**SPOILER ALERT** Brave New World Ending is Discussed! Hopefully you guys already read it because this is all due in like 16 hours
In the last pages of Brave New World when John is at the lighthouse, he begins to go crazy. Many civilians go to the lighthouse to take pictures and video of John harming himself. Instead of helping him, they laugh, watch, and broadcast him. He clearly needed help yet, no one helped. While reading this, I was reminded of how people today are very similar to those in Brave New World. I’ve seen many videos and pictures on the news and social media of something tragic happening; such as a fight, a kidnapping, harassment, and vandalism. Instead of taking a stand to prevent the problem or stop the problem, people just video taped it or took a picture. I understand that sometimes taking action could mean risking your life. Whereas taking video is safer and can raise awareness after the incident. Do you agree, are we like the people in Brave New World because we take video instead of taking action? Should people take video instead of getting involved?
Julia Enzmann
Although I see your point, I would like to point out that recording an event could be beneficial, as it can provide hard evidence that could be used to convict a suspect later on.
ReplyDeleteI also feel like another reason for the lack of action could be the bystander effect. This phenomenon states that when there is a large group of people around a scene in which someone is harmed or needs help, few, if not none, will come to the aid of the person in need because they do not feel personal responsibility and incentive to help. Rather, they just assume that someone else will come to the rescue and choose instead to either leave or watch from a distance. Ultimately, however, I do agree that we are more closely resembling the mob-like behavior of those outside the lighthouse in Brave New World.
I agree that we are very much like the people in Brave New World because I too have see people videotape something awful happening to show their friends later rather than trying to stop the event. One example of this would be a fight that is occurring after school that a lot of people know about. When there is a fight after school a large crowd generally gathers to film the fight rather than to try and stop it just like the characters in Huxley’s novel did. I believe that people should not take a video of the event that is taking place because that does not help anyone that just allows more people to witness the event. If people are going to go watch the event they should be going to stop it not to encourage it.
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