PROZAC VS SOMA BRAVE NEW WORLD FULL
PROZAC VS SOMA BRAVE NEW WORLD PROFESSIONAL

Yet the dehumanization that he depicts does not really require despotism or external control. In Huxley's novel, everything proceeds under the direction of an omnipotent, albeit benevolent, world state. Moreover, the cultural changes that technology has already wrought among us should make us even more worried than Huxley would have had us be when he saw us coming.

PROZAC VS SOMA BRAVE NEW WORLD FULL

But the kinships are disquieting, all the more so since our technologies of bio-psycho-engineering are still in their infancy, yet they vividly reveal what they might look like in their full maturity. Our Prozac is not yet Huxley's 'soma' cloning by nuclear transfer is not exactly 'Bokanovskification' video games and virtual-reality speakers are not quite the 'feelies' and our current safe and consequenceless sexual practices are not universally as loveless or as empty as those in the novel. No one aspires to anything higher: Brave New Man is so dehumanized that he does not even recognize what has been lost.īrave New World is, of course, science fiction. What matters most is bodily health and immediate gratification. Art and science, virtue and religion, family and friendship are all passe. They do not read, write, think, love, or govern themselves. They consume, fornicate, take 'soma,' enjoy 'centrifugal bumble-puppy' and other technological distractions, and operate the machinery that makes it all possible.

The Brave New World has achieved prosperity, community, stability, and nigh-universal contentment, only to be peopled by creatures of human shape but stunted humanity. But this victory comes at the heavy price of homogenization, mediocrity, trivial pursuits, shallow attachments, debased tastes, spurious contentment, and souls without loves or longings. At long last, mankind has succeeded in eliminating disease, aggression, war, anxiety, suffering, guilt, envy, and grief. Huxley depicts human life seven centuries hence, living under the gentle hand of humanitarianism rendered fully competent by genetic manipulation, psychoactive drugs, hypnopaedia, and high-tech amusements. Following those aspirations to their ultimate realisation, Huxley enables us to recognize those less obvious but often more pernicious evils that are inextricably linked to the successful attainment of the things we most often pursue. Huxley shows us a dystopia that goes with, rather than against, the human grain, animated indeed by our own most humane and progressive aspirations. In his charming but disturbing novel, Brave New World (it appeared in 1932 and is more powerful on each re-reading), he made its meaning visible for all to see. And, to leave this vale of tears, a little extra morphine accompanied by Muzak. Ritalin for the young, Viagra for the old, Prozac for everyone. Some transforming powers are already here. For anyone who cares about preserving our humanity, the time has come to pay attention.

In leading laboratories, academic and industrial, new creators are confidently amassing their powers and quietly honing their skills, while on the street their evangelists are zealously prophesying a post-human future. We are promised new and effective routes to better children, superior performance, ageless bodies, and happy souls1.Īccording to some enthusiasts, human nature itself lies on the operating table, ready for alteration, for eugenic and neuro-psychic 'enhancement,' for wholesale re-design. Yet contemplating present and projected advances in genetic and reproductive technologies, in neuroscience and psychopharmacology, in the development of artificial organs and computer-chip implants for human brains, and in research to control biological aging, we now clearly recognize new uses for biotechnical power that soar beyond the traditional medical goals of healing disease and relieving suffering. Nearly all are wedded to the modern technological project all march eagerly to the drums of progress and fly proudly the banner of modern science all sing loudly the Baconian anthem, 'Conquer nature, relieve man's estate.' Leading the triumphal procession is modern medicine, which is daily becoming ever more powerful in its battle against disease, decay, and death, thanks especially to astonishing achievements in biomedical science and technology -achievements for which we must surely be grateful. The urgency of the great political struggles of the twentieth century and the new global struggle against terrorism and fanaticism seems to have blinded many people to a deep truth about the present age: nearly all contemporary societies, East as well as West, are traveling briskly in the same utopian direction. Presentation and full text in Tecnun magazine.

PROZAC VS SOMA BRAVE NEW WORLD PROFESSIONAL

Rafael Escolá Chair on Professional Ethics, Tecnun. Brave new biology: the challenge for human dignity

Prozac vs soma brave new world