Brave New World by Aldous Huxley

1984 by George Orwell

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Since humankind crawled out of the caves and established civilizations, we have struggled to create the perfect societies and communities. In a real sense, human history is the search for the elusive utopian dream. Each society has sought to create for itself the perfect society in which to live.

The word utopia originates from the Greek. The root "topos" means land and the prefix "u" is a negative prefix. Thus utopia literally means "no-land." The ancient Greeks understood the fallacy of a perfect society in an imperfect world. Nevertheless, we as a human species have tried to established the impossible. 

The novels Brave New World and 1984 are dystopias. Huxley and Orwell knew that perfect societies could not exist, and they warn us that the attempts to establish perfect societies could lead to our worst nightmare.

Aldous Huxley & BNW links
        
(a wonderful resource for the novel)

Concepts found in BNW 

Cloning Fact Sheet

Genetic Engineered Monkey (can humans be far behind?)

Online text of BNW and resources

Online text of 1984 

Analysis of 1984

About George Orwell (BBC)

Big Brother  & the Patriot Act  - Is that ok after Sept 11? 

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The Acropolis of Athens where the concept of utopianism was defined by Plato in his Republic.

Big Brother Is Watching You!

 

Who controls the past controls the future, who controls the present controls the past.

 

"How many goodly creatures are there here!
How beauteous mankind is!
O brave new world that has such people in it!"
william shakespeare

 

Extra Credit Essay