Photo Essays

After debating together the principles of a utopia or dystopia, we all decided there can’t be a utopia in the world we live right now, or in the future. We believe a utopian world would be that one where the different species, organisms, etc. are able to interact peacefully with each other and within their own groups. We consider that in the past, long ago, when humanity was still in a stage when we were just primates, a utopia might have existed. A period in which animals, plants and the other constituents of the planet were not massively destroyed by our hands, where they could live happily, peacefully without any out-of-normal threat to their species survival.  But that was a long time ago and right now, with us inhabiting these landscapes, we are lost, we live in a messed-up world in which we are not able to communicate or understand others, not even ourselves.  We live in a world that has been taken by the power and greed of a few, and so, it has been transformed into a dystopia. A planet, in which people have been dehumanized, destroyed and humiliated; a world in which we are held prisoners of our own rage, of our diversity of creations. Therefore, we believe anything like the world we live in right now or an image of what we think it will be in the future, are just dystopias, while anything similar to those years before we thought of changing and “improving” our world would be called a utopia.

Dystopia

Utopia

Essays

Cloning

Certain people believe technology serves us as a utensil, a mere artifact that works for us, just as an employee or a slave. Personally I believe we´ve created a machine that suddenly will dehumanize men, which will someday murder us until none of us survive.  As a derivate of technology, we have cloning, the act by which we can identically reproduce a person. This subject has become a huge conflict in between people, a meeting point in which a lot of minds don’t coincide.

In my opinion, I believe cloning is a very sensitive and complicated subject to talk about. On one side, this process involves the destruction of identity from an individual. It cr3eates creatures out of the natural process; what I mean by this is the natural way, the way we all were born. Also, I think cloning will alter the world´s order, people would e too similar (if cloning is in big quantities, as in Brave New World), and this will cause a lot of conflicts. Mainly because I’m one of those who believes that people with too similar characters tend to fight and disagree the most.

On the other hand, cloning would be beneficial to humanity in different ways. First of all, to cure sickness. Cloning could be used on certain kinds of human cells and regenerate some tissues that could´ve been damaged by certain diseases or substances. For example to regenerate liver cells damaged by alcohol, lungs cells damaged by tobacco, etc. another beneficial characteristic is maybe that work and activities would be easier to perform, mainly because the more people involved in a task, the faster the work gets done.

Either way, I think if I was the one to decide if cloning was or was not permitted I would say no. principally, because I believe we should allow humanity to progress in a natural way, and who am I to decide the way we should or should not live; we shouldn’t interfere with this. Also, we are individuals, and as the word says it, we are one and created to be so. Identity would be completely lost if cloning was permitted, so as identity is what defines us, makes us interesting or hated by others, it makes us different we should not lose this beautiful uniqueness that we all have. Without identity in my opinion we would be lost, without it, the world would be a complete chaos.

Cloning: A Good Choice or a Strategy

“For in reason, all government

Without the consent of the governed

Is the very definition of slavery”

Jonathan Swift

Today, cloning is a polemic theme that goes against a diverse number of institutions among the world. To understand correctly what is cloning, it’s important to know its definition: “cloning is the process of making a genetically identically copy of someone by replacing the nucleus of unfertilized ovum with the nucleus of a body cell from the organism” (medterms.com). There are many arguments that are in agreement or in disagreement in cloning, although it is an important achievement of science. But even it’s a huge achievement of science cloning is a way of playing with life and playing to be God. By the way, making identical babies all time, avoid the creation of good mutations in humans preventing difference and evolution. However, this important discovery could be an advantage to science to develop new treatments in medicine, discover the human genome, find new vaccines, and new techniques. Anyway, the clones that will be used to make these experiments are alive and it is very sadistic to use them only for experiments.

