Phase 2 Prompt 3

Aldous Huxley's A Brave New World is considered a dystopian novel.  However, could it also be read as utopian?  According to dictionary.com, dystopia is defined as a society characterized by human misery, as squalor, oppression, disease, and overcrowding.  The same dictionary defines utopia as an ideal place or state and any visionary system of political or social perfection.  In many ways, it appears to be a matter of perspective that defines the veiled line between utopia and dystopia.  Another representation of a futuristic dystopian society that could be argued as utopian is the popular movie The Matrix starring Keanu Reeves.  As portrayed in A Brave New World and The Matrix, these dystopian societies can actually be seen as utopian based on an individual’s perspective, the desire for knowledge of reality, and the collective productivity of the society as a whole.
In the movie The Matrix, protagonist Neo and his team are betrayed by one of their own men named Cypher.  Cypher makes a deal with the antagonist Agent Smith to be plugged back into the Matrix because “ignorance is bliss” and he wants to go back to his utopia of not knowing the truth of the world.  However, there is no way of being plugged back into the Matrix and the world he used to know and he his subsequently killed.  Cypher is a very similar character to John in A Brave New World.  If John could have been plugged back into the Matrix, he would have likely done so.  Both John and Cypher were overwhelmed with the knowledge of their true realities and they both tried to escape it in their own ways, which led to their deaths.  With that in mind, the concept of ignorance is bliss is crucial to determining if a society is a utopia or dystopia.  
The people in A Brave New World are ignorantly bliss of true reality, as evident by their conditioning.  These people are designed from embryo to adulthood to be content in every aspect of their life.  For example, in Elementary Class Consciousness beta children are taught that “Alpha children wear grey,” and “they work much harder because they’re so frightfully clever,” and “glad I’m a Beta, because I don’t work so hard,” but they are “much better than Gammas and Deltas” (Huxley 27).  Since people are programmed to be content, they are happy and aren’t looking for a way to rise up from a lower to a higher class.  Such programming combined with soma allows people to remain happy and productive without letting bad emotions or the desire to seek truth or knowledge take over.  For the mass majority of these people, their society is their utopia.  Why would they want to feel bad emotions or not be happy in their work or class when they don’t have to?  However, to an outsider who was programmed differently, like John, this society is his dystopia.  So why should A Brave New World or The Matrix be considered dystopian societies when the mass majority is content in their ignorance and they seem to be maintaining a visionary system of political and social perfection?  If either of these societies were to become aware of the real truth, they would likely fall apart entirely.  As seen in A Brave New World, society is thrown into a frenzy when John begins throwing out their soma and a riot breaks out, but they do not understand his reasoning nor do they see themselves as slaves as John does (Huxley 213).  Although they are programmed to lack the desire of freewill, they still technically have it and are not treated poorly as slaves are.  Therefore, society has achieved utopia as a visionary system of social and political perfection by keeping the people content and productive through soma and conditioning.
The distinction between a utopian and dystopian society is clearly based on an individual’s perspective, their knowledge of reality, and the productivity produced from a visionary system of social or political perfection.  Since the people plugged into the Matrix and programmed in A Brave New World are happily unaware of the unpleasantries of reality, are able to remain productive and functioning as a whole, and are not characterized by overwhelming human misery, oppression, or disease, their societies are actually utopian to the mass majority.

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