Mundo Feliz

[cervecita]

El libro de Aldous Huxlex Mundo Feliz quien lo ha leido?
Qué piensan de el?
La verdad yo no sé si me gusta mucho que digamos, hay cosas que me agradan y hasta me hacen reir como Lenina y el uso del soma y otras que me parecen fuera de lugar.

[Ark]

Yo lo leí y me gustó mucho. Después de todo, si eran felices. Aunque no me gustó como tradujeron el título al español (originalmente se llama Brave new world)

Lo que me encantó fue como John, el salvaje que se llevan a la "civilización", habla citando a Shakespeare, como manejan las relaciones personales, el uso del soma, la estratificación de la sociedad y como le rinden culto a Ford por lo de la producción en cadena.

Es una mirada muy pesimista del futuro, una distopía, es de esos libros que tratan de visualizar lo que viene para poder evitarlo. Si te gustó, te recomiendo 1984 y Fahrenheit 451.

¡Ah, y el final, el final es una maravilla!

«¡Oh qué maravilla!
¡Cuántas criaturas bellas hay aquí!
¡Cuán bella es la humanidad!
¡Oh mundo feliz,
en el que vive gente así!»

-Tempest, acto V.

[cervecita]

Pues yo lo leí para mi clase de composición y ahora tengo que escribir un ensayo analítico de las siguientes opciones pero no se cual sería la mejor para escribir.
Me gustó el libro pero creo que tiene alguna incongruencias, mi libro favorito futuristico es La ley del amor de Laura Ezquivel.
Pero bueno, quí van las opciones a ver cuales recomiendas:
1.El uno de la tecnología para controlar a la sociedad.
Dígase el soma los "feelies" no se como hayan traducido eso pero son las peliculas a las que van, etc.
2. La incompatibilidad entre la verdad y la felicidad
Osea que siempre hacen todo para que sus habitantes traten de evadir la verdad y siempre son "felices"
3. El sistema de castas y el modelo de "Comunidad, Identidad y Estabilidad"
Como este sistema crea un mundo "utópico" y todos se benefician de el.

[Ark]

Yo elegiría el número 2: La incompatibilidad entre la verdad y la felicidad. La primera opción no me parece muy interesante o amplia, la tercera opción si es amplia pero creo que se debe tocar desde un punto de vista sociopolítico, área en la que no soy muy entendido.

Se supone que Un mundo feliz es una distopía, pero muchos la ven como una utopía irónica. Lo que pondría en el ensayo sería como los individuos son creados de la noche a la mañana con un propósito, siendo este definido por otras personas mucho antes de su nacimiento. Cumplir ese propósito es lo que hace feliz a la gente y, cuando pasa algo inesperado siempre está el soma para olvidarse de lo malo.

Ahora, ¿la realidad y la felicidad son incompatibles? ciertamente la mayoría del tiempo lo son. Recordemos como John el salvaje era infeliz en Malpaís debido al alcoholismo del amante de su madre y como la trataba, ella ignoraba la realidad (añoraba el soma y lo sustituía con alcohol) y era feliz, cuando la llevaron de vuelta a la civilización se fundió en el soma y ya no despertó. Bernard Marx era infeliz al prescindir del soma y estar en desacuerdo con la estratificación social de alfas, betas, epsilones, etc. El vivía siempre en contacto con la realidad, incluso más que nadie ya que llegaba a escuchar hablar a los otros mal de él y las mujeres lo rechazaban por su apariencia. Podríamos decir que el era infeliz porque conocía la realidad.
John fue llevado de Malpaís (su realidad) a la civilización y se sumió en la infelicidad tal vez al ver lo bajo que la humanidad había caído. Es decir, pasó de los hermosos escritos de Shakespeare a un mundo de conformismo, consumismo desmedido, ignorancia y racismo (y en este caso si que está bien aplicado el término). Es en ese momento donde se da algo muy interesante, deja esta nueva realidad y se muda a un faro a tratar de vivir como lo hacía antes, al ver que no puede y al ***SPOILER ALERT*** participar en la orgía de sexo y soma se despierta al día siguiente y se impacta contra la verdad: el fue parte de esa sociedad por una noche, al no soportar esta realidad, huye de ella suicidándose. Esto está lleno de simbolismo, primero deja Malpaís, su realidad salvaje, llega a la civilización y se defrauda, huye de la "realidad civilizada" hacia el faro y de nuevo huye de toda realidad al suicidarse.

