A Brave New World Chapter 8

1. How would you describe John's upbringing? Why do you think he says he is "alone, always alone." (137) How does Bernard feel about John?

-Well, he was brought up pretty poorly by Linda, because she didn't seem to be the best mother figure to him. She constantly slapped him, and hurt him, because she didn't know much else. She blamed him for being the reason that she was forced into this "Savage" lifestyle by the inspector. She also told him of the other lifestyle that she had once lived before though. When the boys visited Linda, and said bad things about her, John threw rocks at them, because he loved his mother. He says he is alone because he is an outcast from the society, because his mother isn't from where he lives. Therefore, John isn't fully native. Bernard relates to John because Bernard feels off from his society, because he is not as big and muscular as the other men of his caste.

2. Why does John say at the end of the chapter, "Oh! Brave New World!" (139)

-Because, Bernard has asked John to return with him to London. He is excited to experience this different world, with the stories he was once told by his mother when he was younger. However, Bernard warns him to wait until he sees this new world, before he gets too excited.

Jarred Diamond Questions

1. Please describe the background of the dispute between Dr. Samuel Huntington and Dr. Serge Lang.

- Samuel Huntington is a political scientist, and Serge Lang is a mathematician. They are having a debate over whether Huntington should be admitted to an academy of which Lang is a member of. Huntington is currently loosing.

2. How did Lang respond to Hunington's "pseudo mathematics?"

-Lang sent all of the members of the NAS mail against Huntington, with photocopies of letters sent from scholar to scholar.

3. What aspects of the dispute between Lang and Huntington are "political?" How does the author, Jared Diamond, feel about "Academic Freedom?"

-Huntington recieved support from the CIA do conduct research for a study on the State Department in 1967 on political stability in South Vietnam. It was also found out that he was an early supporter of the Vietnam War. He says, "American academics are virtually unanimous in rushing to defend academic freedom whenever a university president or an outsider criticizes a scholar because of his politics."

4. Why does the NAS exist? Why does this make that attacks against Huntington seem peculiar?

-It was originally established by the congress to act as an advisor to the US government regarding issues with science and technology. Huntington tried doing what was supposed to be done, advising the government, but the people held that against him... which leads us to question how much of a role politics played in the election.

5. Why does Diamond find fault in the traditional perceptions of the hard sciences?

-Because people tend to believe that this is the only type of sciecne out there. However, that is not the case, because sceince is actually just the explaining and predicting of natural phenomena by testing one's theory over and over again.

6. Why are the soft sciences difficult to study?

-Well, you can't start and stop an experiment whenever you choose, as you could do with a hard science. You can't control for all variables, and it may even be hard to pick what a variable is.

7. How does the NAS need to change in the early 1970s?

-They were asked to offer advice about social problems. (need for social scientists)

8. What are the problems in operationalizing a concept?

-Well, you are simpoly measuring your theory or concept. I know that we had to do this in psychology last year, I specifically remembering talking about how you operationalize trust. So if you're conducting an experiment, you would say that "trust is noted by these behaviors." The rest of your experiment would have to include those exact behaviors, because trustitself isn't something thatis measurable. This poses problems because everyone operationalizes things differently from one another, so two experiments testing the same thing could be completely different depdning upon how one person operationalizes the word trust.

9. Briefly describe how Diamond illustrates operationalizing in:

-Mathematics: Well, there is a problem with using words like "many." He uses the example of two cave women going out to pick bananas, and one says to the other lets go pick bananas off of that tree, because it has many. There is no real way of knowing which has more though, because many is a word that needs to be operationalized.

-Chemistry: I really don't understand what this one is saying.. but it says, "Ancient philosophers speculated about the ingredients of matter, but not until the eighteenth century did the first modern chemists figure out how to measure these ingredients. Analytical chemistry now proceeds by identifying some property of a substance of interest, or of a related substance into which the first can be converted. The property must be one that can be measured, like weight, or the light the substance absorbs, or the amount of neutralizing agent it consumes."

-Ecology: He discusses the problem of identifying the complexity of a habitat.

-Psychology: He talks about measuring the attitudes of patients towards death, which is similar to what i talked to about in the previous question regarding truth.

10. What were Huntington's operationalized concepts that provoked the wrath of Lang?

-Economic well-being, political instability, and social and economic modernization.

11. Why is the task of operationalizing more difficult and less exact in the soft sciences? Why does it lead to the ridicule of the soft sciences?

-Because they're familiar concepts, so we all think we are experts on them. Therefore, we will always think that our opinion of what something is is correct. Therefore, the terms that are being operationalized are much harder to agree on than hard sciences, because they usually involve emotions.

12. Why does Diamond believe that Lang might be ignorant of the measurements taken by social scientists like Huntington?

- Because it is a bit different measuring things that are not tangeable, like for instance, in psychology emotions. It is much simpler to measure the temperature of something, rather than measuring how angry a person is.

13. Does Diamond believe the labels associated with the sciences can be replaced? Explain.

-Yes, he thinks that they should be referred to as hard and easy sciences. He believes that social sciences are much more difficult than the hard sciences like math or chemistry.

