Our new English text for study this term is Aldous Huxley's Brave New World. I was so excited when I found out we were going to be reading it, because ever since reading George Orwell's, 1984, I was very conscious of the fact that the two go hand in hand, and it is equally important to read both. Both are constantly compared for their perspectives on society and government, and each dystopian world focusses on an opposite ideal.
However, within the first chapter of Brave New World, I quickly realised that it was easily the more shocking. I adore Orwell for what he wrote, but looking back, 1984 seems to be more of an allegory of what happened in the past with Nazi Germany, the brainwashing of the children, the loss of freedoms etcetera etcetera, than something that is likely to happen again. War is Peace. Freedom is Slavery. Ignorance is Strength.
What Brave New World shows is our current priorities, community, identity and stability, taking over. Things the government focusses on in planning for the future. How to look after the community. How to look after the individual. How to make these goals sustainable for long term achievements. Huxley shows that the world has deteriorated into a dystopia in a way that seems not a huge stretch from our current path of advancement. It seems incredibly possible, and even likely that this is how Earth will end up. It makes so much sense. Too much sense. It is scary, and horrifying, and absolutely necessary to know about.
I can't fix the size of this comic strip, but I thought it was incredibly important to look at this analysis of the differences in the two dystopian books.
This is going to be a wild read.
Oh my. I never thought to compare the two. Although Orwell's was certainly the bleaker picture, Huxley was more subtle. He messed up little things - made things more scary by making them more real.
ReplyDeleteEnjoy the read and thank you for sharing this awesome comic strip.