En cuanto a la sociedad civilizada, aunque son felices drogándose, consumiendo e ignorando la verdad creo que eso la hace una sociedad muy débil. Débil porque el soma les impide confrontarse con los problemas, nunca aprenden de ellos, lo que hace fuerte a las personas es superar los problemas y ellos no lo hacían. Me da un poco de miedo ver que cada día nos acercamos a vivir en un mundo así, donde se estrene ropa a diario y todo se base en las apariencias. Es sólo cuestión de pensarlo, la sociedad perfecta de Huxley es una magnificación de los defectos más podridos de nuestra actual sociedad: una sociedad que compra lo que le dicen en los medios aunque no lo necesiten, una sociedad que adora a una pop idol diferente cada semana, una que escapa de la realidad de los países tercermundistas, una sociedad que adora a los grandes "pensadores" de la calidad empresarial en lugar de a una entidad superior, una sociedad uniformada de acuerdo a su superioridad, una sociedad que se engaña a si misma.

Creo la la pregunta importante no es si la sociedad es feliz ignorando la realidad, sino si tenemos la capacidad de vivir en la realidad imperfecta, superarlo y continuar con nuestras vidas. porque ¿a quien no le gustaría escapar mágicamente de sus problemas? ¿valdría la pena vivir en un mundo sin enfermedad ni pobreza pero tampoco sin arte, literatura, religión ni filosofía? no creo que la naturaleza inquisitiva y curiosa del espíritu humano le permita ser feliz sin estas cosas.

Todo se resumen en una elección: vivir en una dulce mentira, un sueño, o vivir en la amarga realidad.

Y eso es todo, perdona si me extendí un poco, pero mientras estaba escribiendo me dí cuenta que todo esto se aplica a algo que estoy viviendo en este momento, viví durante mucho tiempo en un hermoso sueño y me acabo de golpear con la dura y amarga realidad, y lo malo es que soy tan débil que creo que, de existir el soma, ahora mismo estaría con una sobredosis.

[cervecita]

Muchas gracias por tus aportaciones Ark, me sirvieron mucho!
Aqui de pasada pego lo que escribi, esta en ingles, peor sile entiendes me dices que piensas.. Esta bastante largo asi que puede dar hueva.. LOL


