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wingedbeastThere's one part I didn't get into when the opportunity was there. But, right now, it makes for some good compare and contrast. I talked about John's reaction to the Director and, by my guess, the expectation that the Director would regard him as a son rather than the mere concept as an embarrassment. But, let's talk a little about how the Director presents one of the core theses of Fordly society.
The topic is Bernard Marx and the Director's insistence that Bernard must be held to account. He's very good at his job, which would be a reason to accept eccentricity. The Director responds...
Huxley seems to connect this priority set, one of devaluing the person in the name of the society, to the ease with which new humans are made. I will disagree. In terms of resource allotment, I don't actually see society spending that much less effort in the development of new individuals. There certainly is an effort, by Fordly society, to devalue the individual.
A surface reading of Brave New World would suggest this effort to devalue individuals against the weight of society as something attached to modernism and technology and the various ways of making life easier and cheaper. I see this same devaluing of the one, in the name of the many or the orthodoxy, more common in the ideologies that look backward.
To take the risk of dating this post, during the writing and posting, Roy Moore was still a Republican Candidate for Congress. This is not only after repeatedly violating the First Amendment as a Judge, but also after repeated allegations of Roy Moore pursuing and, in some cases, sexually harassing/molesting teenagers. The first allegation to come out was regarding a girl as young as fourteen.
His supporters are few, mainly local, and have a couple primary justifications. One is that the mainstream media lies about Christians out of hatred of what good people they are. Another, one that is, perhaps, more important to a lot of the thinking, is that the alternative to Roy Moore is a Democrat.
I've written before on the concept of Moral Hubris*. It's deeply involved in the need to cover up or stay silent regarding certain actions by others. There are always more important issues at hand. Saved souls, more "godly" laws, or just, as many have reminded, the defeat of the other side. There's always a reason to sacrifice a few people in the name of a principle.
And, in those cases, the devaluing of an individual is actually one of the values of the society. It's obviously so in the case of Fordly society. In the case of conservative religion, the love of one's friends, parents, and children is often required to take a lower priority to the love of God. These are social systems that promise the utmost love and care for you, but demands that you accept lower priority.
All this goes to say that a comment I made in the comments of one of these posts, a while back, that it would be really doable to write a story that tracks with Brave New World but replaces Fordly society with a conservative religious school and a "savage reservation" with a public school.
This is also to say something else. It's to say that the Director can't even live up to this model of behavior.
Back in Chapter Six, when the Director was in the midst of approving Bernard's trip to the savage reservation, he had a memory pull him back.
In today's society, we'd admonish him for not remembering her name. But, remember the society in which he lives. In fact, just a couple paragraphs later, the Director is defensively stating that it wasn't an emotional relationship.
It may very well not have been an emotional relationship. It may have been just two people having some fun and, while they were having their brief fling together, checking out that savage reservation. The important "but" to that is that she was still a person, a person that he knew, a person in close proximity to himself.
From the Doylist perpsective, the reason he told Bernard this anecdote was obviously to foreshadow that the woman he thought dead would come up later. From the Watsonion perspective, the Director might not know why he told the story, but my thought is that it's hard not to get emotionally invested in somebody... at least not that small amount that makes them not interchangeable with someone else.
In 1984 a careful reader could see the points where Oceania was going to fail. It was never going to achieve the linguistic pruning of concepts. Winston might not end it, but it would end.
In Brave New World I think we have a similar issue. It needs and demands for people to not see each other as valuable past the next indulgence. Yet, for all the indulgence, it's hard not to care at least a little... if for nothing else, about the person right in front of you. If for no other reason, you can see the pain or joy on their face.
https://wingedbeast.dreamwidth.org/25040.html
The topic is Bernard Marx and the Director's insistence that Bernard must be held to account. He's very good at his job, which would be a reason to accept eccentricity. The Director responds...
"I know. But that's all the more reason for severity. His intellectual eminence carries with it corresponding moral responsibilities. The greater a man's talents, the greater his power to lead astray. It is better that one should suffer than that many should be corrupted. Consider the mater dispassionately, Mr. Foster, and you will see that no offence is so heinous as unorthodoxy of behaviour. Murder kills only the individual-and, after all, what is an individual?" With a sweeping gesture he indicated the rows of microscopes, the test-tubes, the incubators. "We can make a new one with the greatest ease-as many as we like. Unorthodoxy threatens more than the life of a mere individual; it strikes at Society itself. Yes, at Society itself," he repeated.
