Dhairya Patil

August 22, 2018

AP Lang
Jones-Taylor
Summer Reading Essay

The large conversation or considerably an argument on the value of “humanities” is a

broad topic and many people have a say on this topic. Along with everyone else, the novel ​Brave

New World ​ and the movie ​Gattaca​ contribute to this largely held conversation in a way.

Reading ​Brave New World ​makes one think about the society as well as the system in the book,

which is altered and opposes cultural thoughts and the ethical thoughts. The movie ​Gattaca

contributes by showing how the men work at Gattaca and how their world is divided into valid

and invalids, also by how newborn babies are altered into someone different from others. Both

the book and the movie have a caste system, separating them into classes just like finance

separates the common people in our world.

Although economists like to be systematic and have their own biases, education should

be a category and/or a topic on which they should be well-rounded meaning that they should not

think about the students as an experimental group. Students who attend school sit “hours upon

hours” following their teacher instructions and orders. This kind of system shapes the exercise of

the human domestication. Following the same rule students in ​Brave New World ​are taught

differently compared to what happens in the real world and follows a system in which the

students are not taught certain things such as religion or such things related to god.

Culturally and ethically speaking the role of god is important for many people but

economists fail to consider this fact and proceed with their own theories. Correspondingly
speaking ​Brave New World ​displays that same situation where god is not meant to be for

everyone. In Mond’s opinion religion is materialistic, that god is irrelevant but on the other side

John seems to grow his stems from belief of “self denial.” The role god is not taken into

consideration until the very end of the book when John starts believe in nature more than anyone.

Gattaca ​likewise puts on the role where technology is more than advanced that it essentially

controls the whole world and god is considered to be no such thing.

In the world of the economists, they think of children as an advantage or a type of profit

which helps them in their area of work. ​Brave New World ​does not necessarily display this kind

of system but uses babies to alter them genetically as well as separate them into castes as well as

classes.​Gattaca ​in a similar manner depicts the same alteration and displaying people as valids or

invalids. These separations although keep their world maintained but it does not necessarily

benefit them in any manner. “Humanities” is no such thing or topic in these two worlds since

their worlds are basically controlled by economists who “ignore”the fact that the real world runs

on beliefs and how everyone is treated.