Genetic Engineering Pic #4

This is the picture I chose for #4: An Earth in a bottle. I think that this picture, while not directly related to genetic engineering, shows the balance in a cosmic sense, at least in my opinion. Earth is trapped in an endless state of continuous production, but because limited new ideas are being produced, and everyone that could actually matter holds an insatiable belief in social stability via subversive teachings and ruling caste, and everyone below that is either corrupted so that even if they were aware of something wrong, they could not actually process it.

To be in a bottle is to be trapped, and I think this fits correctly. Trapped in a cycle of mindless schedules and soma holidays, the people don't realized that they are trapped because, with soma, any bad thoughts go away from memory, and they can escape. They say that compulsive alcohol consumption is societies single biggest problem, so what about compulsive soma consumption in the book. It too must be the biggest problem, but the scary part? Nobody realizes it. There are not "licences", no laws against taking soma and driving a motor vehicle, no limits. Sometimes people die, in peace, because of overdoses. Who cares? Nobody. Take the body, burn, take in new patient, repeat. An endless cycle of monotone.

The secrets in the characters of Brave New World

Many of the Characters in Brave New World are named off of real-life characters in the time of Aldous Huxley. Thanks to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brave_New_World for discovering the similarities.
Please note that quite a few of these characters were not mentioned in the previous posts because they played minor parts.

Bernard Marx: Claude Bernard and Karl Marx
Henry Foster: Henry Ford
Lenina Crowne: Vladimir Lenin
Fanny Crowne: Fanny Caplain
George Edsel: Edsel Ford, son of Henry Ford
Polly Trotsky: Leon Trotsky
Benito Hoover: Benito Mussolini and Herbet Hoover
Helmholtz Watson: Hermann Von Helmholtz (German Physicist) and John B. Watson
Darwin Bonaparte: Napoleon Bonaparte and Charles Darwin
Mustapha Mond:  Mustafa Kemal Atatürk and Sir Alfred Mond
Herbert Bakunin: Herbet Spencer and Mikhail Bakunin
Pope(accent on the e): Named after the North American rebel with the same name.
More characters to come!

Genetic Engineering Picture #2

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 This picture is a picture from another dystopian novel called Requiem of the Human Soul, in which, at the start of the book, there is a few D1 Humans, which are optimized for health and anti-disease. At this stage, humans are still humans, people are still normal, only we have basically improved their immune system. There is still 100% human spirit in that body, they are improved humans.  In the second stage, although they retain their human minds, their bodies are stronger and better. This is , in my opinion, the farthest humans should go with genetic engineering. But in the third stage, and this is where the dystopia really is apparent, they actually shape their minds. Control of emotions. The entire book is set when humans have long past the third stage.

Now, the reasoning in the third stage still is apparent. Humans, as nature, crave power. Which is why, If you gave, say 100 humans super strength and super endurance, my guess is that about 20-30 of them would go insane with the power, start robbing banks and murdering people. And no, I'm not just extremely cynical. The human race is a strive for power, and if anyone says how all humans get along, watch the news for 10 minutes- you'll change your mind. Personally, I think that Humans, in terms on genetic engineering, should just stay away from it, with Stage 1 at the most. Because, if the wrong person got their hands on the technology, we would be looking at a war beyond anything anyone's ever seen.

Brave New World Timeline

href="http://www.softschools.com/teacher_resources/timeline_maker/">Timeline Maker</a>




The book starts in 632 A.F., or 632 After Ford( The equivalent of 2540 AD., meaning Ford came into the world in 1908). In the book, God no longer exists, and is replaced with Ford, to quote " into the safes with God, out onto the shelves with Ford." The reason is, apparently, God caused people to believe in solitude, while all of their teachings make the person hate solitude and love being a mindless brain the the river of society. (Not sarcasm). In this time, the director of the Hatcheries (the place where humans are made) is taking students on a tour of the factory. This is kind of a prelude, an informer to the reader of the oncoming chapters.

Then, Lenina, one of the main characters is introduced. She talks about being with everyone, and she has been (Yes, had recreational sex) with almost the entire group of Alphas. Bernard, the main center for the first half of the book, hates this idea. Until they travel off the mainland to see people outside of the influence of the World State, he is the only character to rebel against the teachings. He believes that people should pick one person, and love them their whole life. In a way, he is like a person from today, put into the futuristic world.


Later, Bernard asks Lenina on a date. They decide to go to the Reservation, a place of "Savages", but they leave right after Bernard is threatened by the director for his anti-World State ways. Once in the reservation, for the first time, Bernard meets someone he agrees with, John the Savage. His mother, a concept that, in the World State, is a smutty joke (people actually laugh when the word is said), is Linda. According to a story Lenina told Bernard, Linda is the wife of the Director of the Hatcheries and therefore, the director is the father of John.

When Bernard returns, the Director decides to humiliate him, but then Bernard exposes Linda and John, and the Director resigns his post in shame, a laughingstock. Bernard has gained an increased amount of popularity, and organizes a party to parade John around, but John refuses to come, and Bernard goes back to being lonely.

