Brave new world -- 2007
M. Orhan Tarhan
October 18, 2007
Aldous Huxley’s book “Brave New World” was an utopia first published in 1932. It described a society existing “700 years after Ford”, that produced its people, not by sex, as it is still usual now a days, but by mass incubation of human eggs (?) . The society consisted of four working classes and a master class. Each class was prepared differently in the incubators, giving less intelligence to the working classes.
The TIME editor that prefaced the TIME edition of “Brave New World” in 1963 found that “Life has imitated Huxley’s art” and many unusual ideas of the book have already been applied. Living 75 years after Huxley’s publication, I found a few more new examples of “Life imitating Huxley’s Art”. Here they are:
I have been wondering why the American public education was planned by John Dewey for working classes such as miners without teaching them how to think. Obviously Dewey was following Huxley’s ideas that working classes did not need much intelligence. In a great nation such as ours there are always enough unusual intelligent people who succeed to go to universities in spite of the public education and those eventually constitute the master class. In spite of the on and off outcry about the low quality of the public education, over the years, American governments failed to improve that quality. Is it thinkable that a nation that sends a man to the moon and back may not be capable of fixing its public education? Well, did American governments really “fail” or have they chosen the example of the Brave New World and left the low quality education in place on purpose?
The corporations are not interested in having the public too smart, because then the people would see through the advertisements and would not swallow all the garbage in the media. That would affect their sales. Thus, the corporations would not encourage any improvement of the public education either.
There are some amazing examples of purposeful weakening of a country, like the working classes in the Brave New World, in order to dominate it easily, and exploit it. The support of Europe and the United States of the religious AKP party in Turkey is pushing the Turkish society backwards from a secular, modernistic, and survivable state to a religious, anachronistic, and non-survivable state. There is no other logical explanation of the support of an Islamist party in an allied country. Unfortunately, the Turks who are supposed to live by the principles of Ataturk, are not numerous enough, smart enough, and organized enough to successfully stand against this weakening of their country.
It seems that we will not have to wait until 700 years after Ford to see some part of the
Brave New World. to become reality.
The TIME editor that prefaced the TIME edition of “Brave New World” in 1963 found that “Life has imitated Huxley’s art” and many unusual ideas of the book have already been applied. Living 75 years after Huxley’s publication, I found a few more new examples of “Life imitating Huxley’s Art”. Here they are:
I have been wondering why the American public education was planned by John Dewey for working classes such as miners without teaching them how to think. Obviously Dewey was following Huxley’s ideas that working classes did not need much intelligence. In a great nation such as ours there are always enough unusual intelligent people who succeed to go to universities in spite of the public education and those eventually constitute the master class. In spite of the on and off outcry about the low quality of the public education, over the years, American governments failed to improve that quality. Is it thinkable that a nation that sends a man to the moon and back may not be capable of fixing its public education? Well, did American governments really “fail” or have they chosen the example of the Brave New World and left the low quality education in place on purpose?
The corporations are not interested in having the public too smart, because then the people would see through the advertisements and would not swallow all the garbage in the media. That would affect their sales. Thus, the corporations would not encourage any improvement of the public education either.
There are some amazing examples of purposeful weakening of a country, like the working classes in the Brave New World, in order to dominate it easily, and exploit it. The support of Europe and the United States of the religious AKP party in Turkey is pushing the Turkish society backwards from a secular, modernistic, and survivable state to a religious, anachronistic, and non-survivable state. There is no other logical explanation of the support of an Islamist party in an allied country. Unfortunately, the Turks who are supposed to live by the principles of Ataturk, are not numerous enough, smart enough, and organized enough to successfully stand against this weakening of their country.
It seems that we will not have to wait until 700 years after Ford to see some part of the
Brave New World. to become reality.