14. Does Diamond believe the soft sciences to be more valuable than hard sciences? Do you agree? Explain.

-Yes he does believe this, because he says our society will die off if we don't figure out how people work. I guess that I agree with this to an extent, but I mean I think hard sciences are just as important, to control things like global warming. I think it is completely important to study human behavior though at the same time.

A Brave New World Chapter 7

1. How does Lenina feel about their appointed guide?
-She doesn't like him, and she thinks that he smells.

2. How does Lenina react to "naked Indian?" Does it remind you of anyone else we have studied?
-She asks Bernard what is the matter with him, and she can't seem to understand why he is so old and looks like that. I think that Bernard's explanation reminds me of when we talked about the people in America, and all of the products we have for anti-aging, so that age never becomes apparent. It is a bit scary to think about, to compare us to them.

3. How does Bernard react to the pueblo of Malpais?
-He sort of is a bit upset in a sense, (I don't really know a better word.) He sees the mother feeding her baby from her breast, and he wishes that he had a mother. He tells Lenina that he wishes she was a mother as well.

4. Who is Linda? What is her relationship to Tomakin?
-Linda was the mother of the man who wishes he was sacrificed. Long ago, she was walking in the mountains and she fell and hurt her head. Hunters from Malpais found her and brought her to the pueblo. Tomakin was the D.H.C. who was also this man's father, but he was never seen again.

5. Why does Linda believe that "everything they do is mad"? Please be specific.
-Well, she was brought up in the world of Betas and Alphas, and living here was has learned that everything is completely different. They don't bathe, and that disgusts her because there is so much dirt everywhere. Also she hates the fact that the women believe they can only have one man, rather than everyone being everyone else. She is also sickened by the fact that all of these women are having children.

A Brave New World Chapter 6

Part 1:

1. Why does Lenina think Bernard Marx is "odd"? Please use specific references from the chapter in your answer.

-When Lenina is talking to Henry about Bernard, he states that Bernard is like a rhinoceros, because he is unable to be conditioned. Also, Lenina is talking about her night out with Bernard, and how he refused to do anything that Lenina asked because there was too much of a crowd. So, he proposed going for a walk in the Lake District, so that they could be alone... however, he wanted to be alone to talk, not to have sex. Walking and talking seems odd to Lenina. He also refuses to take soma.

2. Please provide more lines from Lenina that she learned from hypnopaedia. Do any of them remind you of sayings that we may use?

- "A gramme in time saves nine." "One cubic centimeter cures ten gloomy sentiments." These are similar to the commercials we see on television to make us feel like there is a product out there that can fix any flaw we have. Maybe we don't advertise drugs like this, but there are definitely make up products, and other sorts of things that are advertised for this purpose. Commercials on hair regrowth maybe? I guess there are drugs advertised similar to this, like antidepressants, or weight loss pills. "Loose weight in just seven days..."

3. What is Fanny's explanation for Bernard's behavior?

-She says its because of the alcohol they put in his blood surrogate.

Part 2:

1. Why did the director tell Bernard about his own trip to the reservation? Why did it initially make Bernard feel uncomfortable?

-Because Bernard brings him a permit to sign for going to the reservation. He felt uncomfortable because the director didn't approve.

2. What does the director threaten Bernard with if he doesn't change his behavior? Why does it elate Bernard?

-He threatens him because he has to find some way of covering up the secret that he has just told Bernard, about having actual feelings for a girl, rather than just using her for sex. It elates Bernard because he knows that this is nothing more than a threat, and that he won't actually get shipped off to Iceland.

Part 3:

1. How does the Warden describe the Reservation?

-It reminds me of how someone would describe a maximum security prison. He says "...five hundred and sixty thousand square kilometers divided into four distinct Sub-reservations, each surrounded by a high-tension wire fence."

Nacirema

1. What happened yesterday? Why couldn't we recognize our own culture?

-Well, I was able to recognize it. There were times when I questioned it a bit, but when I read it again, I sort of understood that it was us. I was completely shocked that these words were written backwards though.

2. What does your answer say about the strengths and weaknesses of the social sciences?

-Did the guy who wrote this article know that the Nacirema were Americans? Because if he didn't, it shows that we have an inability to recognize our own culture. It seems as though we make things sound completely absurd, when in reality it is just how we act. I was completely confused when they say something about shoving a bundle of hairs into your mouth, but after I understood it I was kind of like... wow. The social sciences must be a little messed up though if people can't even recognize how strange our own culture is.

A Brave New World Chapter 5

1. What would Michael Pollan (the Omnivore's Dilemma) say about the first paragraph in chapter 5?

-I really don't remember him; I remember talking about him, but that's about it. If he was the one that talked about corn, I think that he would disagree with this paragraph however, because they are referring to the cows as providing hormones and milk. I guess in a sense they are doing this, however they neglect to inform the reader about the other things which the cow has been eating that is going into the milk, which is essential for the people eating the cow to be aware of.

2. Do you see any similarities with World State views death as compared to the Hindus? How does Lenina's remembrance of hypnopaedia compare with Plato's Republic?

