Humanity and Savages in the Brave New World

Humanity might have gone a little too overboard for humans to become perfect. In China, a scientist named He Jiankui decided to announce that on a Monday that twins were born in November with a gene that he had edited when they were just embryos. Now I know what your thinking how in the world is this actually coming true? I have no idea personally but I know the quoted from Brave New World does. “One egg, one embryo, one adult-normality. But an egg will bud, will proliferate, will divide. From eight to ninety-six buds, and every bud will grow into a perfectly formed embryo, and every embryo into a full-sized adult. Making ninety-six human beings grow where only one grew before, Progress”(Huxley p.g 12).  There are already people like this walking among us which is terrifying but interesting at the same time. In the mid-1990s, fertile doctors in New Jersey got an idea for how to help women that can’t have children finally have them. The doctors suspected that women struggled to become pregnant because of the defective material in their eggs. 

This connects perfectly into Brave New World because one of the main events in this book is mainly about how the people change their babies into what they want them to look like. “Told them of the test for sex carried out in the neighborhood of Metre 200. Explained the system of labeling—a T for the males, a circle for the females and for those who were destined to become freemartins a question mark, black on a white ground” (Huxley p.g 64). Prenatal testing and screening have become a routine part of pregnancy for most women in the United States, leaving the narrow confines of genetics clinics for the broader world. Couples undergoing in vitro fertilization may now have their embryos tested for genetic defects through genetic diagnosis. 

John the savage was the most I felt that can connect with genetics because he was the complete opposite of the self-made babies. John grew up away from all of the tragedy that was happening in the city. He lived a simple life with making everything from scratch. He was rejected by the Indians so he then went to the big apple. He takes advice from Shakespeare and it helps him with his emotions and reactions. It provided him a framework of what the World State values and it helped him with languages that hold him against Mond during their hole confrontation.

John was trying to identify these humans and stated "But do you like being slaves?" the Savage was saying as they entered the Hospital. His face was flushed, his eyes bright with ardor and indignation. "Do you like being babies? Yes, babies. Mewling and puking," he added, exasperated by their bestial stupidity into throwing insults at those he had come to save”(Huxley, p.g 37). He had a little trouble recognizing some sort of humanity in the people but in his mind, their identities shifted from “maggots” to “less than human monsters.” John wanted to know if the humans liked to be ruled and controlled by a man who just wanted to take power away from them and their identity. 

Another main character in this book that tricked John would be Lenina Crowne a vaccination worker at a Central London Hatchery and Conditioning Centre. In the book, she was most desired because of her looks and her behavior. She also defies her culture’s conventions by dating one man exclusively for several months. She soon develops a passion for John the Savage. "Oh, you so perfect" (she was leaning towards him with parted lips), "so perfect and so peerless are created" (nearer and nearer) "of every creature's best." Still nearer. The Savage suddenly scrambled to his feet. "That's why," he said speaking with averted face, "I wanted to do something first… I mean, to show I was worthy of you. Not that I could ever really be that. But at any rate to show I wasn't absolutely unworthy. I wanted to do something" (Huxley, p.g 41). I would say that Lenina doesn’t know at all who she truly is inside because she so brainwashed about being a certain way and this makes her come on to John and not realize what he really wants.         

American scientists have watched in awe from other scientists when they first had explored controversial practice. Right now Mitalipov would be believed to have broken new ground both for a number of embryos that were experimented upon demonstrating that it is actually possible to safely and efficiently correct the defect in genes that cause inherited diseases. The embryos weren’t supposed to develop in a few days and there was never any intention in implanting them into the womb at all. The experiments are a milestone on what to prove to be an inevitable journey towards birth of the very first genetically modified humans. Scientists had a say about the editing of embryos, “So far as I know this will be the first study reported in the U.S.,” says Jun Wu, a collaborator at the Salk Institute, in La Jolla, California, who played a role in the project. This project will help open doors to parents who may decide to alter the genetic sequences for hair color, eye color, height and other examples of some traits. 

There also might be a temptation to try to improve a child’s more complex traits like being intelligent, musically talented, being athletic or not. Knoepfler is an American biologists claims that people don’t know enough about how genes would interact to a change that the genes for eye color or hair color. He also explains that given the rapid speed with this whole modified genetics there can be a huge “personal genomics.” This means that it won’t be long before there are deep interconnections between the “sequences” that could be understood by scientists later on. Knoepfler book has a huge impact of the potential technology that could happen in the near future of genetically changing babies and this could potentially change genetics that would prevent the babies from learning or living a type of way. 

Now I know what your thinking how in the world is this actually coming true? I have no idea personally but I know the quoted from Brave New World does. From eight to ninety-six buds, and every bud will grow into a perfectly formed embryo, and every embryo into a full-sized adult. “Told them of the test for sex carried out in the neighborhood of Metre 200. Couples undergoing in vitro fertilization may now have their embryos tested for genetic defects through genetic diagnosis. John was trying to identify these humans and stated "But do you like being slaves?" the Savage was saying as they entered the Hospital. Mewling and puking," he added, exasperated by their bestial stupidity into throwing insults at those he had come to save”(Huxley, p.g 37).

Another main character in this book that tricked John would be Lenina Crowne a vaccination worker at a Central London Hatchery and Conditioning Centre. "That's why," he said speaking with averted face, "I wanted to do something first… I mean, to show I was worthy of you. The embryos weren’t supposed to develop in a few days and there was never any intention in implanting them into the womb at all. The experiments are a milestone on what to prove to be an inevitable journey towards birth of the very first genetically modified humans. There also might be a temptation to try to improve a child’s more complex traits like being intelligent, musically talented, or being athletic.