Brave New World vs. The 21st Century Essay

Brave New World vs. The 21st Century

I would have to say that my favorite part of this course was Nightmares. It went above and beyond the expectations I had when I enrolled. Bad dreams come to mind when I think of nightmares, but they never involve science or genetics. I was amazed at what this topic explored, the relationship between science and literature. We explored the fascinating topics of nanoscience and nonotechnology. These are topics that are currently impacting our life in the twenty first century. Of course I was familiar with Mary Shelly, H.G. Wells, Robert Louis Stevenson and Charles Darwin. Not being much of a reader, I had never heard of Aldous Huxley. I decided to do some research on Huxley, which I found rather intriguing. I learned that he was a humanist and a pacifist interested in spiritual subjects such as parapsychology and philosophical mysticism. He was also an advocate and used psychedelics. If I were to bring back to life one of the authors that we studied, it would definitely be Huxley. I think he would be overwhelmed with the advances weve made in scientific technology today, as well as the similarities between his literature and our science.

Aldous Huxley was born in 1894 in the UK. His family was very scientific and intellectual. Thomas Huxley, his grandfather, was a supporter of Charles Darwin. He had even written his own book, Evidence on Mans Place in Nature, presenting evidence for human evolution. Aldous father, Leonard Huxley, was a writer and schoolmaster. His mother, Julia Arnold, was the sister or a novelist, niece of a poet and granddaughter of a famous educator. It would only seem right that such great minds mixed together would have children with great ideas. Adolus oldest brother Julian became a prominent scientist. He studied concepts of evolution and growth making connections between genetics and evolution. His younger half brother Andrew majored in physical sciences, and later won a Nobel Prize.

Adolus Huxley began learning science in his father botanical laboratory at an early age. Then later was schooled at Hillside by his mother until she became ill. After that he studied at Eton College. An important part of Huxleys life was an illness that he suffered from, keratitis punctata, which left him blind for a couple of years.

His writing evidenced the familys history and scientific interests. His friend, J.B.S. Haldane, an innovative pioneer in population genetics, also inspired Huxleys writing. According to Huxley, the theme of Brave New World is the advancement of science as it affects human individuals.

In Huxleys 1922 novel, Crome Yellow, it is clear that Huxley had been thinking about creating life outside the womb. An impersonal generation will take the place of Natures hideous system. In vast state incubators, rows upon rows of gravid bottles will supply the world with the population it requires. (Mr. Scogan)

Infertility is something that affects many people in our world, and its been around forever. Its the biological inability of a person to conceive naturally. Thanks to medical intervention, infertility can sometimes be bypassed. In vitro fertilization (IVF) is a process in which egg cells are fertilized by sperm outside the body. In society today, IVF is a major treatment in infertility when other methods of assisted reproduction have failed. The process is amazing and involves hormonally controlling the ovulatory process. Eggs are removed from the womans ovaries and fertilized with sperm. The fertilized egg is transferred to the womans uterus, hopefully establishing a successful pregnancy. The first successful test tube baby occurred in 1978. Dr. Robert G. Edwards, the doctor who developed the treatment was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 2010. I have several friends who have had children by way of in vitro. I saw them go through the heartache of not being able to conceive. And to see the joy that having a child has brought them I look at IVF as a miracle. A major complication associated with IVR is multiple births.

If In vitro fertilization wasnt such a huge part of todays society I would look at anyone suggesting human cloning as crazy, just as people looked at Adolus Huxley. He wrote Brave New World in 1932, and at this time human cloning was science fiction. Today its real. It also came across different in his novel. In our society, IVF was developed to assist couples having trouble conceiving. In Huxleys novel it was used to mass produce children.

Bokanovskys Process is a fictional process of human cloning and was a key aspect in Brave New World. One egg, one embryo, one adult normality. But a bokanovskified egg will bud, will proliferate, will divide. From eight to ninety-six buds, and every bud will grow into a perfectly formed embryo, and every embryo into a full-sized adult. Making ninety-six human beings grow where only one grew before. Progress. (Huxley)

Our society is not interested in mass producing children as they did in Brave New World. Therapeutic and reproductive cloning can be linked to this novel, since the World State creates beings and has eliminated dying from disease. When people hear the word cloning, they automatically think of reproducing the same animal or person, which is similar to the Bokanovsky process. There are parallels between In vitro and Bokanovskification. Cloning has been seen as a potential for years. A professor at California Technology, James Bonner, had spoken of the possibilities to produce a master race of super-babies called clones. We very rarely think of therapeutic cloning. This is the process of harvesting stem cells that can be used to study human development and treat disease. It is hopeful that one day this therapeutic technology will be able to produce entire organs from single cells or produce healthy cells that replace damaged ones in degenerative diseases. Huxley might have been far off with his idea of Bokanovskification. But his idea of social stability is something we might be seeing soon.

A lot of controversy is surrounding stem cells. It can make you picture a monster such a Victor Frankenstein. But studying stem cells may someday provide information on human development and such diseases as cancer. Characters in Brave New World didnt have to worry about dying from diseases because they were wiped out. Death would occur mostly because of old age. The novel leaves us wondering where stem cell research will bring out society in the future.

Aldous Huxley was an advocate and user of psychedelics. Soma was the perfect drug in Brave New World, taken to overlook your problems. The drug spins the user into a hallucinogenic daze and makes all of their worries go away temporarily. The characters in the novel depend on the drug, but it does not solve their problems. In todays society I would compare Soma to drugs like Adderall and Ritalin. These are used mostly to calm students and help them focus on learning and academics.

I personally think it would be amazing to see Aldous Huxleys face if he was brought back to life right now. His ideas back then were science fiction, but now have evolved into reality in our society. Sure it still seems crazy to mass produce children in a controlled society. But we took these crazy ideas and used them to help people. And our knowledge is only going to get better and better with time.

Im glad I took this class and read this novel. Its not something I would have read otherwise. It really got my mind thinking. It made me look at the scientific advances we have made over the years. And I can only image what is in store for our future.