People start losing interest in Oklahoma...

Sir Ken Robinson advocates a revolutionary idea in education. He argues against the old ways of education that focused on two foundational pillars: economic and intellectual. Education took a turn towards focusing learning to these concepts and thus initiated a “standardized” curriculum. Kids are now brought up in an education that pursues complete uniformity in knowledge. Robinson argues that we should be moving in the opposite direction, towards a divergent thinking mentality; in which we begin to focus on creativity and seeing multiple answers to a situation.

 Robinson’s video shows a strong connection to Brave New World. The government in the novel thrives upon productivity, “Ninety-six identical eggs working ninety-six identical machines!” And they achieve this by “standardizing” individuals to their future specific roles in society. In the video, the analogy is made that schools “manufacture” kids in an “assembly line” manner. Public schools are seen to be sharing the same “ford mentality” that exists in Brave New World.

 In the Enlightment and Industrial Revolution the idea of public education was first introduced. According to the video this idea angered many people of the time. They believed that it was pointless and a waste of time to educate lower-end individuals. In Brave New World, the government also sees it as unnecessary—a waste of energy—to educate everyone, and thus they separate the society into different castes and levels of knowledge.

Also the video talks about an ADHD “epidemic,” which is less an epidemic than it is a trend. Children are being numbed to “distractions” in order to achieve focus in class. In Brave New World, the drug soma has a close relationship to the ADHD anesthetic. When the government feels that its people are being unproductive or distracted they have conditioned them to drug themselves.  This worry-free state leaves actions unaccountable, and furthermore, not attemptable. 

Stability? ...or insanity?

Mustapha Mond mentions, "Wheels must turn steadily, but can not turn untended. There must be men to tend them, men as sturdy as the wheels upon their axles, sane men, obedient men, stable in contentment." He alludes to the universal principle of government in overseeing and forming its desired society. In A Brave New World this desired society is one of efficiency and controllability. Mond reveals that the achievement of such a vision is succeeded by distorting perceptions of the past.

Ford, the constructed society’s inspiration, is quoted to have said, “History is bunk. History is bunk” and thus is why “you’re taught no history.” This ignorance to historical record is essential when putting such things as family, monogamy, impulse, feeling, and desire into a favored perspective.

Mond reconstructs, “Home, home—a few small rooms, stiflingly over inhabited by a man, by a periodically teeming woman, by a rabble of boys and girls of all ages. No air, no space; an understarilized prison; darkness, disease, and smells.” Mond establishes an unfavorable and exaggerated connection to family, and with no prior experience or knowledge the listeners unquestionably accept every words stated by the “prestigious” man.

Mond continuous, “No wonder these poor pre-moderns were mad and wicked and miserable. Their world didn’t allow them to take things easily, didn’t allow them to be sane, virtuous, happy. What with mothers and lovers, what with the prohibitions they were not conditioned to obey, what with the temptations and the lonely remorses, what with diseases and the endless isolating pain, what with the uncertainties and the poverty.” These characteristics are “dirtied” in a way by Mond and thus the people remain grateful with their current life.

Mond focuses on stability in a society. He states, “No civilization without social stability. No social stability without individual stability.” And he drives this message in by expressing that the ways of the earlier era caused the people to feel strongly; “And feeling strongly, how could they be stable?”

This I think brings us to the center of the manipulation taking place. The people are deprived of ever feeling strongly and thus are able to be controlled. And Mond influences the perception of feeling strong by saying it leads to a civilization being unstable. 

Critical Critics

In discussions of The Tempest and the boundaries of interpretation by critics, a major controversy has broken out over whether or not Shakespeare intended to connect The Tempest to the political issue of imperialism and colonialism.  On the one hand, critics such as Aime Cesaire argue that the context of the Shakespeare era is at full works in The Tempest.  In her rewriting of The Tempest titled, A Tempest, she highlights what she thinks to be the central theme of the play—imperialism. Advocators of this interpretation include Stephen Greenblatt who states, “It is, I believe, all but possible to understand these plays without grappling with the dark energies upon which Shakespeare’s art so powerfully draws.” He advocates the importance placed on imperialism inferred from the context of The Tempest. Both support that the characters of Caliban and Ariel are enslaved by the foreign figure of Prospero, representing the waft of imperialist on native inhabitants. On the other hand are the critics who believe that such analysis by contextual supporters goes too far. Among these individuals stands George Will. He argues, “By “deconstructing,” or politically decoding, or otherwise attacking the meaning of literary works, critics strip literature of its authority.” Will believes that overzealous critics become in control of a text’s purpose when they analyze it too far. “Critics displace literature and critics displace authors as bestowers of meaning.” Taking these extremely polarized viewpoints into account I lean towards the argument made by Will, and I believe that it is too far a leap to connect The Tempest to imperialism and colonialism. I feel that Shakespeare intended no reference, or at least very little reference, to be made to the imperialism of his time through his writing of the comedic and highly controversial play, The Tempest.