Truth or Happiness? Take Your Pick
150 A.F. is the year of a world filled with happiness and joy, a true utopia. Unluckily, for all the citizens in Brave New World, who dare to analyze anything in this blissful world, it may be a living hell. Aldous Huxley mixes fiction and viewing the upsetting society in which he lived, to create a novel that might have been seen as a prophecy into what could be a future reality. The story of Huxley’s Brave New World begins with a society that became totally dependent on technology to survive. The World Controller is the only person who knows anything about the past, while society is focused on the present doing what they are programmed to do. People are conditioned depending on the caste they belong to from the time they are coincided into the time they become adults. The most important facility, the Hatchery and Conditioning Center goes by the motto “Community, Identity, Stability”(3) Everything is in place, and everyone is happy in this world. That is, until one of the upper caste men, Bernard, a pariah, starts paying attention to thoughts of his own instead of those that were conditioned by hydropaedia in him. Bernard and one of his co-workers, Lenina, take a trip to an Indian reservation where they get to see how unconditioned people live. In the reservation, they meet the Savage, John, who is the son of an upper caste woman who got lost in the reservation. In Brave New World, the World State enforces happiness by providing its citizens with soma, focusing society on mindless promiscuity and exaggerated social life, teaching its citizens to avoid thinking or feeling on their own, in order to create stability.
The drug soma produces a day-dreaming stage for several hours or even days. The effects of soma emphasize happiness because it provides people with a quick solution to forget problems or solve confusions, rather than troubleshooting and thinking critically. Soma prevents all citizens from ever experiencing any kind of pain, melancholy, suffering, and confusion, and instead makes people in this world always feel joyful. A clear example of how people become completely addicted to soma, even at the smallest amount of awkwardness, is when Lenina and Bernard go to Malpais, the Indian reservation. They take a tour, and get to see for the first time how people that have not been conditioned live. Lenina constantly feels disgusted at the new experiences she feels, and she is completely confused by seeing for the first time someone who is old. Lenina feels extremely terrified with the wrinkles and the body of the old man Bernard and her see, as she stresses to Bernard her need for soma with one of the slogans conditioned into her by hydropaedia “'A gramme [of soma] is better than a damn'… 'I wish I had my soma! '” (116). The use of soma is a pillar to the production of happiness in this civilization. With no soma this world would not function, and as new feelings arose society, a plethora of problems would arise as well. However, soma is not the only distraction that the World State encourages to avert people from the truth.
The World State also focuses society by demanding promiscuity. Unlike today’s world, it is immoral not sexually active and to be monogamous, since “everyone belongs to everyone else” (43) according to the hydropaedia sessions given to condition everybody’s mind. For instance, when Lenina confesses to one of her friends, Fanny, in the dressing room she has only seen one man, Henry Foster, in the past four months; Fanny feels sorry for her friend and gives her some advice saying, “But at your age, Lenina! No, it really won’t do. And you know how strongly the D.H.S. objects intense or long drawn. Four months of Henry Foster without having another man–why, he’d be furious if they knew”(41). Promiscuity is encouraged even in children teaching them to play erotic games naked with each other. An example of this is when a pair of twins being death conditioned at a hospital were confused with an awkward situation; the nurse in charge of the children ordered them to play hunt-the zipper providing a clear example of how promiscuity is natural and healthy in Brave New World. Promiscuity is rather common among people and they talk openly and with no attachment about the persons they have sexual intercourse with. In a scene in the men’s changing room Henry Foster comments about Lenina to the Assistant Predestinator saying, “ Yes, I really do advise you to try her” (46). Being openly and actively sexual enhances happiness because it prevents people from attachment, and therefore, from loving. Commonly, when people fall in love and they get upset at their significant other, they experience several other feelings reversed to love like anger, depression, and misery that go against happiness and joy. Conditioning people to not love is a successful path the World State implements in its citizens for a happy life.
Although soma and promiscuity provide great results in distracting people, social life plays another immense role in Brave New World to prevent people from the truth. In this society, anyone who enjoys being by themselves is seen as a person with serious issues. Bernard Marx, an upper caste man who enjoys being alone analyzing his non-conditioned thoughts without the use of soma., acts different than the other men of his caste, which tends to make him an outcast. As a result, people gossip about him, and even insinuate that something went wrong with his conditioning when he was an embryo. Fanny states that, “they say that somebody made a mistake when he was still in the bottle…and put alcohol into his blood-surrogate…” (46). Bernard Marx is also considered weird because, unlike the other men, he does not enjoy social sports like Obstacle Tennis or Electromagnetic Golf (45). In their free time, people are always in the company of others or are on a date to a social event, like, going to watch a feelie, a weekend trip, or to group rituals. Even Bernard Marx gets involved in some social activities, as he attends the Community Sings, a ritual where upper caste men and women got together to chant and later have sexual intercourse (79). Social life gives emphasis to happiness, because people are constantly repeating and unconsciously reminding one another the phrases conditioned to them by hydropaedia. If they are in any type of company, they do not have time or even the desire to look within themselves and deeply analyze any circumstances. The activities of social life are superficial and keep them blind from finding deep meanings in their lives. Social life also keeps people infantile, because it is like making them play with one another as if they were children. But if people are like children, they are likely to obey and search for no individuality, which keeps them from feeling diverse and perhaps discontent.
Happiness is imposed in Brave New World by the omission of truth at all times; it is done in several ways including the provision of soma, and enhancing promiscuity and social life among every citizen. By conditioning people to be happy with reversed values the World State is creating a soulless society that lives with overturned thoughts compared to the ones we live by now: drugs are good, love is awful and individuality does not exist. However, Huxley was not completely mistaken when he imagined what the future would be like after mass Industrialization. Although we mainly live by the same values Huxley was living in his time, they are slowly changing. Increasingly, less people are starting to believe in true love or chastity, as technology has become an asset to our society some people do get distracted from current events in our world, since they rather spend time using some technology device such as the Internet, video games or television. There is no such thing as soma in our world or any type of drug encouraged by the government. However, there are people that go to the doctor to get a Prozac, an antidepressant pill to feel “happy,” and others drink or use illicit drugs to escape from reality. The question is, would we ever end up living in a society like Brave New World’s? The World Controller, Mustapha Mond, explains in his speech to the Savage, “The world is stable now. People are happy; they get what they want, and they never want what they cant get.” (220). However, is that what we really moving forward to, a society based on a bogus happiness? The answer to the choice between truth and happiness in our future is not yet clear; it depends on the decisions society takes now in order to mentor future generations. However there is something that should be kept in mind, and that is the true and significant statement that Huxley makes regarding truth and happiness when he wrote Brave New World: they are incompatible.

[Ark]

Ah, que bonito, lo leí todo. Quería ver como te quedaba y te quedó muy bien.

Hace mucho que leí Un mundo feliz y ahora veo que me había olvidado de muchas cosas: la impresión de Lenina al ver al anciano, los feelies, los deportes raros, la promiscuidad de los niños, Mustafá Mond (aunque según yo, sólo era el controlador de Europa, no de todo el planeta)...

Tienes puntos de vista muy interesantes que yo no había considerado, como el hecho de que nosotros no necesitamos soma teniendo Internet, alcohol, televisión, prozac y videojuegos.


Dying swans twisted wings, beauty not needed here
Lost my love, lost my life, in this garden of fear
I have seen many things, in a lifetime alone
Mother love is no more, bring this savage back home

Wilderness house of pain, makes no sense of it all
Close this mind dull this brain, Messiah before his fall
What you see is not real, those who know will not tell
All is lost sold your souls to this brave new world

Dragon kings dying queens, where is salvation now
Lost my life lost my dreams, rip the bones from my flesh
Silent screams laughing here, dying to tell you the truth
You are planned and you are damned in this brave new world

Dying swans twisted wings, bring this savage back home
In a brave new world, a brave new world...

-Iron Maiden, Brave new world