The Balance

“But that’s the price we have to pay for stability. You’ve got to choose between happiness and what people used to call high art.” (194)- Brave New World

I disagree with the statement made in this quote. This entire book is about the sacrifices that a perfect society would have to make for everyone to be happy. However, I still strongly believe that society can exist with happiness without losing emotions, art, or beauty. Though emotions can make people less stable, learning to control your own emotions is not the same as having them forcefully eliminated. This society not only eliminated most emotions, art, beauty, and literature, but it eliminated free will as well. I believe teaching people to make good decisions that are right for them is quite different than making decisions for them, which happens to people from the time they are an embryo. Each person’s intelligence, job, and even appearance is decided for them and then they are continuously conditioned to believe in certain ideals throughout their life through “hypnopaedia”. I firmly believe that there is some sort of balance- though I doubt we will ever truly reach a completely stable society where everyone is happy yet also has complete freedom. For us, there will always be a balance- but we must choose the type of society we want.