The original book "Brave New World" is about the human society 600 years later, where material life is very rich, science and technology are highly developed, and there are three rules in this society: society, duty, and stability . Human reproduction depends on test tube babies, irresponsible sex becomes a legitimate entertainment for people to paralyze themselves, and all people are bred according to their respective classes from before birth.
From high to low, people are divided into five types: "Alpha (α)", "Beta (β)", "Gamma (γ)", "Delta (δ)", "Epsilon (ε)" "Caste", Alpha is the smartest, and will be trained to be a big man who leads and controls all classes in the future; Gamma is an ordinary class, equivalent to a commoner; Delta and Epsilon are the lowest, can only do ordinary manual labor, and have low intelligence .
Managers use some scientific methods of psychological suggestion to strictly control the preferences of all kinds of people, and cooperate with a psychotropic drug called "soma" (similar to nicotine), so that people can use the happiest mood to carry out their destined life. All people are subject to various constraints and educations that are content with the status quo. (Baidu Encyclopedia)
Dystopian works are committed to building a complete and huge world view, which may be the reason. When the novel is to be adapted into a TV series, the screenwriter has to use a lot of space to present this world view, so it is difficult to take into account the practical significance behind these settings.
1. Be wary of sudden freedoms
In Brave New World's worldview, since fertility has been replaced by test tubes, "becoming a parent" has become a behavior that is criticized because it represents unregulated, unplanned behavior. In this way, sex becomes a legitimate form of entertainment, as common as a drink after get off work.
In the TV series, the heroine Lenina went to visit the "Monogamy Experience Zone" of the "Barbarian Reservation" and was shocked by the way of life of the people there. The oath at the wedding was regarded by the people of the New World as superstition and monogamy. Was identified as "selfish and jealous".
Indeed, the first episode of the TV series explained that people in the new world are not allowed to have long-term partners, and that all sexual resources should be shared. In this eye-catching way, I try to make you think that this place is free. This is really what contemporary society is looking for, with rising divorce rates, an increasing base of non-regular partners, and people struggling to gain control of their bodies.
But in the new world, the protagonists are not allowed to have a fixed partner, are not allowed to live a private life (wear a special contact lens to connect to the control center, and they will be checked when they go to the toilet), and are not allowed to break through their own stratum, By contrast, sexual freedom is one of the very few freedoms they can get.
A dictator would encourage this kind of freedom, Huxley said in his original book: Sexual freedom, along with the freedom to daydream under the influence of drugs, movies, and radio, would only help his subjects settle for the fate of slavery.
This can't help but remind people of the great depression of the world economy in 1931 when the work was born. At the same time, it was the golden age of Hollywood. The people in the movie lived a life of ecstasy, and people could use a movie ticket to do a movie or two. An hour's Spring and Autumn Dream, a well-deserved "Dream Factory".
Sexual freedom, reproductive freedom, divorce freedom, the buzzing discussions and controversies on the Internet, if you really look at it from the perspective of social managers, these have become innocuous. So be wary of sudden gains in "freedom" that often appear to compensate for diminished political and economic freedom .
2. Be alert to the "soma" around you
In "Brave New World", "soma" is a kind of psychoactive drug. When a person has a bad mood, he only needs to take a "soma", and he can immediately become comfortable and happy.
This makes people wonder whether the so-called "Brave New World" is really free of troubles in civic life, or whether the maintenance of this kind of psychotropic drugs makes people lose the ability to feel pain.
But "Soma" is not far from our lives. Those entertainment programs that attract people's attention, those garish celebrity gossip, the newly opened Internet celebrity milk tea shop, a slightly lower personal tax, a drop in the provident fund, retaliatory consumption, etc. There are zero and zero total social subsidies, which can always make you happy, make you feel that society is improving, and history is spiraling upward.
But under the cover of these things, social news, vicious events, gender discrimination, employment difficulties, civil rights violations, how many are allowed to be discussed publicly. It's not that people don't have negative emotions, or they don't suffer from stress and pain, but they have been defined by the word "negative energy" and have never been allowed to appear.