John the Savage then announces his love for Lenina, quoting Shakespeare, and Lenina does what she always would- undress. But then John calls her a whore and becomes extremely mad at her. John the receives a phone call- his mother, Linda, is sick. He witnesses her last few moments, meanwhile a group of Delta's are nearby watching, as part of their "data conditioning" (they are given treats to associate with death so that they do not fear death). John see's the Deltas, mindlessly staring, while eating eclairs, and becomes so enraged that he destroys their rations of Soma, starting a fight between John and the Deltas.

John, along with Bernard, is to be exiled as punishment. John chooses a remote lighthouse, and begins a religious "purifying" ceremony, such as whipping himself, and showing humbleness (e.g. he thinks he is not worthy of seeing the beautiful view from the lighthouse, saying all he deserves in a hole in the ground). Crowds rush in to see the whipping- it fascinates them. A huge group of people come in helicopters, and John is overwhelmed. When Lenina comes, he charges at her and whips her- he does not notice the tears of sadness in her eyes. When he wakes up in the morning, he realized to only way to escape is death, and hangs himself.


This chart/timeline helped me understand the novel better because it motivated me to read through it again, and with a book as complicated as BNW, or something like 1984, it helps your understanding quite a bit. Also, researching backgrounds on websites helped me get a deeper understanding of the subtle messages in the novel.

Picture #1- Genetic engineering

This is the picture I found. I think it shows how humans are continuously striving to change for the better, and maybe that's a good thing, because maybe 9 out of 10 people enjoy blue strawberries, but at some point, humans, after all, are only human. If we were turned into machines, we would be stronger, faster, smarter etc., but the thing is, once you get that far, there's no actual human left. You've stripped them of their identity, so they are better, but really, in a way, they're not better, because they're a completely different thing.

The strawberries in this picture, I find, would be comparable to the beginning of the World State. They had just started genetically engineering humans and if I were to live in that time, it would be fairly creepy to me. To see completely controlled, identical, basically machines, posing as humans, would unnerve quite a  bit, as well as probably a few other people 

The outline of the dystopia represented in this book continued

The dystopia in the book is that the humans are bred to not notice how tedious and un-purposeful their lives really are. Everyone is happy, but nobody knows how to be unhappy. People, from birth, are basically given perimeters from which their minds cannot go, giving the illusion of freedom of thought without actually having that freedom. Every daily challenge is removed, so they are in no danger- the dystopia is represented in one of the most subversive and inconspicuous ways. People also are completely apathetic to death, and also to other people as humans, instead seeing them as bags of meat.

The social injustices the author is trying to describe is that the government has basically created extremes: they have taken away the most basic right to free thought, which is probably one of the most basic rights available to humans. With something so terrible though, you would expect is to be a terrible place. But everyone, of every class, is content. In a strange, perverse, and subversive way, the dystopia of this book actually makes it a utopia of sorts. But in the views of us, the readers, who are born with free minds, it appears as a dystopia. It all depends on what side you look at it from.


The injustices in today's world in comparison to the book are quite null, but there are still a few gleams of warming you can pick up. We do not engineer babies, but often babies are influenced at birth, when they are most susceptible to "brainwashing" if you'll call it that, taught to believe in a religion, belief, or principle that the person would not otherwise believe. This is the injustice of taking away freedom to be an individual is the atrocity that the dystopia is representing. Another injustice is the addictive use of some, which is alcohol, cigarettes, and drugs rolled into one. Modern societies biggest problem is compulsive drug over-use, and in the book, it is also one of the bigger problems (after making humans in factories.)




The author's message is the evil, or possibly the good, but most likely evil, of "conditioning" or influencing babies almost against their future will, or bending them to your point of view, is evil and unethical. Where children are bred by watching violent movies and given drugs, then told to kill their parents or other people who do not surrender is, in my opinion, pure evil. The ironic thing is that John the "Savage"  is actually more civilized than the majority of the population.

The book Brave New World takes place in a futuristic Earth, ruled by the "World State". Humans are genetically engineered into a ruling caste, from the lowest, Epsilons, to the highest, Alphas. People are subconsciously taught how they love their caste ranking, and how they're always happy. An addictive drug called Soma helps keep the population content, providing long, happy, hangover-free holidays. People that disagree with the World State or are against it's standards and ideals are sent to live on Islands, such as Iceland, which are basically huge zoos. The main protagonist is an Alpha Plus psychologist named Bernard Marx, who because of his job designing subconscious sleep-messages, disbelieves all he was taught. His beliefs are shared by someone he meets on an Island, known as John the savage. Both of them believe that the world is, in fact, so much of a paradise for humans that humans no longer exist. They are replaced by programmed bags of meat, the only difference between the "humans" and today's robots is the "humans" act with some unpredictability, but within boundaries (pre-set, of course.)

This Novel is a complex dystopia about the dark side of genetic engineering. Read it now! Recommended for ages 13+ because of some mature content

My Blog is on the Dystopian Novel Brave New World
The author is Aldous Huxley
This is the book cover: