Interchangable Parts --> Interchangable Humans

In today’s modified world exploding with scientific discovery, the increased knowledge assimilated by man has lead the human race to tamper with the idea of creating a more perfect society. New scientific advancements in technology have even allowed the human race capable to eradicate genetic imperfections at foetal development. This technique is known as genetic engineering, where the human genome and DNA is manipulated to conform to certain standards, the standard of perfection. These advancements are relished through man’s pedantic desire of performing the gained knowledge borne from human intellect. However, man should take caution because the human race is greatly harming itself through tampering the fragile balance of the human body. Where is man overstepping his boundary? Despite the arguable benefits of genetic engineering, the costs outweigh the benefits in several ways.

Genetic engineering may sound highly appealing because think about it: our very world extinct from diseases that act as impediments. No autism, no asbergers, and no cancer waiting to ravage the human body. The very catalyst sparking life to these malignant genes start in the gene pool at the moment of conception. Now these genes can expire through the use of genetic engineering and through the use of manipulating the karyotypes of the soon to be child. In Brave New World, at the very moment of conception, the perfect human being is shaped by the hand of man, the new Creator. Man becomes the divine being, the divine God. Oh what a power, what a gift! Imagine the people of the world not suffering from cruelty that natural selection puts on the people of the world! Troubles of the world would slip through the hands like water, like lost blown sand of the past. Forgotten the pain and agony of the human race! One would argue that through genetic engineering, humans would be created to perform certain jobs more efficiently because they were programmed to have a natural knack for completing them.

One would argue to say that people would be gifted with certain abilities to benefit the world. For example, a man engineered to be a doctor would be programmed to have a high intellectual capacity to perform high levels of calculus, memorization of medical terms, and have excellent patience for ample precision when performing an operation. People’s abilities would be so much higher and they could achieve much greater things than they could achieve in today’s world. In a world that is being dominated through the study of humanism, and declining with the studies of altruism, God fades away, and human accomplishment lays in the center ring. This idea can create consequences with the weight to destroy the importance of the human soul, and create a world of programmed machines that go parallel with Thomas Hobbs’s philosophy. “All generous minds have a horror of what are commonly called "Facts". They are the brute beasts of the intellectual domain.” Facts of science once learned blacken a person’s mind like black ink swallowing a white sheet of paper. The paper’s white chastity lies helpless, blackened by the ink, which is parallel to the ink splotch gnawing at the mid of humanity: scientific knowledge.

Unfortunately, this idea carries many strong consequences. At first, genetic engineering would probably be used to filter out genetic disorders that could be cause harm to the child’s life. However, here is a point to consider: people in general are always curious with innovating scientific improvements and in technology. After all, child creation becomes no longer a natural act, but a mechanical act of technology. People become marketed as if on an assembly line, being shaped with certain parts to create a functioning product with the ability of performing a task. Life is something special, a gift from God. As a human being, a person should have the rights to be created differently than a Tyco remote control car on assembly line. We are humans, not people on the verge of being created by interchangeable parts. We are human. We are human. We are a living divine soul, not an engineering project! Genetic engineering is harmful because it involves playing the role of God! Genetic engineering makes obsolete the individual’s free will, something that belongs to the human being! A child should not be created to be a fireman, it is HIS life; the boy chooses what he wants to become as an adult.
In Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, a fictional society is created that uses human technology to shape this world, one of them genetic engineering. In this society ruled by the philosopher king Mustafa, the people in the community are genetically engineered so they can accomplish a particular job, and nothing else besides that because they are oppressed form knowing the knowledge of the world like history and the truth. These people know nothing but carnal instinct and feeling high from Soma. The people in Huxley’s world become nothing but Headenists seeking fleshly pleasure and fulfillment. In this new society, there is no longer art, famous literature, or Bible. Instead, this society has Soma, an opiate, feelies, an adventure of the emotions, and lots of orgies. This is such a feel- good society, and it seems near impossible to find a flaw. However, in the novel Bernard talks to Lenina, a beautiful young woman if she wanted something different from everybody else in the world. “Yes, ‘Everybody’s happy nowadays.’ We begin giving the children that at five. But wouldn’t you like to be free to be happy in some other way, Lenina? In your own way, for example; not in everybody else’s way” (Huxley 91). Bernard’s question shows the idea that maybe the people in Brave New World are not happy at all. He tells her if she wanted to be FREE, something that nobody in that world is. All the occupants in this society are oppressed, and to some degree the people in the society are aware of this. Although Mustafa may try to save his people from the truths, is he really bringing them happiness? Mustafa is an unsuccessful attempt to play God. He tries, but his followers may not truly be happy. It is very apparent in that quote that Bernard knows deep in his gut that something is lacking in life. There really is no such thing as a perfect world. In this perverse world full of orgies, genetic corruption, and oppression even God cannot save us from this apocalypse. The savage paralleling the coming of the Messiah failed. If God cannot help us then who can?
The human being tries to out step his boundary by attempting to play the role as God. Why must man utilize all discovered knowledge and put it into action? Although genetic engineering lies in the capability of man, does it make it acceptable to perform it when it can be misused and consequently destroy the entire world? Through the use of genetic engineering, man becomes a mathematical equation , a calculated formula consisting of calculus and annalytical geometry. Consequently, the human race under genetic manipulation becomes a homogeneous population of black and white devoid of individuality, free will, and liberty.

Welcome, America, To Brave New World

      The evolution of humanity has changed dramatically throughout the centuries. Recorded in anthropological and philosophical studies, there are two different types of societies that mark the values and belief systems by how man lived in the world. These two types of revolutions include Altruism¹, the first revolution, and philosophical Humanism², the second revolution. Presently, there has been a prominent rise in humanism and a rapid diminution in Altruism. Humanism in American society states that life is based upon human need and interest. I agree with Postman’s assertion that Brave New World’s society is more relevant than that of 1984 because of the “infliction of pleasure placed on American culture today” and that “technologies will undo people’s capacity to think” (Postman). America’s unstable economic conditions and its plethora of hypnotizing commercials promote that it is acceptable to give into sensual indulgences because they allow one to become happier. People use advertisements to show the rewards and bliss of indulgence: becoming happier and becoming stress-free. Advertisements draw people in through sensual manipulation as a way of convincing them to buy their products. In a troubled world with an unsteady economy enveloped in a rise of unemployment and the plummeting dollar, Americans seek for a way to escape the stresses invading their world. In Huxley’s Brave New World, there is significant evidence of a society once plagued by stresses like death, illness, and instability, from which people have found alleviation through hedonism and sensual appeasement.

      The United States is a democracy. In the twenty-first century, American taxpayers are experiencing financial debt, the fall of the dollar, the end of Social Security, and inflation. These unstable economic conditions cause extreme trepidation on society leading to chaos, fear, and societal instability. Desperate to feel good, United States citizens will seek artificial happiness equivalent to soma in the Brave New World Society. Voters and taxpayers of the United States will demand happiness, and the socialist state will deliver the wants of the American people. This demand alludes to using mood -elevating drugs very similar to soma to become a source of happiness and alleviation. In American society, the rise of over-the-counter drug abuse is on a steady increase because the drugs cause happiness by heightening the sensual responses of the user while leaving them devoid of stress. According to researcher Joe Blow, the percentages of people abusing medications for sensual rushes has been increasing.

People are hooked on benzodiazepines, commonly known as tranquilizers and sleeping pills. They tantalize users with promises of dulling emotional pain, chasing away anxiety and crooning them to sleep. They are very addictive. Benzodiazepines are only a temporary fix--it is often only a few weeks before the positive effects wear off and dependency begins. (strike-the-root.com)

The rise of abusing medication in this generation has been linked with economic stresses, increased work hours, and domestic struggles. The American people have found alleviation through the use of scientifically formulated tablets that ward struggle and bring happiness just like the society of Brave New World and their use of the opiate soma.

