Write a blog post that answers the following question: Which "Utopian" world should be more feared; one in which government's control is so oppressive that people have no choice for themselves, or one in which people are so falsely happy that they do NOT realize the oppression of their government's control? Be sure to explain your answer with specific examples.
I think that the society that should be more feared isn’t one where the people are so controlled by the government that they don’t have a choice for themselves, it’s one where the people are so falsely happy that they do not realize that they are being controlled by their government. If you are in a society where the government’s control is so oppressive than you know that the government is wrong and you have the ability to rebel. You have a chance to change society for the better, but if you are in a society where everyone is falsely happy all chance for change is lost.
In a Utopian society where the government’s control is so oppressive that the people have no choice but to do as they say, there is a chance for change. Some people -or somebody- could work up the courage to actually rebel. In “Harrison Bergeron” some of the people were falsely happy while others feared the government. Harrison found the courage to rebel and he does so by taking of his handicaps. Another person that finds the courage to rebel is his Empress. She stands up to the government by siding with Harrison.
In a society where everyone is falsely happy there is a chance for someone to rebel, but there is a much smaller chance for that to happen or for someone to actually see the evils of their government. An example of someone rebelling in a falsely happy society can be found in Fahrenheit 451. Guy Montag sees that the happiness everyone is feeling isn’t true happiness and he rebels against the society. And he isn’t the only one. There are many people who rebel against the society by having books and not burning them. These people are sometimes caught and their books and houses are burned down by the firemen. There are also the people who are on the run from the government. They know that the government is wrong and that books are precious.
Even though there are people in a falsely happy society who will rebel I still believe it should be more feared than a society where the government’s control is so strong nobody can do anything for themselves. In Brave New World people are brainwashed into believing that they are happy and they also have a pill that will make them be in a blissful and happy state. Even the main character -Bernard Marx- is falsely happy at one point in the book. The government has so much more control in a falsely happy society because the people don’t think they are doing anything wrong. The people would let the government do anything without any fight and wouldn’t see anything they do as wrong. That is why a society where the people are so falsely happy they don’t see the government’s oppression is to be feared more than a society where the government’s control is so strong they don’t have any choice for themselves.