Cloning is a destructive form because everything would be the same and there will be no difference among the world. If humans insist in cloning themselves the world would become as the one shown in the book “Brave New World” that everybody is the same, think the same, their physical appearance is the same, and human beings are born to make a specific function in the society. Cloning, according to the book, it’s a strategy to maintain control over human beings, so that every human has no personality, no revolutionary ideas to go against the party or society and create disorder. If cloning became an important way of life, human beings could became as robots, because everybody would be the same and designed to be equal without emotions, feelings and pleasures. Cloning human beings, takes away the ability to create new personalities toward every human being. By the other hand, this goes against institutions because human plays to be God, because human beings think that they are such important to create or destroy life.  As above, also cloning could be an excellent way to make scientific developments because cloning an organ could help to make transplants more successfully without the risk that the body rejects the organ. By the other hand, cloning is an advantage to find new treatments in medicine, new vaccines and new antibiotics to conserve life.

In conclusion, cloning has advantages and disadvantages according to the perspective that the person has. The advantages are in science because it could help to make scientific advances in every area. And the disadvantages, is that the human could became a robot, and if human take cloning as a way of life that would make that society has control over all human beings. Cloning, according to the book is a strategy of control over people because every test tube baby has come to world with a specific obligation. By the other hand, cloning is a way to take off freedom and the developing of personality.

Bibliography:

http://www.medterms.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=2756

Revolution of cloning.

Cloning is great. If God made the original,

then making copies should be fine.

Doug Coupland.

From my point of view I support cloning.

As the prime reason, I do not see cloning as a method of mass reproduction, I see as way of improving the breed human, a tool to reach the perfection of human beings, with this way of reproduction, maybe could be avoided hereditary diseases, malformations and defects races come from the ancestors. Cloning could be an instrument of reproduction that prevents sexual transmission diseases, assuming that the somatic cells is removed and so there are no contacts of infected individuals and so to have a society without-infectious disease risks and anticipate bringing children into the world as carriers of disease.

Cloning could be a method of improving the breed, not like Hitler, that has the idea of ​​pure races and with this discriminate certain people, but could create hierarchies like those of the book Brave New world, alpha, beta, gamma, epsilon; creating forces with special people with the perfect qualities for the mission, for example special forces to combat the groups outside the government or gangs. Likewise with cloning we maybe could have the possibility to take the good genes of some people and with this improve the human race.

Finally, for these reasons I agree with cloning as well as being of improve the breed, another point, could be a way to create an order for forces with the correct personal, and finally know better our organization, management and help that brings to society our DNA. 

Control does not mean order.

“What man has joined,

nature is powerless to put asunder."

Aldous Huxley, Brave New World, Ch. 2

From my principles, I really do not support government control in certain fields, for example on issues of sexuality and reproduction, but I do believe that there should be some control on the issue of drugs and some planning on the issue of reproduction in society.

Primarily I think that sexuality is an issue that belongs to each person, if they choice having sex with a man or a woman this decision will be make it by principles that person believes, so would be hard to the government make it a control over the issue of sexuality, this all belongs to a believes and the like of each the person. Also I am not agree that anyone tell to another person with who they most have sexual intercourse, that is a really important and personal decision, therefore if the government try to control this, the people begin to find the way to have sexual encounters with the people that they like it.

Next with issue of reproduction I think that a good control of the birth rate would help to the government to plan how the state must be prepared to help the families and areas related to education, the country space, food, and that the individual does not become a burden to the country. But also I don’t support the idea to control how many times people could have sex or how many babies per families they can have; this is a personal and a family decision, any way they know how they would take care of the baby.

Finally I agree that the government control drugs, this a good way to prevent vices in the society, also the consequences that will eventually produce drugs are changing the behavior of the person, people is not able to work at their full capacity and they lose their mental capacity to be in contact with the society. So I agree that government controls all the issue of drugs since the allow drugs like antiallergic to heroin. 

In conclusion government can control some point of quotidian life but nor every single part of the personal life, some decision could be some decisions can be guided, but others are personal which limits the pressure that government try to make over this, but not leaving behind I agree with the control that government exerts over drugs. 