The return to civilization was for her the return to soma, was the possibility of lying in bed and taking holiday after holiday, without ever having to come back to a headache or a fit of vomiting, without ever being made to feel as you always felt after peyotl, as though you'd done something so shamefully anti-social that you could never hold up your head again. Soma played none of these unpleasant tricks. The holiday it gave was perfect and, if the morning after was disagreeable, it was so, not intrinsically, but only by comparison with the joys of the holiday. Greedily she clamoured forever larger, ever more frequent doses. Dr. Shaw at first demurred; then let her have what she wanted. She took as much as twenty grammes a day. (Huxley, 154)

This excerpt notes how both the A.F. 632 and American societies correspond with each other. Both societies heavily depend on drugs in order to deliver happiness and stability even to the point of abuse. Harm to the body through drug overdose is no longer deemed as important to American citizens or to Linda in Brave New World because bodily pleasure negates any future consequences. In Huxley’s novel, he takes sensual fulfillment further by eliminating marriage, love, and devotion, the most basic of human ideologies. Through the use of soma, human knowledge and opinion becomes eliminated and they live their lives dumbfounded, conditioned to love their positions in life. Citizens no longer have opinions, morals, or values. They no longer believe in “Moderation in all things”, Aristotle’s philosophy, because the citizens are conditioned to fully engage in every single pleasure they feel. This ensures that the citizens will be content with whatever jobs they are given and will not desire anything greater or wish to know anything. Promiscuous debauching of the society allows for further indulgence, which dominates over the concerns of the people’s knowledge of the divine purpose of man or to the existence of a God.

      The future created by Huxley is certainly the utopia that America is becoming. Advertising today, found in all types of media, strongly promotes sex and indulgence in both luxuries and food. In past generations, people were once very reserved with what they talked about and advocated publicly. For example, sex was considered a taboo and rarely depicted in a movie but was symbolized by a blowing curtain or by other more modest representations. Today, our society has become far more open about the discussion and public display of sex. Sex is vividly and graphically displayed in any movie worth watching or deserving of an Oscar. People want to see a movie with lots of heated debauchery topped off with the all too common post-coital shot in many movies. Sex has become the symbol of success and happiness in the twenty first century. Many advertisements promote that happiness comes not only from sex but also from the very food we consume. Advertisements that persuade people usually come from convincing material that appeals to the senses. Unfortunately, not all burgers are created equal! Would someone want to buy a pack of Shop Rite burger patties when they remember the McDonald’s ad on television? The McDonald’s burger depicted with flame broiled goodness, crunchy lettuce, and spicy onion immediately negates the package of store-bought patties collecting frost in the corner of the shelf. In Huxley’s novel, the controllers of A.F. 632 are parallel to the head advertisers in charge of convincing the American people to buy their product, to buy happiness. In Brave New World, Mustapha draws in his people by advertising happiness and bliss to them by appealing to the senses. He is so successful that he even succeeds to lure in John the Savage who represents a Christ figure into his sensual utopia: “Stupefied by soma, and exhausted by a long-drawn frenzy of sensuality, the Savage lay sleeping in heather” (Huxley, 258). It is here that John the Messiah or second -coming of Christ fails by sinning. John the Savage is persuaded by Mustapha's advertisements of a perfect feel- good world. John sins by having sex with Lenina and she becomes his crucifix. He fails and represents the downfall of Christianity. This is because man is sinful, and it is impossible for man not to give into sin.

      I agree with social critic Neil Postman that America is quickly becoming a Brave New World society. As the United States continues to morph into this new society, we only move closer to the destruction of the human race. In typical utopian societies, the manipulation of pleasure, pain, or other execrable methods is somehow supposed to lead the people of a world of happiness.

¹ The philosophical belief of serving the needs of others before oneself
² Fulfilling individual needs before considering those of others

Source:
http://www.strike-the-root.com/3/blow/blow3.html