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Sir Ken Robinson’s ideas were so similar to the society in Brave New World that it really made me think that today’s society is not far off from theirs. Without making the changes he suggests, we will end up just like them.
One parallel that really caught my attention was the ADHD reference. It is evident that kids today are being medicated for literally everything. Kids are too hyper, not perky enough, too sad, too quiet, or just too “weird.” We are ruining the great minds of tomorrow by trying to manipulate children into being little educated robots. Some of these drugs are abused all the time and can be severely addictive. They also have side effects that seem worse than the initial problem. So why do this to the future people that will run our world? It’s all for progress. This is totally in congruency with Brave New World. In the book someone states, “What you need is a gramme of soma.” This is simply because Bernard looks a little unhappy. Because he is different, society says he should be medicated and anesthetized.
This also makes me think of the hypnopedia in the book. Robinson shows how students are put into a zombie like state and are almost forced to pay attention to “boring” teachers and learn in a not stimulating environment. They are being turned into living text books that are not able to think as creative or critically. It’s like students almost do not even realize what they are learning, they just know it’s true. This is similar to the sleep teachings because people are unaware of what they are learning and taking in but they believe it to be true.
Obviously there are even more parallels with the video and Brave New World. The goal should be to avoid the dystopia, stifling world state.

Brave New World

In the Brave New World society, values and morals can be perceived as being upside down or flip flopped from what is typical today. They do almost everything opposite of us and think that that is “right.” I believe that this does not mean that their morals are off. They simply have a different set of morals taught to them when they are young. The director states, “the last child’s mind is these suggestions, and the sum of the suggestions is the child’s mind. And not the child’s mind only. The adult’s mind too-all his life.” It is clear that they have strictly implicated ideas in the minds of very young people, and these ideas are remembered through adulthood. Although their morals may seem off to us, they are no better or worse, just different.
The morals set on the people are different than ours in the sense that they are encouraged to never have relationships, feel pain, be unhappy, or be different. All of these facts seem to help further industrialize their society. They are only encouraged to consume or produce and nothing in between. Babies are manufactured to either be stupid or smart. That way everyone is happy. They are trained to like and dislike certain things, all so that the machine of society an keep turning smoothly.
Family is one thing that is greatly manipulated to keep society “growing.” There is not family. The people cringe at the words mother and romance. They do not have their own children or parents. This way there is less sadness, pain, and people are more likely to concentrate on work. Monogamy is also highly frowned upon. People are beyond encouraged to date as many people as possible. This helps keep the family out of their society. With out family and relationships feelings go out the window. Simple desires are still recognized, but there ultimately is not kind of stress put on the people because they have nothing worth stressing about.

Tempest Conversation!

In discussions of The Tempest, by William Shakespeare, one controversial issue has been the theme of colonialism within the text. Also, there have been many different opinions on the portrayal of Caliban and viewing him as a savage or viewing him as an “other” who was taken advantage of. On the one hand, Will argues that analyzing these statements takes away from the original meaning of the text. He thinks that we are trying to talk about the politics of the text and we are missing the major points. He believes that we over analyze everything and we are missing the artistic work that the author intended to be read. On the other hand, Greenblatt contends the opposite of Will. Greenblatt states that digging for deeper meaning does not distract from the original meaning of the text, but it instead deepens the readers understanding. He thinks that texts should be taught this way. However, my own view is that both ideas are right. I think that both people have valid points. Will's argument makes sense because sometimes texts are analyzed until the original meaning is lost. Or the things that we are analyzing seem like small unimportant details that are only there to describe setting or characters. Sometimes I feel that the things we analyze make the text more confusing and warp was the author wanted to get across. But, on the other hand, I think that analyzing text to an extent is very important. It helps us read better and think critically. I also think that it is important for all of us to interpret texts the way we want. Our different opinions spur so many interesting conversations. As long as the original meaning of the text is recognized, I think it is ok to look for deeper, hidden meanings.