Dystopia in Aldous Huxley’s view

    

        It's hard to imagine yet somehow so extremely close to us is the

possibility of a world of ideal perfection where there is no room or acceptance of individuality.  Yet, as we strive towards the growth of technology and improvement of our daily living we come closer to closing ,the gap between the freedom of emotions, self understanding, and of speechand the devastation of a dystopia.  A utopia, or perfect world, gone awryis displayed Aldous Huxley’s provocative novel Brave New World.

Dystopia is drawn on "political and emotional events, anchoring its vision of a nightmarish future in contemporary fears of totalitarian ideology and uncontrolled advances in technology and science" It is the situation that costs a piece of an unhealthy environment for human beings, is the theme of the novel.  The dystopian setting is brought about by technology and by higher authorities.  As technology increases, the use for human beings in the work force decreases leaving an overwhelming amount of depression among humans. 

Therefore, a way to continue the production of technological findings is by bringing up humans from day one to accept their unhappiness as normal.  By "breeding" human beings to accept the fact that they are born to do a specific group.  Higher authorities know the llimination of humans' emotions is useful to stabilize what they think to be a utopian society.  Huxley portrays a "perfect dystopia" where scientists "breed people to order" in a specific class.  The purpose of this paper is to shows that Aldous Huxley clearly introduces a river of cases and incidences, which adds to the dystopia in his science fiction novel Brave New World.

Characters

John: he is the son of the Director and Linda and was conceived in the new world, but was born in the reservation. Lives outside the world state (New Mexico Savage Reservation) for his first 20 years of life, and he always says he is unable to fit as an individual from the word state. He reads Shakespeare and his life is pretty much based on what this famous author says. He is like a savage, and his cultural background resembles ours. He escapes the reservation thinking that the brave new world is marvelous, but when he gets to the world state he thinks of it as an immoral place, where people are being dehumanized and degraded. Living in this world, he decides he needs to go back to that place of tranquility and solitude, so finds a home away from the city, but then people disturbed him, and as he is so desperate to live in a peaceful place and isn’t able to do so, he commits suicide.

Bernard Marx: he is a small, non popular Alpha male, because of his height, he has an inferiority complex. He feels like an outsider to World State for the same reason as before, and he is always ridiculed by his other alpha mates, except by Helmholtz Watson which is his only friend.  For that reason is more self-conscious and more of an individual than other citizens of the World State. This outsider status and individuality allows Bernard both to recognize and criticize the flaws of the World State. But his inferiority complex also makes him defensive, resentful, jealous, cowardly, and quick to boast. He is individualistic compared to the other people (most of all because he has been treated as an outsider), which leads him to defy somehow the rules of the state. The Director of Hatcheries kind of knows the way Bernard is, and threatens to exile him to Iceland. In Iceland, he meets Linda and John on the Savage Reservation and learns that John is Tomakin's son. Bernard then makes a plan to take John and Linda back to London. Bernard kind of becomes john´s guardian, and due to his superiority complex after he is doing all of this stuff with John, he starts to criticize the new society, but as he can’t change it or be heard, he decides to leave the new world and to an isolated rebel island with his only friend.

Mustapha Mond: he is one of the ten controllers of the new world, therefore hi is an intelligent and learned person. He is a physicist who after his work was discovered, decided to become a world controller instead of being exiled. He knows the brave new world isn’t perfect, but still accepts it for the benefit of social stability. He thinks human emotions are not a basis of science and world order (opposite of john´s thoughts), but still keeps a collection of forbidden literature in his safe, including Shakespeare and religious writings. He knows truth is good, but still holds happiness and stability in a higher place of importance.

Linda: she is John’s mother, and she is a Beta-Minus. She was visiting the reservation, and she got pregnant of the director. During a storm, she got lost, suffered a head injury and was left behind. She was found by a group of Indians who brought her to their village, when the baby was born, she was embarrassed and so decided to stay at the reservation. She is a very social woman, an example of Brave New World’s women, promiscuous and influenced by drugs and the lack of emotions. Bernard, finds an opportunity in her, and asks for permission to take her back to the new world, with the excuse that it would be for scientific study. She then returns to London, but she doesn’t feel happy, and she is rejected somehow because of her new ways, that although unnoticeable for her, they are noticeable to others. She then drugs herself into a permanent soma-stupor until she dies.

