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A Brave New World was a very interesting book and definitely made me think a lot about the future, as did all of the books we read this semester. I think it's important to take a look at our society and where it is heading. It's also important to look at our culture and examine the problems. For our final group project my group chose the topic of "somatization" of contemporary society. We as Americans have a pill for almost any problem you could possibly think of. In our group we discussed the effects of using drugs and alcohol to cushion any discomfort we may feel instead of dealing directly with our problems.

A Brave New World Part II

In class Thursday we discussed the second portion of the book. One question we talked about was "Is it better to have true knowledge of the way of the 'world' around you works, or is it better to remain ignorant?" If I was living in their society and had the choice I would want to be aware of what was really going on instead of being oblivious. Even if people wouldn't like the truth, they should still have the right to know. The people in the book have no choice and are completely ignorant of what they do to people. Keeping people ignorant allows them to control everyone without any objection. Sometimes it's true that what people know won't hurt them, but in this case they are completely taking away everyone's freedom.

A Brave New World

Although the beginning of A Brave New World is very interesting, I had a hard time getting into it at first. It's hard to picture a society that is so completely controlled that they genetically engineer humans to be exactly what they want them to be. Their society does not really reflect their motto: Community, Identity, Stability. Although they may have a sense of community within their caste, humanity as a whole is very divided. Everything about their identity is decided for them; their caste, the things they like and the job they will do. Yes, everyone may "know their place" in society, but if you don't allow people to choose these things on their own, there is no true sense of personal identity.Their society is stable only because everything is so carefully controlled. I would never want to live in a world like this. People are happy only because they don't know any better. They never have any opportunity to experience life's full potential.

I was not too surprised by the ending of A Clockwork Orange. If the book ended with Alex remaining completely unchanged it would have been kind of pointless. However, I think that the drastic turnaround he made was a little unrealistic. I do believe that it is possible to reform criminals, but I don't think Alex could all the sudden decide he wanted to grow up and be a better person after committing so many brutal acts throughout his teen years. I think reforming a criminal takes time and they have to actually realize that they have done something wrong. Throughout the entire book Alex had no desire to become a better person and saw nothing wrong with what he was doing; he actually enjoyed it. Even after being in prison he still intended to commit violent acts as soon as he was released. In order for a criminal to be truly reformed they have to want to change, it cannot be forced upon them as it was for Alex. In the end, the aversion therapy had no impact on Alex changing his ways, it was the realization of what he wanted out of life and his future.

Feed

I found the book Feed by M.T. Anderson to be pretty interesting. At first, I wasn't sure what to think of the book and I was a little confused by some of the language, but I actually ended up enjoying most of it. I definitely would not want to live the way they do. It's too much to be constantly bombarded by things inside your head and never having to really think for yourself. Reading the book made me think a lot about the future. Anderson shows a very interesting perspective on what it could be like. At what point does technology stop? Hopefully the future won't be as extreme. When our society starts becoming too technologically advanced I hope there will be people like Violet, who resist the "feed."

The Dumbest Generation

Although I agreed with some points made by Dr. Mark Bauerlein, I feel that our generation is not really as dumb as he makes it out to be. Yes, it is true that we could be doing something more educational than using social networking sites, but it doesn't mean that that we never do educational things. With all of the technology and resources available to us, I feel that we are actually more intelligent than some people in the past. However, it is true that we could take better advantage of everything we have. In our group we discussed the generations below us and what it will be like for them. We personally don't feel like the dumbest generation, but I can definitely see kids in the future being even more dumbed down than Bauerlein feels we are.

The video clip we watched on Tuesday focused on body image and how ads and the media leads us to have an unrealistic idea of what we should look like. I completely agree that shoving images of the few perfect people in the world in our faces lowers our self-esteem and makes us worry entirely too much about what we look like. If it wasn't for the media, people in America would not put so much focus on body image. After watching this I started taking a closer look at the ads I see. In most of them, women are portrayed as objects. We can't change the things we see, but we can realize that the models we see are not reality and there is no need to try to look like them. The more women respect themselves and come to peace with the way they look, the more men will respect them and stop treating them as sexual objects, the way ads and the media do. In the clips we watched Thursday Hooks made some good points about racial stereotypes and white supremicy. I personally am not racist, nor feel above anyone of color, so I didn't really feel as though I got much out of the clips. However, I do think it's important to be aware of these issues in our society.