, John died the way he did because he was different. He thought different and acted different. The same is often true in our society. Don't people who act and think different often get outcast or even killed? We were just talking about Malcom X in class. Didn't he get killed because he stood up for something that the white society at the time did not like, or what about Martin Luther King Jr. Is our society really that different then the one in Brave New World?
Luke M.
John’s death really brings up two major points. I believe in John saying “I want God, I want poetry, I want real danger, I want freedom, I want goodness, I want sin” all brings together the idea that a utopian society is unattainable. Which ties into my second point, that it is impossible to ever be perfect and have a perfect society. As John shows, you must have the good in order to have the bad. Life is not easy for John either at the reservation or in the new world. However, the reservation allowed things to change. It allowed a regular and normal course of action to occur while in the new world, events were forced. There was very little normalcy in the new world for John. Society cannot force perfection on those who live in it. There are so many events that should come naturally to a person. Birth should be a sacred moment in life, not a procedure that is done in a laboratory. If the death of John is to show us one thing, it is that we should be who we want to be. We need to be free to express ourselves in the ways we feel best.
ReplyDeleteThomas G.
In Response to Nikhil:
ReplyDeleteNikhil brings up a great question: “But what is happiness without emotion?” John struggling in societies with major emotional differences resulted in serious consequence. Happiness is something that everyone in the new world believes they have. However, John knows that the society is completely emotionless. They don’t know the negative side of everything. They do not know the true happiness that John has felt before. I believe as John has seen the rest of the world, he is both disgusted and confusion. He knows that the new world is never going to become what is really should be. However, he does not know how to change the world. So, John chooses to remove himself completely from the situation, and kills himself. The result of the lack of emotions in the society leads John to his final destination.
Thomas G.
John’s death advises us to not take any of our freedoms for granted, and to express them so as to stake our claim as separate from society. John has had nearly all his freedoms taken away from him, and so to stake his claim he must express his one last freedom- killing himself. He must do this to because he feels what I believe to be a fundamental human need- the need to somehow be different. Yes, we must belong to a community, and perhaps we must give up some differences to be a part of that community. But never are we forced to give up all of our differences. We always retain some part of ourselves that is uniquely our own. In BNW, this is not possible: No one can express his differences, in any form. John, however, dares to be different. Unfortunately the only way to do this is by taking his own life. His death reminds us to cherish our individualism, even in the face of the immense pressure to conform.
ReplyDeleteTim R.
Through John Savage's death, Huxley shows the need for balance in the world. You cannot live without dying. You cannot know love without knowing hate. John says he does not want comfort, expressing that a world where everything is at one level is not a world where anyone can know happiness. The good and the bad in life balance each other out, and the different levels are what make life worth living. John dies at the end of the book as an example of how society can never fully escape conflict in life. People are not invincible or immortal, and death is a part of life. As John dies in the end, society also deteriorates in realization that the world is not perfect, because there will always be some form of conflict.
ReplyDeleteI wholeheartedly agree with Andrew’s response to Nathan. I believe that reading BNW reminds us appreciate those things that have been left out of Huxley’s dystopia. The most obvious that comes to my mind is meaningful relationships. In Huxley’s world, all relationships have been degraded to the their most immature, most mindless level. There are no families, no true lovers. For us, these people are some of the most important things we have. They are some of the people who give us the most pain and the most happiness. But, despite the pain that such close relationship may bring, our worlds would be empty without them. I would much rather have important people and things in my life than because the happiness that they bring me will far outweigh any pain they bring me.
ReplyDeleteTim R.
I think that a main conclusion that can be drawn about the Brave New World Society is that one has to be completly ignorant to live in it. Bernard, as the psychologist knows exactly how the government manipulates everything in people and he is extremely unhappy in the society. John Savage cannot feels like he has sinned just by experiencing the "civilized" culture because he has seen what life can be like in other cultures and he ends up hanging himself. And Linda experiences the savage culture and the reason she wants to come back to civilization is just so she can have her drugs and spends the rest of her life heavily using the soma never coming out to interact with others.
ReplyDeleteMax B.
I completly agree with Tim. I find it unlikely that John Savage only killed himself due to unhappiness. If that was his only reason for suicide, I feel he would have done it long ago, most likely around the time he threw all the soma out of the window. John Savage was grabbing for freedom. He was not very happy on the reservation. He was shunned by his community because he was viewed as an outsider and the son of a whore. However, he never would commit suicide because at least he had his freedoms. Had his freedoms been stripped from him he probably would have ventured down the same path.
ReplyDeleteMax B.
I agree with what TIm wrote about the human need to be different, and that individualism is an important part of being human. However, John Savage seems to be a minority. In BNW, most of the people are accepting of the conformity in society, mostly because they don't know what it's like to be different or to have freedom to express new ideas. These people are not necessarily happy, just comfortable with this lifestyle. They have never known true freedom. I think that John is an example of a contrast between restriction and freedom that the society of BNW tried to eliminate. Because he has known freedom, and his freedoms are taken away, he knows the pain that the rest of society can't see, because they can't relate. But he couldn't know that pain without having experienced real freedom and real happiness. The tragedy of it is that he can no longer have that freedom, and because of that, no longer wants to live.
ReplyDeleteIt's clear that the conclusion in BNW is that perfect societies can never exist. In life, you need emotions. There were no emotions in the city. It was just a perfect society going through the same steps day to day. John shows us that this cannot be accomplished. Although it looks good on paper, there always needs to be some "bad" in a society. There needs to be balance. You can't just have a fully "happy" society. This is the advice we can get from the society in BNW.
ReplyDelete-Mike M.
response to Tim R.
