Socratic Seminar Entry Ticket: In order to participate in the Socratic seminar, you must type a
100-word response to each question. Responses should demonstrate consideration of the text(s),
with well-thought out and clearly explained opinions. Submit your responses to Turnitin.com.
Please avoid going over 150 words… at that point, just jot your thoughts in bullet points.
Brave New World
1. Given the choice, would you rather live a life on the “savage reservation” or in the World
State as a fully conditioned Alpha? Why?
2. To what extent are we already conditioned by our society? How are we a result of our
surroundings? Find an example of a common behavior that we are conditioned to have.
Do you see this example as positive, negative, or both?
3. Should we attempt to control human behavior for the betterment of society? If so, to what
extent is it right to use science and psychology to achieve our purpose of a healthier and
happier society?
4. Why does Mustapha almost always win the debates in class, even when most of us
disagree with his position? Which of Mustapha’s arguments, if any, do you agree with
most, and which of his arguments, if any, do you disagree with most? Why?
5. What are your thoughts on the following passage? Why does John feel this way and would
you ever reject (or have you ever rejected) comfort for the sake of having an
inconvenience?
“But I like the inconveniences.”
“We don’t,” said the Controller. “We prefer to do things comfortably.”
“But I don’t want the comfort. I want God, I want poetry, I want real danger, I want
freedom, I want goodness. I want sin.”
“In fact,” said Mustapha Mond, “you’re claiming the right to be unhappy.”
“All right then,” said the Savage defiantly, “I’m claiming the right to be unhappy.”
“Not to mention the right to grow old and ugly and impotent; the right to have
syphilis and cancer; the right to have too little to eat; the right to be lousy; the right to live in
constant apprehension of what may happen tomorrow; the right to catch typhoid; the right to
be tortured by unspeakable pains of every kind.” There was a long silence.
“I claim them all,” said the Savage at last.
6.
7.
8.
9.
1984
If everyone in Oceania believes that the Party is right and just, is it immoral to act against
the Party? How would Orwell answer this question? What is your opinion?
What do you think Orwell values most in a society? Why?
Closely read Huxley’s letter to George Orwell. What are his main ideas and do you agree
or disagree with his assertions? Do you think our world is going to experience an “ultimate
revolution”?
In the foreword to his book Amusing Ourselves to Death, Neil Postman claims that for
various reasons, Brave New World is more relevant to modern Americans than 1984.
Defend, challenge, or qualify his position and refer to specifics ideas from his piece.
We were keeping our eye on 1984. When the year came and the prophecy didn't,
thoughtful Americans sang softly in praise of themselves. The roots of liberal democracy had held.
Wherever else the terror had happened, we, at least, had not been visited by Orwellian nightmares.
But we had forgotten that alongside Orwell's dark vision, there was another - slightly older,
slightly less well known, equally chilling: Aldous Huxley's Brave New World. Contrary to
common belief even among the educated, Huxley and Orwell did not prophesy the same thing.
Orwell warns that we will be overcome by an externally imposed oppression. But in Huxley's
vision, no Big Brother is required to deprive people of their autonomy, maturity and history. As he
saw it, people will come to love their oppression, to adore the technologies that undo their
capacities to think.
What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there
would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one. Orwell
feared those who would deprive us of information. Huxley feared those who would give us so
much that we would be reduced to passivity and egoism. Orwell feared that the truth would be
concealed from us. Huxley feared the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance. Orwell
feared we would become a captive culture. Huxley feared we would become a trivial culture,
preoccupied with some equivalent of the feelies, the orgy porgy, and the centrifugal bumblepuppy.
As Huxley remarked in Brave New World Revisited, the civil libertarians and rationalists who are
ever on the alert to oppose tyranny "failed to take into account man's almost infinite appetite for
distractions." In 1984, Huxley added, people are controlled by inflicting pain. In Brave New
World, they are controlled by inflicting pleasure. In short, Orwell feared that what we hate will
ruin us. Huxley feared that what we love will ruin us.
This book is about the possibility that Huxley, not Orwell, was right.
― Neil Postman, Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business