...these feelings, Huxley wrote one of his best works, Brave New World, in 1931. Brave New World is a dystopian novel that takes place in a futuristic setting where extensive improvements to science and technology has created a world that is foreign to all readers. Throughout Huxley’s adult life, his interpretations of Henry Ford and the...
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...council president and acted in several school productions. He graduated in 1932 and then worked as a radio sports announcer in the state of Iowa. 8. President Reagan was able to reduce social programs and place restrictions on businesses. He also lowered taxes in order to help the economy get stronger. He also increased military spending while reducing some social programs and measures to increase business. In 1981, President Reagan elected Sandra Day O’Connor as the first woman to the U.S. Supreme Court. 9. President Reagan declared Russia (Soviet Union) as an “Evil Empire” and ordered additional U.S. weapons and troops. He began the “Reagan Doctrine” which assisted people in Africa, Asia and Latin America in fighting against communism. He also sent 800 U.S. Marines into Lebanon in 1982, as part of an international peacekeeping force; however in October 1983, suicide bombers attacked...
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...a seemingly perfect world is often anything but. Every utopia has its flaws and cracks, and few novels make this point more clearly than Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World. The futuristic setting of the story exposes the reader to a world dominated by technology and complacency. People are no longer born; they are made in laboratories all around the world, and have their destinies chosen for them before they even leave their test tube. Sexuality is treated in a very flippant manner, and self-gratification is the primary driving force for the actions of nearly every single person. History is no longer relevant, and people never question what they are told. The key question regarding the nature of this kind of world is a question to which the answer is yet unknown. The question is something any reader of this novel should ask himself or herself, and that is simply this: Is it worth it? There is no crime rate, and peoples’ desires are rarely left unfulfilled, but is it worth the giving up of free will and of choice? There is no clear answer to this question, and there will likely never be one. Although this question has no obvious answer, the logic behind this world is fairly easy to understand. Perhaps Aldous Huxley himself summarizes it best in Brave New World Revisited when he states, “Permanent crisis justifies permanent control of everybody and everything by the agencies of the central government. And permanent crisis is what we have to expect in a world in which over-population...
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...Dystopia, We by Evgeniy Zamiatin and Brave New World by Aldous Huxley, these influences are crucial for the development, the understanding in the context of the period, and the impact on the literary field. In this essay we will try to analyze the social, historical and cultural context of both novels,...
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...The Life and Death of Aldous Huxley Through examining Brave New World, one can infer that Aldous Huxley’s fears of the demise of today’s consumer society, rise in use of technology, and reliance on religion entitled him to express his concerns. From his experiences in Italy under an authoritarian government headed by Mussolini to his late life in California, Mr. Huxley always, “played the role of a critical observer of accepted tradition, customs, social norms, and ideals.”(www.egs.com) Aldous Huxley was born July 26, 1894 in Godalming in southern England into a very successful and scientific family. His father was a school teacher/writer, two of his three brothers were scientist, and his grandfather had been nicknamed “Darwin’s Bulldog”...
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...If Brave New World was Aldous Huxley's technocratic purgatory, Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-four describes a hell beyond Huxley's worst fears. Compare and contrast the two novels as visions of a future that has gone dramatically wrong. Brave New World and 1984 were both written by men who had experienced war on the grand scale of the twentieth century. Disillusioned and alarmed by what they saw in society, each author produced a powerful satire and an alarming vision of future possibilities. Although the two books are very different, they address many of the same issues in their contrasting ways. Huxley's novel sets out a world in which society is kept carefully balanced, with the means of reproduction just as closely controlled as the means of production. Human beings and the goods they make are tailored to one another: people are created in order to fulfil particular purposes, and are encouraged to consume so as to maintain the cycle. The society presented in 1984 is less comfortably balanced. The population is kept content with a rather meagre lot because of the constant war, which, as is explicitly stated in the Book, is a convenient means of maintaining the status quo, and the Party keeps a very close watch on those members of society who are deemed capable of disrupting it. Although set in Orwell's future, 1984 does not put great emphasis on technological advance—indeed, within the society of Oceania, there is effectively none any more, because the methods required for...
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...Phoenix University History 135 Instructor, Student, Assignment: Significant events in the decades after World War II Due date, Preface Americans faced many challenges in their lives; challenges on a variety of fronts shattered the American consensus. In the 50s, African Americans launched a crusade, joined later by other minority groups and women, for a larger share of the American dream. In the 60s, politically active students protested the nation's role abroad, particularly in the corrosive war in Vietnam, and a youth counterculture challenged the status quo of American values. Americans from many walks of life sought to establish a new equilibrium in the United States, the following time synopsis will shed some light on turning points in our American history. * 1940s, Civil Rights, a time for change. Harry Truman supported the civil rights movement. He believed in political equality, though not in social equality, and recognized the growing importance of the black urban vote. When apprised in 1946 of lynching’s and other forms of mob violence still practiced in the South, he appointed a committee on civil rights to investigate discrimination based on race and religion. The report, issued the next year, documented blacks' second-class status in American life. It asserted the need for the federal government to secure the rights guaranteed to all citizens. Truman responded by sending a 10-point civil rights program to Congress. When Southern Democrats...
