RaVnEeT's bLoG

Well, I think that myths play a large role in each society. There are always some things that have been told from one generation to another. Those beliefs do not need any proof because each story that is being told, is proof itself and the proof of all others. Similarly, Lyotard mentions that “the teller of the myth does not have to argue or prove” any story he is telling (24). A myth legitimizes and makes itself believable just in the telling. But, a myth might have been changed so many times that there is no way of knowing its original form. Each person has his own way of rephrasing that myth. Lyotard also mentions that “the narrator has authority to chant the chant because he has heard it chanted itself” (25).
I think that myths do change over time because they are interpreted so many ways and keep changing from one generation to another. They are said in so many ways and define what is right or wrong in a society.

In a way, different cultures create myths to have some control over their society. They become a tradition in some ways and most people will not argue against a myth. So most people cannot disagree with a myth or prove it wrong somehow. So they go on accepting them and tell them to the younger generations. This way, they are known as facts and have to be accepted. They are sort of forced upon the people in the society and they have to believe in them. They have no right in saying that they are false because again there is no proof. This is the downside to myths because they are believed to be true no matter what. Myths enter the mind of a reader and become reality.

Myths serve specific purposes in their culture and provide a structured system of ethics for people so they can function as a society.

While I was reading Brave New World, it reminded me a lot of 1984. This is because both books depict a world which is dominated by the government with the use of technology. Just like a company produces consumer goods, in Brave New World the Hatchery produces human beings. The assembly line is now used for the manufacturing of human beings. The Utopian society that is presented has only one purpose, to produce and control human beings. They produce them according to their status and give them a certain amount of intelligence. With this people accept their given roles in society without question. Conditioning makes them incapable of performing any other function than the one they are assigned.

Also, they try to control the behavior of the children they are producing. They give the babies electric shocks so they will have a hatred for books and flowers. The director mentions that "[the babies] will be safe from books and botany all thier lives" (22). With this much control, they pratically want the human beings to do exactly what they have been designed to perform. They can condition the babies to do what ever they are needed for.

With the use of technology to produce babies, there is no more sexual reproduction. Words like mother and father are thought to be considered pornographic. So every human beings is made to complete a certain task in the world. That person has no freedom and is being controlled in whatever he does. That person is a property of the government and can only abide by its rules. This is also a form of manipulation where one has so much power over another that he cannot realize what is true and what is not.

Brave New World, presents another method of manipulation to control human beings.