Brave New

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Brave New 
World

• by Aldous Huxley

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HISTORICAL TIMELINE

• 1879 The first psychological laboratory opens in
  Germany
• 1886 Freud opens his psychology practice in
  Austria, experimenting with techniques such as
  hypnosis, free association, and dream analysis.
  From 1900-1905, he publishes his major works on
  psychoanalysis, also known as the "talking cure."
  Freud argued that awareness of the unconscious
  mind is essential to understanding conscious
  thought and behavior. The unconscious mind might
  be defined as that part of the mind which gives
  rise to a collection of mental phenomena that
  manifest in a person's mind but which the person
  is not aware of at the time of their occurrence.
  These phenomena include unconscious feelings,
  unconscious or automatic skills, unnoticed
  perceptions, unconscious thoughts, unconscious
  habits and automatic reactions, complexes, hidden
  phobias and concealed desires.
• 1900 Gregor Mendels scientific work on genetic
  inheritance is rediscovered The biological
  techniques used to control the populace in Brave
  New World do not include genetic engineering
  Huxley wrote the book before the structure of DNA
  was known. However, Gregor Mendel's work with
  inheritance patterns in peas had been
  re-discovered in 1900 and the eugenics movement,
  based on artificial selection, was well
  established. Huxley's family included a number of
  prominent biologists including Thomas Huxley,
  half-brother and Nobel Laureate Andrew Huxley,
  and brother Julian Huxley who was a biologist and
  involved in the eugenics movement. Nonetheless,
  Huxley emphasizes conditioning as science writer
  Matt Ridley put it, Brave New World describes an
  environmental not a genetic hell. Human embryos
  and fetuses are conditioned via a carefully
  designed regimen of chemical (such as exposure to
  hormones and toxins), thermal (exposure to
  intense heat or cold, as one's future career
  would dictate), and other environmental stimuli
•  

 
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?HISTORICAL TIMELINE CONTINUED...

• 1900s-20's Introduction of chewing gum, radio,
  movies, and advertising The Industrial
  Revolution transformed the world. Mass
  production made cars, telephones, and radios
  relatively cheap and widely available throughout
  the developed world. The political, cultural,
  economic and sociological upheavals of the
  then-recent Russian Revolution of 1917 and the
  First World War (19141918) resonated throughout
  the world as a whole and the individual lives of
  most people. Accordingly, many of the novel's
  characters named after widely-recognized
  influential people of the time, for example,
  Polly Trotsky, Benito Hoover, Lenina and Fanny Cro
  wne, Mustapha Mond, Helmholtz Watson,
  and Bernard Marx.
•  1930's-40's Rise of Fascism and Communism the
  dictatorships of Hitler (German head of state
  from 1934-1945), Stalin (in power in the Soviet
  Union from 1924-1953), and Mussolini (Italian
  head of state from 1943-45). Stalin launched
  a command economy, replacing the New Economic
  Policy of the 1920s with Five-Year Plans and
  launching a period of rapid industrialization and 
  economic collectivization. The upheaval in the
  agricultural sector disrupted food production,
  resulting in widespread famine, including the
  catastrophic Soviet famine of 19321933.
• 1931--Brave New World written Huxley is inspired
  by travels to America and a visit to the newly
  opened and technologically advanced Brunner and
  Mond plant, part of Imperial Chemical Industries,
  or ICI, Billingham, and gives a fine and detailed
  account of the processes he saw. 1932--Brave New
  World published Brave New World was inspired by
  the H. G. Wells's utopian novel Men Like Gods.
  Wells' optimistic vision of the future gave
  Huxley the idea to begin writing a parody of the
  novel, which became Brave New World. Contrary to
  the most popular optimist utopian novels of the
  time, Huxley sought to provide a frightening
  vision of the future. Huxley referred to Brave
  New World as a negative utopia.
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Henry Ford THE FORD MOTOR COMPANY
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Henry Ford (1863 - 1947) was from Detroit,
Michigan, USA and made his first car in his back
yard in 1896.   After several false starts, the
Ford Motor Company was formed in 1903. The first
product was the Model A, introduced in the same
year. Their most successful product ever, the
Model T, came out in September 1908. The Model
T was the world's most successful car of the
pre-WWII era. Between 1908 and 1927, sales
outstripped any other with over 15 million cars
and commercial vehicles produced world-wide... 
approximately 100,000 Model-Ts survive... they
were available in a variety of body styles,
however the basic mechanical specification was
the same in each. 
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THE MODEL-T AND THE ASSEMBLY LINE
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THE MODEL-T AND THE ASSEMBLY LINE
http//vodpod.com/watch/4188011-ford-harvest-of-th
e-years-1930s
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Without the invention of the mass-produced
automobile, later developments such as the
drive-in movie theater and fast food would not
have been possible. These pictures, which show a
late 1950s model Ford in front of a McDonald's,
are from the Henry Ford Museum in Michigan.
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The long wondrous life  of Aldous Huxley...

