| Gino Stolfa Science, the great benefactor of man, should be used to help further the progression of civilization. Unfortunately, technology has been misused from the beginning of time. Von Braun’s advances in aerodynamics led to buzz bombs and the creation of nuclear energy lead to the atom bomb. Ray Bradbury foresaw the great structures of human relationships, personal identity and faith collapsing, slowly turning into rubble, and tried to warn of the abuse of technology with The Illustrated Man. Aldous Huxley however, depicts a world devoid of human relationship, faith and personal identity in Brave New World due to the abuse of technology. Bradbury gave many examples of human relationships disintegrating. In “The Veldt” a nursery takes care of two children. The nursery was not a normal one however, it was state of the art and cost the children’s parents a large sum of money. The nursery was slowly taking the parents’ place. The children were no longer considering their biological parents as their true parents. Bradbury warns the reader by speaking through the father, George, saying, “We were [dead], for a long while. Now we’re going to really start living. Instead of being handled and massaged we’re going to live.” At that time George “gets it” but alas, it was too late. Because of his and his wife’s lapse of judgment, they are devoured by the great machine that they procured to entertain their children. Though late, their enlightenment gives a glimmer of hope to man to stop technology from destroying our relationships. On the other hand, Huxley wrote of a world “free” of human relationships. In this new world “everyone belongs to everyone” is the great motto of society. Lenina represented this perfectly. She had ‘had’ many people just like everyone else in that world. When “the savage”, John, refused to copulate she spouted the hypnopaedic phrase, “everyone belongs to everyone,” to try to get him to do so. Also, lasting relationships are looked down upon. Fannie, Lenina’s friend, was absolutely appalled to hear that Lenina had only been with one man for a few months. This total destruction of human relationships, foretold to the reader by Huxley, is a warning: the abuse of technology will destroy human relations. Little hope is given for an alternate ending. “Kaleidoscope” was a romp into the depths of personal identity. Bradbury warns of losing personal identity through the terror filled journey of a man, Hollis, on his way to a fiery doom in the Earth’s atmosphere. Hollis began the journey to his doom quietly but slowly began to become more vocal, lashing out at everyone and envious of a fellow pilot, Lespere. Lespere had led a full life, blowing his money on women and boos, he enjoyed every moment of it. Hollis however, lost sight of himself. He never enjoyed himself and never had a true life. His identity, in the cold black void spiraling toward death, was beginning to fade. He had no memories and no one to remember him. Hollis’s wasted life warns the reader to be wary technological comforts that leave you without any real memories and to go out and make some. Bradbury leaves man with great hope though; Hollis was remembered because his blazing death was witnessed by a little boy. While Bradbury told of a man losing his identity, Huxley told of a society without one. The people of the society could not think for themselves. They were conditioned to work at their jobs and to consume as much as possible. Within a company there may be only a couple different faces. Due to cloning, all of the workers in a certain company are all the same physically. All their decisions were dictated by the sleep teaching imposed on them. When something went wrong, like when Lenina saw the religious ceremony at the savage reservation, they would spout sayings such as Benito saying, “a gramme is better than a damn,” when Bernard said damn. All aspects of their lives were controlled and were oblivious of it. This depiction of the future, which is strikingly similar to fascism (personal identity is given up for the good of the nation), warns of the atrocities that will come from the abuse of technology. In “The Man”, Bradbury touched upon faith. Through a planet-hopping journey to find natural resources, the captain and his lieutenant land on a planet where a miracle had just occurred. A man, intensely similar to the messiah, had just appeared. The captain enters the town and listens to the accounts of the town folk. Though they spoke of the great miracles the man did such as healing leprosy and restoring vision to the blind, the captain could not believe. Contradicting his superior, the lieutenant believed in the man. In the end the captain left in search of the man and the lieutenant stayed on the planet where the man was. The message sent by this is that technology is defiling man’s faith. Bradbury leaves the reader with great hope showing that those that believe will find their nirvana. For the pessimists however, those who do not truly believe will search endlessly, only to find nothing. Huxley, on the other hand, showed the complete absence of faith. Religion was replaced by consumption. The cross was replaced with a ‘T’ to honor Henry Ford and to promote consumption. There was no “God” in this society and when the people congregated in the name of “religion” it resulted in an orgy to join them as one. The people believed in nothing because that was what they were taught to believe. The populace was taught nothing of God because belief in Him would only have caused strife for them and would have contradicted their way of life. Huxley warns that abuse of technology will lead to the loss of faith and leaves little hope for mankind. Overall, Ray Bradbury left mankind with hope but Huxley left it with none. The abuse of technology is inevitable and so is the decline of “human” civilization. Man will abuse technology until it destroys itself. Human nature provides for animosity, corruption and greed, all reasons to misuse technology. It is impossible to stop this abuse and the end of man because of it is unavoidable. All the modern scientific advances: cloning, nuclear weaponry, bio-weapons and genetic engineering, even though they could do so much good, will all help bring the era of man to a close. |