Plato vs. Brave New World
Plato and a Sophist Talk with Mustapha MondIn response to Mustapha Mond's claim that his world has been created to fulfill the real needs of human nature, Plato would respond by saying that he adamantly does not agree. The Brave New World empowers and celebrates the body and the human condition. In this celebration, the goodness of the soul and the truth and knowledge that the soul possesses is trapped in a useless body. Bokanovsky's process, hypnopedia, soma and free sex all contribute to suppressing the innate goodness of the soul.The beginning of life in the Brave New World is in Bokanovsky's process. Plato would agree with this process to a certain extent because it eliminates the unnecessary earthly ties that humans share with their parents. Plato might not object to the sets of twins because it helps remind them that their bodies are not unique, helping them to see the body more clearly as an object, but their alikeness could cause them to think of themselves as having the same eternal unchanging form. However, the factories that pump out babies are simply mass-producing prisons for human souls and Plato most certainly would not agree with this.Plato would have been disgusted by the next sage, hypnopedia. Hypnopedia
is the authoritative knowledge that becomes disguised as innate knowledge. The world is nothing more that a lesser realm. To accept the shadows of the cave, as the ultimate reality is to deny ones self of ever finding true happiness and understanding. Sophists believe that knowledge of ultimate reality is not accessible to humans, so hypnopedia, soma and free sex do not inhibit people from knowing what is real, since we will never truly know what is real. In contrast, the people of the Brave New World can never understand without denying the pleasures they so readily seek. Plato believed that there is a part of the soul that works to sustain itself and soma works to destroy that. When Mustapha Mond masks innate knowledge through hypnopedia, he forces the people into accepting a lesser reality. The denial of these pleasures brought them closer to the true understanding of the forms. Instead, he believes that one can only encourage and nurture another individual and help them contact the innate knowledge that already exists inside him or her. A human is nothing without reason; reason is what separates us from all other animals. When Plato's followers studied to become Philosopher Kings, they realized how insignificant bodily pleasures are and chose to forgo those pleasures. This makes it very difficult, if not impossible for people in the Brave New World to discover the true innate knowledge that exists in their form. He would have been saddened by the absolute acceptance of the lesser reality. He does not believe in teaching people through authoritative knowledge.
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Acceptance Essays
