Technology has its ups and downs. In Brave New World, Aldous Huxley explains how this increasing technology is causing us to lose our humanity. One theme that Huxley tries to get across in this novel is the idea that this technology does have a dark side. This idea is shown by Huxley predicting that thousands of years in the future we, the human race, will have lost our feelings, our past, and our individuality.
The loss of feelings helps to show the dark side of technology. One example is the super anti-depressant drug called Soma. People take Soma all the time—like it’s candy. Since people constantly take Soma, all feelings are lost because all pain is replaced with a fake happiness. In the future people believe everyone belongs to everyone; there are no relationships. When it comes to seeing a single guy at a time, one girl said, “It’s horribly bad form to go on and on like that with one man.” [Page 40]. That shows you the loss of relationships is another price technology makes us pay. In Brave New World, no one cares about death. When Linda died, only John (the savage) cared; and the nurse thought he was crazy for feeling hurt. When people could care less about life or death, that shows people have no feelings. That is why I think the loss of feelings shows the dark side of technology.
The forgotten past helps prove the theme technology isn’t flawless, it does have consequences. All of the beautiful poems and famous novels we have loved for generations are lost. The few books that remain are forbidden. All of our most cherished authors are forgotten/forbidden because the Controller thinks their work is obsolete, and since people don’t really have feelings, they wouldn’t be able to grasp their work. Religion has disappeared too. People worship Henry Ford, but they don’t have a God, and they don’t decide what they want to believe in. Jesus, Buddha, and other religious figures are forgotten because as the controller says, “God isn’t compatible with machinery...