ReplyDeleteI completely agree with Tim. The freedoms that we have must be used to distinguish ourselves from others. In a society with no uniqueness, it doesn't work out because every person is the same as the next. There is one thing I disagree with in Tim's case however. I don't think John killed himself just to be different. I think he realized that the world that he was in just wasn't worth living in. It was just a world where everybody pretended to be happy and everybody was the same. This is the true reason he killed himself.
-Mike M.
When talking to Mustapha Mond, Mond makes the comment that “our Ford himself did a great deal to shift the emphasis from truth and beauty to comfort and happiness.” (pg 228) Although ultimately this helps create a more stable society it promotes one that is superficial. John is looking for something that is real, something that isn’t artificially produced. Emotion, as has been noted numerous times, is absent from the modern society in BNW. Real emotions have been replaced with synthetic emotion, primarily through the use of soma. However, the reality that John is searching for lies within real emotion. Without real emotion it is not possible to create poetry or see beauty because these are all products of emotion. By drawing attention to this Huxley is making the argument that emotions are part of the human experience.
ReplyDeleteLauren S.
I liked Trevors comment on how Lenina is symbolic of Johns temptation to be drawn into society. It explains a good deal of the frustration and anger he experiences when dealing with her and his attraction to her. I think this speaks to how as society changes, and new technologies and social norms arise, there will always be those who resist and insist that traditional values hold people up to a greater ethical standard, but in the end, to a certain degree, that change is inescapable and even those most opposed to it will succumb to it.
ReplyDelete-Ben P.
In response to Ben P.
ReplyDeleteI agree that when a society focuses strictly on science and math they tend to focus too much on that which is purely logical. Human elements are ignored because these elements, like emotion, tend to defy logic. I also agree with your statement that “to move the complacent you need to impassion them.” People who are comfortable with their current situations won’t necessarily want change. By inciting emotion they are more likely to want to change because emotions tend to incite action. This is one of the issues in BNW. Without any true emotions the people feel neither happy nor unhappy. Therefore they have no incentive to want the world around them to change.
Lauren S.
I think John’s death is Huxley telling us that those who do not assent with the majority will be ridiculed until they die. John is an outsider because he values things that are important to him alone. Unlike the people of the World State who believe everyone belongs to each other, John just wants to have himself. Basically if you don’t allow society to shape you, then you no longer belong to society. John tried to leave by going to the lighthouse, but people just followed him there. Suicide was the only way John could get away from the society that wouldn’t give him peace.
ReplyDelete-Andy H.
In response to Trevor…
ReplyDeleteI think Trevor brings up a great point in equating Lenina as the force which pulls John towards society. For a long time John was quite enamored by the pneumatic Lenina, in fact it wasn’t until she tried to have sex with John when he realized she was corrupting his perception. It is implied at the end of the story that John actually kills Lenina, which is intriguing. It is at this time then that John breaks his courtship to society. However, still feel that the reason John needed to kill himself was because he found it necessary in order for him to get away from society.
-Andy H.
I don't think John's death was a result of his unpleasant emotions, his God, or his poetry. John seemed very rational to me (until the end of the book where he kind of lost his mind), and I think his eventual downfall was not because of his own emotions and beliefs, but due to the lack of other's understanding. As social creatures, it is necessary for humans to interact. We need the support and love of others to love and support ourselves, as sad as that may sound. Our lives are essentially dependant on others and, while it is true that we can choose the types of people whose opinions we value and surround ourselves with, we ultimately need someone there for us. Thanks to Mustapha's "experiment" John was left with no support system, poked and prodded by people who shared no common ground with him and gave him no support. In the end, I think the biggest problem was not whether or not John had emotions: those who were brainwashed and oblivious were just as happy as those on the islands who had true emotions, but whether they had a network of similar people around them. John's death points to what is possibly the biggest problem in BNW: the experimentation and trivialization of human life. Our biggest problems result not from believing in God, but in playing God.
ReplyDeleteCaroline F.
The universial conformity that John has witnessed throughout the novel has been boiling up inside of him up until the very end. He sees how emotionless and disheartening the new world he lives in is and how unbearable the lifestyle he is part of is. As Caroline previously stated "our biggest problems result not from believing in God, but in playing God," this statement sums up how I feel about the lifestyle and ideals of the community in BNW as well. I feel like Mustapha's experimentation and lack of regard for others (especially John) lead to John's demise. John had no where to turn, and that ultimately put him over the edge.
ReplyDeleteDavid L.
So... after thinking about BNW for the better part of a 3 hour plane ride / a flight delay of 1 day, 6 hours, and 30 minutes or so...
ReplyDeleteI think my original statement was flawed. I think that some sadness is not a required part of true happiness. Sadness and happiness are opposites, and should remain so. However, some level of instability is necessary to fulfill our higher desires. As Mond said, instability must exist for heroism to be possible. Helmholtz also recognized this, as he commented that he'd rather live in a stormy environment because it would be easier to write there. If this is true, then it means the elimination of all sadness is a valuable goal, if sought after properly. Ultimate happiness could be the central value of a "successful" utopia, but only in the truest sense of the word. This means that in order for the Brave New World to have been successful, many of the actions that were taken to eliminate sadness could've been put to use without destroying or ruining society. Only the changes that were geared towards ensuring the maximum level of stability were significantly flawed. I'm not sure if there is a clear way to distinguish the concepts, and perhaps it could be argued that every reduction in sadness corresponds to an increase in stability. This seems to make a number of the distinctions between the "good" and "bad" uses of technology in BNW. There would be a pretty simple test to determine whether the specific use of technology was desirable: if it increased happiness more than it increased stability.