As I went through the book Brave New World, there was so much "just take a soma" going on that I remembered a tv show that I used to watch, Two and a Half Men. In the episode that I remembered, Alan was talking to his brother, Charlie (these are grown men speaking by the way), and he is complaining about how he can't sleep. Charlie simply states, "Take a pill." At this Alan becomes outraged and starts yelling, "Why is it that we always need to take pills?! Can't go to bed? Take a pill! Can't get up? Take a pill! Can't get it up?! Take a pill!" (I apologize for that last little part). But this conversation between the brothers reminded very much of the one between Bernard and Lenina on their first "date". Lenina "senses" that something is wrong with him and tells him rather nonchalantly to "take a soma" because it will make everything better.
In Brave New World, the taking of soma is very much like our world's pill popping habit. If there is something "wrong" with our bodies, any slight foreign feeling, we freak out and start trying to find a pill that fits the description. Whatever happened to homemade remedies? The medicine that didn't do damage to our liver? The truth is that our pill popping is not worth the temporary feeling of well being.
What do you think?
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8 comments:
I agree that our society is using too many pills than necessary but I believe that without our modern innovations to medicine people in our society wouldn't be living as long. I guess that contributes to the over population of the world but using pills as replacements to homemade remedies really isn't as bad as you assume. I strongly agree to the fact that pills are taken over excessively and that society uses pills for any glimpse of non normality.
What I really don't get is antidepressants.Even though they are used to help people of serious illnesses, alot of the time they are used to help one's emotional well being.I don't believe pills can fix one's emotions and I also believe that antidepressants do more harm than good. Antidepressants are the closest thing to soma, because both drugs distracts the mind of reality.
There are many kinds as well. Prozac, Zoloft, Paxil, Elavil, Buspar, Norpramin, Lexapro, luvox just to name a few.
I must disagree with your with it comes to this topic Grizzy. I think that our "pill popping" is vastly different from that of the "pill popping" in Brave New World. In our world we take pills for health reasons, or in some cases mental reasons. It isn't like we take four or six a day either. Ok, maybe some people do, but a great majority of the population don't. Also in Brave New World they take the pills like it was crack of something. They are addicted to these pills unlike us who can live with out advil or tylenol. In Brave New World when John tries to throw the soma out of the window everyone thinks he is crazy. But let's say that one of us threw advil out a window or something. I honestly believe that no one would really care very much.
I agree with parts of your statement, Griselda. Our society depends a lot on pills to make us happy and feel safe. However, some of these pills actually do help out with serious medical conditions, such as heart disease. As for the comment on pills that damage our liver, most pills that are helpful do not harm our other organs for the most part.
I do feel that our society has become increasingly dependent on medications. It's true that if something is wrong with the body mentally or physically, many people do look for pills that will "fix" the problem. I feel that society needs some tangible method to reassure itself that they are fine, and I think that medication fulfills that expectation. The company assures us that it will work and it will make us feel better, and we believe them. I don't know if I am way off track, but I think that part of our habit of "pill Popping" is the sense of security it gives us that we are fine.
-Sejal Shah
I fully agree with you Zel. It reminds me of the phrase, “Take a chill pill.” I know it isn’t meant to literally take a pill, but it does reflect our dependency on the intake of these aids. It just goes to show that everyone takes a pill for whatever reason, even if it doesn’t work; it is more of a mental thing.
Just the other day at colorguard practice, some of my teammates were asking for Tylenol for injuries. Of course I do see the point in taking them because I suffered the same pain as most of them, (backbends gone so utterly wrong.) I think it is best to simply walk it off, although after repeatedly hurting the same injury can get unbearable.
Many who have tendency to take pills for personal reasons, may feel the need to increase the dosage due to the loss of proper effect, and eventually can eventually evolve into an addiction or an overdose may occur. This may in time happen to the soma takers because it will not have the desirable strong effect that brings synthetic comfort.
-Jessenia De Leon
I agree with you Zel. There is a pill for everything. There's countless pills for weight-loss, depression, sleeping, waking up, and almost anything else you can think of, there is probably a pill for it. Sure, if it is for an actual medical reason, that's fine. But giving kids pills for A.D.D., to me is on extreme side. I personally think this is wrong; parents give their kids pills for being hyper, easily distracted, and having discipline problems. I think that there could be other ways.
So basically, I don't think our society is quite as extreme as Brave New World when it comes to "pill popping," but it is starting to get close.
-Kim Bogdan
This reminds me of something that I was watching on the Discovery Channel today. The television series "Next World" said that a few doctors are working on a pill that will increase the longevity of the human life span. I think that that is going a little too far. This pill will affect the age of retirement, taxes, and most importantly the world population. As we have seen, our Earth can only take so much. Then the episode concluded that this pill will allow us to enjoy the benefits of our technology in the future, but how beneficial will technology be in the future?
But, back to the point. I do think that pills are getting a little out of hand. There seems to be a pill for everything these days, and taking so much can't do you any good. Still, I think that we are not as reliant on pills as the people of the World State are on soma. But at this rate, I will not be surprised if we do in the future.
I agree that we rely on medicine to take away our problems. Some people automatically search for the alcohol bottle or the anti-depression pills to make their worries disappear. Instead of facing our problems and trying our best to overcome the conflicts, we would rather pop a pill just because its more convenient. We can't always rely on the medicine to cure us mentally for a long while.
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