Helmholtz Watson: he is an alpha male, and Bernard’s only and loyal friend. He is "every centimeter an Alpha-plus", contrary to Marx, which is a failed alpha male. He gets always what he wants (women, power, professional achievements), but he is also a rebel, and thinks that the things people do in the new world are insignificant, empty and meaningless, and that why he feels his writing ability could be used for better things. His criticism of the new society is better than the one of Bernard, in the way that his are not just complaints but he actually has some philosophical bases for his critics. Helmholtz befriends john, and both of them together, question the Controller.

Lenina Crowne:  she is a vaccination worker at the Central London Hatchery and Conditioning Centre. She is very desirable (actually Bernard and John kind of fall for her), and is attracted to Bernard, and passionate about John.  She is an unorthodox, intelligent woman, but still she has fallen for the state´s philosophies; maybe she hasn’t fall for them, but has decided to be a “silent member of the social stability”. After dating Foster for a long time, she decides she has to start looking for other men, that’s when she starts to like Bernard. She is the one to go with Bernard to the reservation where they meet John and Linda. As she is unable to understand human emotions, and savage people, she is frustrated that John cants see in her what everyone else does: her beautifulness. Somehow she contributes to the suicide of John, because she made him think of her as a desire, and he thought it was evil to think of her like that.

Vocabulary

BRAVE NEW WORLD

1.    Bleakly

·         Cold and not welcoming.

·         “But finding only the glass and nickel and bleakly shinning porcelain of a laboratory”

a.     For some people, trying to learn math is very bleakly.

2.    Receptacle

·         A container for holding things or that you can put things on it.

·         “How the eggs which it contained were inspected for abnormalities, counted and transferred to a porous receptacle”

a.     In most of laboratories, there are several receptacles to maintain organization.

3.     Conveyor

·         To express feelings, thoughts or information to other people.

·         “Though you couldn´t see it, was a conveyor traveling at the rate of thirty- three and a third centimeters an hour”

a.     In factories there are several conveyors that help to transport the objects to one place to another.

4.     Slacken

·         To become slower or less busy.

·         “We slacken off the circulation when they´re right way up”

a.     The brake of cars, not only stop the car but slacken velocity.

5.     Surrogate

·         Someone or something that replaces or is used instead of someone or something else; a substitute.

·         “Double the flow of surrogate when they´re upside down”

a.     The social studies surrogate was the worst teacher ever.

6.    Posthumous

·         Happening after person´s death

·         “Pale with the posthumous whiteness of marble ”

a.     There are several posthumous states when a person is already dead.

7.     Suffuse

·         To overspread with or as with a liquid, color etc.

·         “A new and profound significance seemed to suffuse the shinning pages of the books ”

a.     My little system mixed several paintings and suffuses them through the floor.

8.    Sounder

·         A person or thing that males a sound or noise, or sounds something.

·         “The problem was to find an economically sounder reason for consuming transport than a mere affection  for primroses and landscapes ”

a.     Next to my house, there is a sounder construction.

9.    Tiptoeing

·         To walk or move quietly on one´s toes.

·         “Fifty yards of tiptoeing brought them to a door which the Director cautiously opened ”

a.     We find found a thief tiptoeing in our house, and we called police.

10.  Reluctant

·         Not wanting to do something and there for slow to do it.

·         “It´s just that this little boy seems rather reluctant to join in the ordinary erotic play”

a.     She was reluctant to change her work place.

11)   Writhing

a.     Slowly, he boy began to walk round the writhing heap of snakes. 115

·         To make large twisting movements with the body.

·         To experience a very difficult or unpleasant situation or emotion, such as extreme embarrassment.

o   My dog was writhing in agony because of its lethal disease.

12)   Incarnadine

a.     The multitudinous seas incarnadine. 117

·         To tinge or stain with red.

·         A pinkish or reddish color similar to that of flesh or blood.

o   One day I was walking and I found an incarnadine cloth.