In Brave New World, someone would advise you to eat a soum at this time.
Or in some extreme situations, people feel that they will die if they don't use soma.
3. Be wary of the disappearance of personal privacy
The most shocking thing is that people in Brave New World are not allowed to have privacy, wearing a special kind of contact lenses, the control center can see everything you see through this little device, if you privately If you disconnect, you will be warned immediately.
The iron law of that society: society, duty, stability. It will tell you a value: it is a shared society, breaking the structure of the family unit, one person can connect to anyone (sounds very unfavorable for social terror survival), and the control center is responsible for observing and monitoring people for compliance This rule is adopted so that everyone can perform their duties in their own social identity and maintain the greatest happiness.
It sounds incredible, but all of this has actually happened. On the one hand, we are cracking down on individuals, enterprises, civil organizations, etc. that leak and sell personal privacy, but on the other hand, our whereabouts, chat records, Internet records or public occasions The following speeches are controlled and supervised by public power.
How many people think all this is reasonable? As if for "social stability" and "prevention of emergencies", we can cede our privacy rights and naively think that as long as we live a normal life, it will not have any effect on us.
It's a phenomenon of self-castration and self-discipline, because you don't know the people who watch over you, where they've drawn that "line", from the first bite of your personal privacy being eroded, society Just grinding your nerves and raising your acceptance and anger thresholds.
And the dystopian work is telling you 600 years later in an extremely exaggerated form: one day you will be questioned for closing the door to go to the toilet.
4. Beware of the Eugenics System
The five castes and five strata of the society are strictly arranged in quantity and cultivation method, which is why people in the new world are very disgusted with the identity of "parents", because natural childbirth violates that society's "prenatal and postnatal care". understanding and cognition.
Under this concept, reproduction has become standardized production. Excellent people are assigned higher IQs and more social resources before they are born. After birth, they enjoy the best education, the highest jobs, and are Inform: Be worthy of your status.
And the bottom "Epsilon" has been genetically selected as "dementia", "no emotion", "can only work" even before birth, using a more modern interpretation: born as a leek, Willing for the leeks.
The extreme eugenics system brings about the solidification of class, the disappearance of individuality, and the disappearance of freedom. The so-called social stability, from another perspective, means the lack of possibility in society.
It's not just a parenting issue, it's an insinuation of how determined people might be about breaking out of the existing order and class. In 2020, people are always talking about whether to let children lose at the starting line, but behind this issue is that society has developed to this day, and has passed a vigorous growth period. The era of getting rich and making a class leap is over, so breaking the old order will be very difficult.
Against the background of this era, some people will turn to maintain the old order, admit and accept the stereotype of class, believe in being safe with small riches, and are keen to discuss whether other people’s behaviors are cheating, and even people are reminded everywhere in online life. Seed the "rules" of the circle. This kind of psychology is actually no different from those parents who are committed to prenatal education and early childhood education. They are all insecure. Because society does not provide people with possibilities, they are more willing to believe in a refined, controllable and planned growth path than the barbaric growth of the day after tomorrow.
I am no different from criticizing the thinking of these people. Although providing a better environment and resources for children is not an easy task, it can even make people exhausted and anxious every day, but in any case, compared to breaking through the order and class, it seems Effortless.
It is a kind of old-fashioned and retrogressive for the purpose of self-preservation.
If you haven't read the original work of Brave New World, I still recommend that you go and watch it. The works of the last century, even if the TV series are not presented in their original flavor, are enough to make you think. One of the purposes of making famous novels into film and television is to let all kinds of people understand and accept them. In the current fragmented learning and reading mode, this function is particularly important.
Huxley also felt after writing the novel that Utopia was much closer to us than anyone could imagine.
"I imagined it six hundred years later, but now that terror seems likely to befall us within a century."
It’s only a decade or so away from the century he said, and I don’t know how you guys feel in 2020.
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