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Conditioning: Huxley vs. Piercy
Feb. 1st, 2011 10:31 pmI have read Brave New World before. It's not like this is a whole new view on the world for me or anything along those lines. However, after having read Woman on the Edge of Time- it got me thinking a bit differently this time around reading it.
Notably present in Brave New World is the idea of conditioning. That it is possible to make more "socialized" people, through brainwashing (if you wish to go so far as to call it that, which I will for the case of Brave New World).
This is not seen in Woman on the Edge of Time at all, not in Luciente's future at any rate (which is what I believe to be the important part).
I think it interesting- I choose that safe adjective for the moment- the difference between the methods implemented in order to achieve more or less the same future. Both futures share the ideas of stability, community, and identity (explicitly so in Brave New World!).
The goals of both societies are much the same. Both strive for maintaining- not expanding nor dwindling- simply keeping the status quo. Perhaps each society's sense of community and identity is slightly different (Huxley's identity bred in, whereas Piercy's is discovered in a lifetime). Nonetheless, the similarities between the two are striking, at least in the sense of the macro-scale objectives and mechanics of each society.
I tend to agree more with Huxley in the sense of some necessity for a stratification of society (though his vision for bred-to-caste people seems extreme for the sake of extremity) as opposed to Piercy who proposed that people not necessarily need stratification and that anyone would be willing to work any job, if the culture fell along those lines. I feel that some difference is necessary for identification of the self- everyone cannot do everything (I think). My opinion on this matter seems poorly worded, but I do not think I can easily put into words a clear vision of my attitude on the subject of the necessity of stratification. Overall, though not necessarily impossible, I feel that Piercy's future is slightly more far fetched than Huxley's.
Notably present in Brave New World is the idea of conditioning. That it is possible to make more "socialized" people, through brainwashing (if you wish to go so far as to call it that, which I will for the case of Brave New World).
This is not seen in Woman on the Edge of Time at all, not in Luciente's future at any rate (which is what I believe to be the important part).
I think it interesting- I choose that safe adjective for the moment- the difference between the methods implemented in order to achieve more or less the same future. Both futures share the ideas of stability, community, and identity (explicitly so in Brave New World!).
The goals of both societies are much the same. Both strive for maintaining- not expanding nor dwindling- simply keeping the status quo. Perhaps each society's sense of community and identity is slightly different (Huxley's identity bred in, whereas Piercy's is discovered in a lifetime). Nonetheless, the similarities between the two are striking, at least in the sense of the macro-scale objectives and mechanics of each society.
I tend to agree more with Huxley in the sense of some necessity for a stratification of society (though his vision for bred-to-caste people seems extreme for the sake of extremity) as opposed to Piercy who proposed that people not necessarily need stratification and that anyone would be willing to work any job, if the culture fell along those lines. I feel that some difference is necessary for identification of the self- everyone cannot do everything (I think). My opinion on this matter seems poorly worded, but I do not think I can easily put into words a clear vision of my attitude on the subject of the necessity of stratification. Overall, though not necessarily impossible, I feel that Piercy's future is slightly more far fetched than Huxley's.