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...concepts. There is usually a figurehead or a comparable concept that is worshipped by the populace. Citizens are perceived, whether they truly are or not, to be under constant surveillance by the authorities. There is also a strong sense of nationalism and citizens have a fear of the outside world and those that are outside their bubble. The society is generally stratified socially, economically, and politically causing a majority of inhabitants to live in a dehumanized state. For almost everyone except the protagonist, the society is a perfect utopian world. The melting away of this illusion is the journey a dystopian novel usually takes the reader. I can see these echoes of similarity between We and the many other great works of dystopian science-fiction such as Brave New World, Fahrenheit 451 and, for this discussion, Orwell‘s novel 1984. Both stories depict a post-apocalyptic world that has come into existence after a nuclear war has realigned the all of the previous geographic, political and social boundaries of the “old world”. Both stories are told by a government bureaucrat of sorts, living in a peculiar, yet glorious, futuristic society. Both describe an insipid world where the desire for consistency, social order, and reverence had crushed almost any reminisce of true humanity, individual freedom, or emotion. Consequently, the fellow citizens of these societies have become warped, brainwashed caricatures of human beings and their interactions resemble that...
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...Inaugural address George W. Bush state this: Quote: The enemies of liberty and our country should make no mistake: America remains engaged in the world by history and by choice, shaping a balance of power that favors freedom. And to all nations, we will speak for the values which gave our nation birth. President George H. W. Bush said this in his 1989 inaugural address: While keeping our alliances and friendships around the world strong, ever strong, we will continue the new closeness with the Soviet Union, consistent both with our security and with progress. One might say that our new relationship in part reflects the triumph of hope and strength over experience. But hope is good, and so are strength and vigilance. President Barack Obama Inaugural address of 2009 spoke about Balance of Power in this way: Recall that earlier generations faced down fascism and communism not just with missiles and tanks, but with the sturdy alliances and enduring convictions. They understood that our power alone cannot protect us, nor does it entitle us to do as we please. Historians see two great ages of balance of power, from 1648 to 1789 and again from 1814 to 1914. An historic context of balance of power is The Thirty Years War, mostly fought in Germany, pitted Catholics against Protestants and was the bloodiest in the history until World War II. By the time it was settle in 1648 with the peace of Westphala, Europe’s monarchs had had enough bashing each other and so constructed a balance-of-power...
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...At the time his novel was written, the World War II was over but still in the mind of a traumatized population in a economically exhausted Europe as The Cold War stated from two years[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cold_War]. The World was economically and politically divided in two systems: the capitalism ruled in the Western part of the world and the communism in the Eastern part. However, a monetary crisis was lying in United Kingdom and annunciated hard times. The popular classes’ discontent was growing because of the hardships due to the bad after war economy and an apparent military and political mismanagement. The people felt that those issues kept their society from evolving. G. Orwell dreamed of a social revolution that would free the population. He was inspired by the situation and then wrote his novel 1984, depicting what he thought the world would become. According to him, a nuclear war was coming soon. His novel takes place in nineteen eighty four, thirty years after the end of this nuclear war. England became Oceania and society totalitarian, modeled on Stalinism and Fascism. The country is ruled by Big Brother – an inexistent God-like figure invented by “The Party” – and...
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...artist. So far through the film, we see how the communism is interpreted as the best political system in the world, and how honorable it is to serve the communist party. And when Li was chosen to leave for the US for 3months as a student in Houston Ballet Academy a committee was discussing whether Li is “politically ready to resist the capitalistic influence” and to stay loyal to China. This is another example of how seriously a life can depend on others’ decisions. I liked his naive interest and wonder when he already was in America gazing at “the new world”. Everything there was yet uncovered for him and the difference between Western and Eastern cultures was highlighted. The most shocking discovery to him was the freedom; especially freedom of speech, for instance, that people could express their dislike for the president without fear. It’s important that others support and believe in us, as Ben did to Li when he confidently trusted the part of Don Quixote, although he just had three hours to prepare. Moreover, Li was brave enough to take the risk, and this is one of the best lessons in life: “the higher risk you take, the higher the return might be”. He managed it, and the golden period of his career started. The next point is the way the world sees and imagines the inner political conditions of China. I noticed this topic when Li explains that China is not that wonderful as Ben sees it. This was a message to the outer world that there are real problems and negative things...
