Andrew's post -- Human reaction to change

"Sleep teaching was actually prohibited in England. There was something called liberalism. Parliament, if you know what that was, passed a law against it. The records survive. Speeches about liberty of the subject. Liberty to be inefficient and miserable. Freedom to be a round peg fit in a square hole.” (Huxley 46)

This passage highlights the rapid change that occurred in the past (our current) government to form the future utopian community. Drawing from this passage, I believe that little wayward thinking is allowed or takes place in the current community of which they live. Liberalism, practically the epitome of democracy, is mentioned with a distasteful regard. These future people could never imagine to rise into a counterculture or propagate against the government, such an action would surely be punishable by death. The human reaction is therefore silenced and nullified after it has been eliminated so swiftly by the government. In fact, there is little or no reaction actually felt by the population because all those who have had alternate forms of government are dead, so people just don’t know any better.

The right of liberty is also mentioned although it is not referred to as a right, consequently because it simply isn’t in their society. Individual liberty is what democracy is most often founded upon and it is no surprise that it has been dissolved in order to maintain a totalitarian rule.

They also mention freedom, of which is also incredibly limited in their society (as shown by their strict policy on zero leisure time outside of work). Again, a right we take for granted, freedom, parallels democracy in almost every way, thus it has been eliminated like the other “Natural rights” I mentioned above. Holistically, they are deeming creative thinking a rebellious and savage idea, of which only the less- intelligent past humans thrived on. True it may have been “inefficient” compared to their production rates but whether it was miserable or not is in the eyes of the beholder…