Huxley seems to connect this priority set, one of devaluing the person in the name of the society, to the ease with which new humans are made. I will disagree. In terms of resource allotment, I don't actually see society spending that much less effort in the development of new individuals. There certainly is an effort, by Fordly society, to devalue the individual.
A surface reading of Brave New World would suggest this effort to devalue individuals against the weight of society as something attached to modernism and technology and the various ways of making life easier and cheaper. I see this same devaluing of the one, in the name of the many or the orthodoxy, more common in the ideologies that look backward.
To take the risk of dating this post, during the writing and posting, Roy Moore was still a Republican Candidate for Congress. This is not only after repeatedly violating the First Amendment as a Judge, but also after repeated allegations of Roy Moore pursuing and, in some cases, sexually harassing/molesting teenagers. The first allegation to come out was regarding a girl as young as fourteen.
His supporters are few, mainly local, and have a couple primary justifications. One is that the mainstream media lies about Christians out of hatred of what good people they are. Another, one that is, perhaps, more important to a lot of the thinking, is that the alternative to Roy Moore is a Democrat.
I've written before on the concept of Moral Hubris*. It's deeply involved in the need to cover up or stay silent regarding certain actions by others. There are always more important issues at hand. Saved souls, more "godly" laws, or just, as many have reminded, the defeat of the other side. There's always a reason to sacrifice a few people in the name of a principle.
And, in those cases, the devaluing of an individual is actually one of the values of the society. It's obviously so in the case of Fordly society. In the case of conservative religion, the love of one's friends, parents, and children is often required to take a lower priority to the love of God. These are social systems that promise the utmost love and care for you, but demands that you accept lower priority.
All this goes to say that a comment I made in the comments of one of these posts, a while back, that it would be really doable to write a story that tracks with Brave New World but replaces Fordly society with a conservative religious school and a "savage reservation" with a public school.
This is also to say something else. It's to say that the Director can't even live up to this model of behavior.
Back in Chapter Six, when the Director was in the midst of approving Bernard's trip to the savage reservation, he had a memory pull him back.
"I had the same idea as you," the Director was saying. "Wanted to have a look at the savages. Got a permit for New Mexico and went there for my summer holiday. With the girl I was having at the moment. She was a Beta-Minus, and I think" (he shut his eyes), "I think she had yellow hair. Anyhow she was pneumatic, particularly pneumatic; I remember that. Well, we went there, and we looked at the savages, andwe rode about on horses and all that. And then-it was almost the last day of my leave-then... well, she got lost. We'd gone riding up one of those revolting mountains, and it was horribly hot and oppressive, and after lunch we went to sleep. Or at least I did. She must have gone for a walk, alone. At any rate, when I woke up, she wasn't there. And the most frightful thunderstorm I've ever seen was just bursting on us.
In today's society, we'd admonish him for not remembering her name. But, remember the society in which he lives. In fact, just a couple paragraphs later, the Director is defensively stating that it wasn't an emotional relationship.
It may very well not have been an emotional relationship. It may have been just two people having some fun and, while they were having their brief fling together, checking out that savage reservation. The important "but" to that is that she was still a person, a person that he knew, a person in close proximity to himself.
From the Doylist perpsective, the reason he told Bernard this anecdote was obviously to foreshadow that the woman he thought dead would come up later. From the Watsonion perspective, the Director might not know why he told the story, but my thought is that it's hard not to get emotionally invested in somebody... at least not that small amount that makes them not interchangeable with someone else.
In 1984 a careful reader could see the points where Oceania was going to fail. It was never going to achieve the linguistic pruning of concepts. Winston might not end it, but it would end.
In Brave New World I think we have a similar issue. It needs and demands for people to not see each other as valuable past the next indulgence. Yet, for all the indulgence, it's hard not to care at least a little... if for nothing else, about the person right in front of you. If for no other reason, you can see the pain or joy on their face.
https://wingedbeast.dreamwidth.org/25040.html