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...These ideologies play a key role in the ways that control is presented in each novel. The governments use different forms of control to maintain their regimes and power and these include: indoctrination through control of hierarchy, language and religion. The governments act as totalitarian regimes which constantly monitor the lives of its citizens to keep them under their control. Orwell took inspiration from the plight of Britain during the time the novel was written; 1948. Britain had just come out of a horrifying war that devastated the world - World War Two - and her economy and overseas relations were in deep water. Britain’s economy was at its lowest in decades and very unstable; her Empire was dissolving in to the common wealth and international relations were quickly turning sour. Similarly to The Handmaids Tale, Nineteen Eighty-Four warns against governments’ overwhelming acquirement of power. Orwell himself was well-versed in the world of politics and strategies deployed by governments to gain control. He was also a traditional man and detested modernisation and the rapid growth that technology was experiencing and this clear in his unnerving use of the fictitious “telescreens” used to watch over the citizens in Air Strip One. In both cases novels there is a strict hierarchy. In The Handmaids Tale the class system is more complex than in Nineteen Eighty-Four. The hierarchy is as follows: Commanders, Angels,...
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...Minsk Minsk is a very special city in the history of Jewish people of the 20’s century because of it’s historical location at the heart of the Pale of Settlement, region of Imperial Russia, beyond which Jews were allowed permanent residency. Minsk became a historic Jewish center centuries before the establishment of the Soviet Union. Comprising of almost half of the city’s population by the beginning of the 20’s century, Jews played an important role in the political, economical and social life of Minsk. Unlike everywhere else in Europe during the Second World War, Jews in Minsk actively collaborated with local Byelorussian Partisan Movement in resistance against Nazis, hence an incredible number of people were able to escape the fate in ghettos. Jewish population dropped from 90.000 in 1941 to 38.000 right after the War. The first and the only memorial of the Holocaust in the Soviet Union was erected in Minsk immediately after World War II. Nevertheless, the Soviet regime remained hostile to Jewry, unofficially promoting overt anti-Semitism and creating discriminatory conditions. When the gates were open, most Jews immigrated to Israel and the United States. After the dissolution of the Soviet Union, around 10,000 Jews remained in Minsk according to census information. Contemporary Jewish organizations in Belarus estimate the Jewish population of Minsk to be around 20,000 people due to the fact that a lot of Jews felt comfortable to reveal their identity in a newly formed country...
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...Nazi Party, soon becoming one of it's leaders. In 1923, he tried an overthrow in Munich to seize power in Bavaria, a step necessary to the control of Germany. The revolt was terminated quickly; sending Hitler to prison for nine months. Hitler used his trial to gain national political notoriety and used his time in prison to write his memoir, Mein Kampf. The sales of the book/memoir made him a very wealthy man, though he hid that fact from the German people. After being released, Hitler restructured the Nazi Party, making it a new political force. By June of 1932, it had grown to being the biggest political party in German Parliament, the Reichstag. Though Hitler lost the 1932 presidential election to war hero Field Marshal Paul Von Hindenburg, he was able to use the power of the Nazi Party and its popularity among conservative voters to negotiate an appointment for himself as Chancellor of Germany in January 1933. His ideas of antisemitism, anti-communism and a purity-of-the-Germanic-race ideology found widespread acceptance in Germany and elsewhere. Motives Hitler's motives, to anyone looking close enough, were very clear cut: Kill the Jews. The Jews, according to Hitler were maggots, a virus that had to be eliminated. Hitler saw himself as the German Messiah doing God’s work by destroying the Jew. Let us not forget that all people with three or...
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...Big Business Corporatism Versus Free Market Capitalism Right now, there is a lot of talk about the evils of “capitalism”. But it is not really accurate to say that we live in a capitalist system. Rather, what we have in the United States today, and what most of the world is living under, is much more accurately described as “corporatism”. Under corporatism, most wealth and power is concentrated in the hands of giant corporations and big government is used as a tool by these corporations to consolidate wealth and power even further. In a corporatist system, the wealth and power of individuals and small businesses is dwarfed by the overwhelming dominance of the corporations. Eventually, the corporations end up owning almost everything and they end up dominating nearly every aspect of society. As you will see below, this very accurately describes the United States of America today. Corporatism is killing this country, and it is not what our founding fathers intended. Corporatism is actually not too different from socialism or communism. They are all “collectivist” economic systems. Under corporatism, wealth and power are even more highly concentrated than they are under socialism or communism, and the truth is that none of them are “egalitarian” economic systems. Under all collectivist systems, a small elite almost always enjoys most of the benefits while most of the rest of the population suffers.The Occupy Wall Street protesters realize that our economic system is...
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