Brave New World and Blade Runner: Concern for humanity and its relationship with the natural world

Welcome to the second session of the Reach to the Future student conservation conference. The ethical issues reflected in this graphic argon representations of valetitys int whilection with record in two futurist literary creations novel Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley, 1932, and film Bladerunner The Directors Cut directed by Ridley Scott and released in 1992, a decade after its original. It has been in my experience in my station-graduate study of ethics and temper in futuristic texts, that many composers expose technological improvement and economic pressure as origins of environmental degradation.However, Huxley and Scott expand this concept, creating imaginary foundings where technology has too ca intentiond a loss of forgivingity and change in ethical standards. but are the concerns of these worlds purely imaginative? Or have Huxley and Scott simply analysed the advancement of technology and consumerism in their avouch contexts, in order to create a prox world that is de gayised and un inherent? Consider our context Year 12, and welcome to the future. By deliberately telling the setting of the conventional world state, to the wild Malpais, Huxley ch every(prenominal)enges the humanitys value in a genetically engineered world.In Chapter One, we are oriented to the technologically perfect world state of Community. Identity. Stability (BNW, pg. 1) , 632 A. F. Imagery the likes of Cold for all the summer beyond the panes (BNW, pg. 1), helps to separate a world that is natural to its inhabitants, but ethically disfigured for readers. However when Bernard and Lenina enter the Malpais in Chapter Seven, we adjust to a world that is similar to ours, so far is deemed rag (BNW, pg. 96) by Lenina, a product of the genetically engineered World State.A birds eye view, accompanied with sensory imagery of sound, rhythm of heart, (BNW, Pg. 96) and touch, eagle flew blew chill on their faces, (BNW, Pg. 96) produces the contrast that enables Huxley to exp ress that scholarship and stability occur at the expense of humanity. This concern was evoked by his fathers work in science, and excessively the 1930s Victorian view that science was developing at the same rate as humanity, later encapsulated in Orwells novel 1984.To illustrate the erroneous nature of the contextual view, Huxley presented ethics and a tie-in with nature in a human, but diseased land that has been marginalised due to global advancement. In our context, scientific advancement at the expense of humanity is questioned in creating designer babies through IVF. Our ethics, and connection with natural practises are queried when numerous embryos are disposed of in the process of creating one perfect human. It seems much too like the marginalisation of the Malpais and nature to create a perfect society in the World State of BNW.Similarly, a contrast of scenes is used in Bladerunner to illustrate Scotts concern that consumerism is a primal cause of inequality in humanity and nature. The atmospheric setting in the opening montage illustrates a pervading darkness, with fearful synthetic sounds and a high camera angle zooming down onto the streets of fiery urban decay titled Hades, Los Angeles, 2019. The birds eye view, like in BNW presents a dystopic vision, soon contrasted when Deckard visits Rachael at the Tyrell Corporation building. As Deckards transport ascends, the camera scales the building from a slight angle of depression.The rain and lack of natural light is replaced with a golden glow, and once inside, musical director Vangelis ensures a soundtrack shift to peaceful wind chimes which successfully juxtapose the tranquillity of the corporate elite to the dystopic array of the cityscape. Globalisation, a 1980s contextual fear is expressed through setting as the essence of the destruction of humanity and nature in BR. The little slew in Bladerunner, live with the pollution and unequal spread of resources that globalisation has caused.Simila r is our own context, as due to economic globalisation more than half of the female population in Latin America live below the poverty line1. modern behavioural conditioning for economic subject matter occurs in the World State of BNW, regardless of its effects on nature and humanity, which is another of Huxleys contextual concerns. After discipline of hypnopaedia and the neo-Pavlovian conditioning of children to ensure an association of pain with nature, the structured juxtaposition of two conversations in Chapter Three further explains Huxleys concern.In Chapter Three, the hypnopaedia of the conditioning centre I do love flying new clothes,(BNW, pg. 43) is reiterated in Huxleys narration, The voices were adapting future industrial supply (BNW, pg. 43). This is further expressed in Monds teachings in the garden as he states nether production a crime against society. (BNW, pg. 46) Through structure, Huxleys concern that manufactured goods are deterring humanitys interaction wit h nature is unequivocal. Contextually, Huxley is criticizing the era of Fordism and the loss of values experienced in post WW1.Henry Ford, founder of Ford Motors, initiated an era of mass production of goods in the 1920s, advancing societys consumerism. Ford and economists grasped the level of spiritual emptiness apparent after WW1 and suggested get as a method of relief. Huxley witnessed human behaviour change as the appreciation of nature was noted as disadvantageous for industry. Huxleys concern advanced to Scotts era as well as our own where globalisation and mass production are the basis of our economy.Furthermore, our current level of technology allows many to live without human interaction, and much human behaviour involves expenditure, not the conservation of nature. Like structure in BNW, Symbolism works in Bladerunner in illustrating behavioural conditioning as detrimental to human behaviour, a concern that continued from Huxleys era to the 1980s. In the opening sequence, a long camera shot places our focus on a symbol of consumerism, epitomised by the geisha Asian woman pill popping on an animated billboard.When considering BRs setting, the continual reappearance and placement of the billboard on a