• July 26, 1894 born in Surrey, England, to a
  teacher and the founder of a school
•  
• 1904 Huxley's mother dies
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• 1908 Huxley suffers temporary blindness as the
  result of a childhood illness

• 1914-1918 (WWI) Spends most of the war as a farm
  laborer in the English countryside, where he
  meets several leading philosophers of his day
•  
• 1921 Publishes first book, Crome Yellow becomes
  known as a humanist and a pacifist writer
  interested in parapsychology (the supernatural)
  and mysticism--though all of his books
  (particularly Brave New World) receive mixed
  critical reviews.
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• 1929-late 1930's/early 40's the Great
  Depression travels to the United States for the
  first time in 1931 writes BNW
• 1937 Huxley and his wife and son move to
  Hollywood, California.
• 1939-1945 (WWII) Reads Orwell's 1984 writes to
  Orwell "Within the next generation I believe
  that the world's leaders will discover that
  infant conditioning and narco-hypnosis are more
  efficient, as instruments of government, than
  clubs and prisons, and that the lust for power
  can be just as completely satisfied by suggesting
  people into loving their servitude as by flogging
  them and kicking them into obedience."
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• Spends the later part of his life in the United
  States, living in Los Angeles from 1937 until his
  death in 1963. Writes a novel about utopia (The
  Island) gives a lecture on "human potentiality."
• November 22, 1963 dies in Los Angeles. By the
  time of his death, he was considered a leading
  figure in modern thought.
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• 2000 The Modern Library rates the book as number
  18 on its list of the "100 Best Novels" of all
  time.

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Critical Reception At the time of Publication
After the Age of Utopias came what we may call
the American Age, lasting as long as the Boom.
Men like Ford or Mond seemed to many to have
solved the social riddle and made capitalism the
common good...Brave New World is more of a revolt
against Utopia than against traditional
values. -British Press, 1935 "It is not easy
to become interested in the scientifically
imagined details of life in this mechanical
Utopia.  Nor is there compensation in the amount
of attention that he gives to the abundant sex
life of these denatured human beings." -Times
Literary Supplement, 1932 "Brave New World  is
inert as a work of art nothing can bring it
alive." - New Statesman and Nation, 1932 "He
has money, social position, talent, friends,
prestige and he is effectively insulated from the
misery of the masses.  Of course he wants
something to worry about--even if he has to go to
a long, long way to find it...Mr. Huxley must
have his chance to suffer and be brave." -The New
Republic, 1932
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Critical Reception Contemporary

• "Mr. Huxley is eloquent in his declaration of an
  artist's faith in man, and it is his eloquence,
  bitter in attack, noble in defense, that, when
  one has closed the book, one remembers."
  -Saturday Review of Literature
• "A fantastic racy narrative, full of much
  excellent satire and literary horseplay." -Forum
• "It is as sparkling, as provocative, as
  brilliant, in the appropriate sense, as
  impressive as the day it was published.  This is
  in part because its prophetic voice has remained
  surprisingly contemporary, both in its particular
  forecasts and in its general tone of semiserious
  alarm.  But it is much more because the book
  succeeds as a work of art...This is surely
  Huxley's best book." -Martin Green

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Huxley on advertising, the media, and propaganda
"This is rather alarming that you're being
persuaded below the level of choice and reason...
Advertisement plays a necessary role but the
danger of it to a democracy is this a democracy
depends on the individual voter making a rational
choice for enlightened self-interest. What these
people are doing advertisers when their purpose
is selling goods, what the dictatorial
propagandists are doing, is to try to bypass the
rational side of humanity and to appeal directly
to these unconscious forces below the surface--so
that you are in a way making nonsense of the
democratic procedure which is based on conscious
choice on rational grounds... Today's children
walk around singing beer commercials and
toothpaste commercials."  
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(No Transcript)
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BRAND ALPHABET
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DAILY BRAND TIMELINE     "I stumbled across a
really interesting idea... for anyone interested
in marketing and the power of brand documenting
your daily interaction with brands via a
timeline. I was so intrigued I decided to give it
a go. You can see the results to the left. I
stuck with the brands that were bubbling at the
fore-front of my consciousness so its not a
completely inclusive list and my online life has
been kept stripped down. An interesting exercise!"
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Some Additional Resources...    

• This is a multi-media resource on Aldous Huxley
  and his works, focusing primarily on Brave New
  World.
• http//somaweb.org/
• Here is a reading group guide that emphasizes the
  main themes in the novel
• http//www.readinggroupguides.com/guides_B/brave_n
  ew_world1.asp
• This is an article, written by Margaret Atwood,
  that emphasizes the classic nature of Brave New
  World and connects the novel to contemporary
  life.
• http//www.guardian.co.uk/books/2007/nov/17/classi
  cs.margaretatwood
• This is the article we referenced yesterday
  from The New Yorker regarding the current boom in
  dystopian fiction for young adults.  It is a
  critical essay worth reading!
• http//www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/atlarge/2010
  /06/14/100614crat_atlarge_miller