Scribe 4/9

Today in class we started out with Group 3 - Jeff Gunell and Chris Goerke - doing their starting activity, which was a powerpoint comparing some of the ideas in chapters 5-6 of Brave New World to modern songs, although the songs wouldn't play (we forgive you guys). The first of these songs was "Pimper's Paradise" by Bob Marley, which basically talks about a "promiscuos" woman who is very social and "slutty", for lack of a better word. This relates to the idea that "everyone is for everyone else" within the novel, where sex isn't held as something sacred or special, but it is instead very commonplace and people have many sexual partners. The second song the guys used was "We Are All On Drugs" by Weezer, which basically talks about how drugs make people lazy, ill-witted, and content. This song was applied to the book in the fact that pretty much everyone in Brave New World is addicted to Soma, which the government encourages, because it keeps people from feeling individual by having emotions or by just thinking for awhile. Whenever someone feels melancholy or has enough time to actually stop and think, they take Soma and all their troubles disappear. Jeff and Goerke also posed a few questions to us about our society:
- What things would you consider to be like a Soma for society today?
- Do you think Bernard would be considered a rebel today?
- Who do you think are the Bernard's in our society?
After the starting activity, we had a whole-class fishbowl over chapters 1-6. Some ideas we discussed were:
- Why is sex so prevalent in this book?
*Satirical exageration of the trend Huxley saw in his time.
*Gets rid of the emotion in sex by cheapening it, making it commonplace.
- Idea that Bernard is comforming because of Lenina's wishes.
- Some sacrafices society has made to achieve "Utopia":
*Individuality, Love, Family
- Bernard's regret for having slept with Lenina after their first date
* He wishes he could feel true passion and emotion by depriving himself, for a time, of a desire.

The homework for this week is: Do montage podcast by Wednesday, bring magazines for Wednesday, chapters 7-8 due Friday.