13)   Filthy

a.     And that neck – that neck and the blanket she wore over her head – ragged and filthy 119

·         Extremely or unpleasantly

o   Trucks poured out clouds of filthy, black smoke.

14)   Slobbering

a.     Ford! To kiss, slobbering, and smelt too horrible, obviously never had a bath, and simply reeked of that beastly stuff (…) 119

·         To allow saliva or food to run out of the mouth

o   No one likes to have a dog that is slobbering all time.

15)   Forthwith

a.     I propose forthwith to apply for his transference to a sub- centre of the lowest order  (…) 149

·         Immediately

o   When there is blue code, doctors forthwith call the nurses for help

16)   Constrains

a.     A painful duty that constrains me. 149

·         Something that limit the range of person´s actions or freedom

o   Sometimes school rules constrain me to do what I want.  

17)   Scatological

a.     (…) merely gross, scatological rather than a pornographic improperly (…) 15

·         Showing an extreme and unpleasant interest in solid waste and sex

o   The priest has scatological thoughts because of his believing.

18)   Loathsomeness

a.     (…) with its connotations of something at one remove from the loathsomeness and moral obliquity of childbearing (…)151

·         Extremely unpleasant

o   I have loathsomeness to the insects, specially of the spiders.

19)   Camphor

a.     (…) and a slow return through sandalwood, camphor, cedar and new- mown hay (…) 167

·         A white or colorless substance with a song smell, which is sometime used in medicine

o   I use camphor to maintain away insects from my clothes.

20)Utterance

a.     (…)Lucrecia Ajugari, alone of all the singers in history, once piercingly gave utterance (…) 167

·         Something that someone says

·         To express your ideas or feelings in spoken words.

o   We hope their utterances will be matched by their actions.

21)Pretences

a.     I feel as though i were getting something on false pretences 167

·         A way of behaving that is intended to deceive people

o   Anne makes no pretences of looking for work.

22)Emboldened

a.     (…) even total darkness would hardly have emboldened him to make. 163

·         To make someone brave

o   Sometimes, gossips emboldened people and when they are exposed they are cowards.

23)Dialing

a.     She reached for the dialing knob on the dashboard and turned it at random 90

·         To operate a telephone o make a telephone call to someone by pressing a particular series of buttons with numbers or moving a disc with numbers on the telephone.

o   Turn the dialing of the radio and get some music.

24)Guffawing

a.     (…)Helmhotlz broke out in an explosion of uncontrollable guffawing 184

·         To laugh loudly, especially at something stupid that someone has said or done. 

o   When people are asleep, they have guffawing moments.

25)Smutty

a.     In its smutty absurdity the situation was irresistibly comical. 185

·         Pictures, writing, or performances that deal with sex or show naked people in a way that is offensive to you.

o    When a pretty girl goes near by a construction, they make smutty jokes at her.

26)Quenchless

a.     He laughed and laughed while till the tears streamed down his face –quenchless laughed while, pale with a sense of courage.

·         Impossible to put out or extinguish

·         Impossible to suppress, to put and end to, to destroy.

o   Last Saturday, my house was burn and the fire was quenchless.

27)Winced

a.     The Savage winced; but Helmhotlz, who was staring pensively at the floor, saw nothing 185

·         To show pain suddenly and for a short time in the face, often moving the head back at the same time

o   She had cut her finger but she didn´t winced.

28)Shrugging

a.     “but how many?” asked Fanny, shrugging her shoulders her shoulders contemptuously 187

·         To raise your shoulders and then lower them in order to say you do not know or are not interested

o   People can´t just shrug off their responsibilities.

29)Gingerly

a.     Gingerly she rubbed the wounded spot 195

·         In a way that is careful or cautious

o   When I´m walking over a wet surface I move gingerly so I don´t fall down

30)Scalding

a.     There`s hell, there`s darkness, there is the sulphurous pit, burning, scalding, stench, compsumption.195

·         To burn the skin with boiling liquid or steam

·         To put something in boiling water or steam in order to make it completely clean

·         To heat a liquid until it almost boils

o   Women can wash was off the wax by scalding water.