skyscraper, Scott typifies consumerism as guardianship precedence over nature and humanity in Los Angeles, 2019. This consumerism symbolises the rise of the Asian trans-national corporations of the 1980s which was feared as an economic form of communism. The world was constantly reminded of the benefits of purchasing yet was rarely informed about the state of the environment which led to the considerable level of environmental degradation, including acid rain.Today, most developed countries have signed treaties regarding the environment. For example, the UN Kyoto Protocol urges all developed countries to reduce their Greenhouse Emissions by 5% every five familys starting from the year 2008. However, the lack of ratification of this treaty, our material world, and the inescapable nature of advertising are still threats to our environment and also to the natural behaviour of human beings in the year 2004. Each character in BNW has a distinct purpose in exploring Huxleys warning about humanitys detachment from the natural world.However, Mustapha Mond further explores Huxleys notion by also articulating the loss of humanitys values in a scientifically advanced setting. Mond is the mouthpiece of the World State, devoid of human values and thus his expressive dialogue and mannerisms clinically justify a society where everything can be standardised, mass produced and therefore stabilised. In Chapter Three, Mond talks with the students about families and the plight that scentingal freedom caused in times before Our Ford.Mond devalues emotion as reeking (BNW, pg. 35),and describes natural reproduction, families and monogamy in language so vivid one boy at the point of being sick. (BNW, pg 32) Dismissive nonetheless, Mond is merely enca psulating the change in human behaviour that scientific advancement has caused, and therefore communicating Huxleys concern. As Huxley toured Europe before completing BNW, Mond is modelled on post WW1 dictators such as Hitler and Mussolini.His personality also portrays the loss of values and spiritual emptiness experienced by many people in post WW1. In BR, Deckard is devoid of human values like Mond but unlike John the Savage from BNW, it is a replicant with no connection with nature, who exerts human values in Bladerunner. The rise of robotics in the 1980s influenced the character of Batty, and also Deckard. Batty exemplifies the human robot that science dreamed of in the 1980s, whereas, Deckard symbolises the loss of humanity that ethicists feared because of robotics.Roy Battys more human than human genetic disposition allows him to exert intelligence, evident in his quotations of Blake fiery the angels slash their shoulders roared, and to exert physical duress, but only in the course of his four year life span. In the last scenes of the film, Battys heightened self awareness and desire for emotion and life surpass his genetic limitations casting him as a Christ figure and also a fallen angel as he looks profitlessly to his creator for a sense of meaning.With his final words, Memories ost like tears in the rain, Roy is cast as a tragic hero, and allows Scott to illustrate that when there is no yearner an environment to exploit, like in the world in LA, 2019, those who possess desirable qualities will be oppressed, this at long last leaving the world more inhumane. In our context, the empathy we feel for Batty, questions our ethics, asking what makes us human. Huxley skilfully satirises the social construct of the 1930s using Soma to express his concern for the conditioning of humanity against nature.The World State in London is a strangely benevolent dictatorship through Mond, where all aspects of an individuals life are determined and controlled by the state in the name of, Community. Identity. Stability (BNW, pg. 1). Another counselling to ensure stability is the encouraged use of the mind-numbing drug Soma. In the Malpais, Chapter Nine, Lenina embarked for lunar eternity(BNW, pg. 127) on an eighteen hour soma holiday to escape the reality of nature and humanity. Soma satirises the post WW1 regimes of Totalitarianism throughout Europe.The doctrine of Totalitarianism denied people intellectual stimulation, freedom of thought and a affinity with nature. Huxley introduces Soma to show a future world where the denial of a relationship with nature can be self induced. In BRs 1980s context, severe industrial pollution and urbanisation resulted in the detachment of people from nature In 2004, though Totalitarianism is a violation of basic human rights, many people choose to deny themselves a qualitative relationship with nature by choosing to live in environmentally isolated, but grossly populated urban areas.The use of contextual i rony in Bladerunner is contrasting to the use of satire in BNW as Scotts irony questions the ethical behaviour of humanity regarding technology. In the 1980s, robotics and computers were the result of technological advance, and robots were promised to take the place of humans in the workforce. In Bladerunner, Ridley Scott epitomises technology and humanity through the Nexus-6 Replicants, who are more human than human Human beings in Bladerunner live as second class citizens in desolate, socially inept conditions as we see J.F Sebastian and Deckard both living in solitude. Humanity in 2019 has no sense of the value of interaction, and consequently Ridley Scott placed the capacity for these human qualities in the Replicants. Ironically though, when the Replicants begin to show human emotion and need, such as Battys need to meet his maker, they are retired by the human, by ultimately inhuman character, Deckard. This irony illustrates Scotts concern for a scientifically advanced world, with a dismal appreciation of human qualities and value.The same concern is expressed in the 1997 futuristic popular culture film, Gattaca, where your personality is irrelevant as genetic composition guarantees an you an occupation. Huxley and Scott have established quite a few concerns for our future. Strangely though, they have also warned about issues that are in need of conservation now. Again, close your eyes and imagine the natural world that you want in the future. Consider our context year 12, and help to create an ethically harmonious world for the future.