-I guess there are some similarities, because in both the World State as well as the Hindus, there is a belief that the humans still have a purpose after they die. For the Hindus, the purpose is to be reborn again, however with the World State Center, the bodies are cremated and then their ashes are used to help plants grow. I guess this is pretty significant because it says that 98% of the bodies remains are recovered when cremated. Also, in the world state center, they believe that the plants will only grow if the bodies from a higher caste are used, so the caste system is also used in the world state center, as it is in the Hindu culture. As for the remembrance of hynopaedia, I guess is it extremely similar to Plato's Republic... they don't know anything different, so they are content living the way they have been. This is just like the people in the cave, they have lived there their entire life, so they can't really wish for something different, because they know nothing else.

3. What do you think of Lenina's and Henry night out on the town?

-This is the first time that I can see something in this story relate to something from our world. I mean, obviously their experience was a little different, but all in all it seemed to be quite similar. A boy and girl go out and listen to a band play and enjoy themselves, and then return home to Henry's house. However, in this case they were on soma... in our world it would have been them having a few drinks. Also, Lenina ponders the fact that they may be twins, which is something that wouldn't be considered in our world. All in all this night on the town made me "aw" because it seemed sort of normal to me, and not extremely weird like the rest of the book is...

4. Why do you think Huxley uses the the word "pneumatic" to refer to some female characters?

-Well, he uses this word to refer to the characters that aren't so attractive. For instance, he describe Morganna, who has a unibrow as pneumatic, and Clara the same as well. I looked up this word in the dictionary, because I didn't really know what it meant, and it says that it is of or pertaining to the air or gasses. The only connection I can make between this is maybe that they are a bit ditsy, and it is sort of like referring to them as "air-heads" but I'm not quite sure.

5. What is Soliditary Service and what are Bernard's feelings towards it?

-This is when a group of twelve people, six males and six females, sit in a circle and try to loose their differences and become one. Huxley refers to it as , "loosing their twelve separate identities into a larger being." (80) It sort of reminds me of church in a sense, because they pass around a cup of strawberry soma ice cream, which to me is somewhat similar to the glass of wine that we pass around at church. Also, there are 12 people which are a part of it, which could be like the 12 disciples. It seems as though Bernard doesn't like this group though, because he can't get over the fact that Morganna has a unibrow, no matter how hard he tries... he can't just become one like they are supposed to, and "melt" together.

Abel Chapter 15 Questions

1. Why is history being rewritten constantly?

-Because it is always written wrong. As human beings, we have a certain curiosity among us, and we want to be able get meaning out of the history that we study. Therefore, in order to please human beings, they need to keep the stories interesting in relation to the people who are reading them. Able believes that history is not rewritten simply because new facts are discovered, but rather because new people need to be pleased and informed.

2. What factors influence the process by which the historian picks and chooses his/her facts? Please provide specific examples for each factor.

-Our interests change- for example, people in the past may have been fascinated by the love affairs of kings, rather than how the king actually ruled, whereas now people may be more concerned with the way the kind ruled.

-Our conceptual apparatus changes- we are informed of the Marxist hypothesis that the American Civil War was a class conflict, where before we just knew that there was a Civil War that occurred, and Marx's view was not a part of this.

-Our view of the basic historical segment changes- I don't really understand this one, but the example we are given in the book talks about how "Toynobee builds the most intelligible unit to be not the nation but the "society."

-The personal equation of the historian changes- This shows that every historian has different views and personal ideals basically, which means that each historian may focus on a different aspect of history and have a different interpretation on it based upon their own ideals and beliefs.

-The audience for whom he writes changes- Historians write to please different people. For instance, one person could be writing the history of 9/11 for the Americans to read, and another person could be writing the history of 9/11 for the Iraqis to read. Both of these stories would be different, because their audience is different; it is sort of like the shaper in Grendel.

3. What is the "Baconian Fallacy?" What would the positivists think? Would Carr agree with Namier?

- The Baconian Fallacy is saying that all the historian has to do is collect the facts. I think that the positivists would agree with this, because the positivists are totally focussed on the idea that there are a ton of facts out there waiting to be discovered, and that is all that makes history. I think Carr would agree with Namier, because Namier believes that history is full of different opinions and interpretations, which is what Carr believes. Namier uses the comparison of a historian to a photographer, which is similar to the comparison that Carr uses of a architect to a historian. They both believe that historians' jobs are to find the facts that make the story work and they have to leave out the details that aren't important. If a historian were to just find all of these facts, it is the same thing as an architect trying to mix cement- it is nothing that takes effort, or makes them special. They have to actually create stories to please audiences, with different opinions and interpretations.

4. How does history differ from Geology?

-History finds meaning in the data that it collected, whereas a geologist just gathers the data. For instance, a historian will find some evidence of the past, and only write some of it down because he only sees some of it as important, whereas the geologist will write down any evidence found because it is all seen as important to them.

5. According to Abel: "The patterns to be found in part events are selected by the historian; like the hypothesis of the scientists, they may be suggested, but are neither imposed nor dictated, by "the facts (p 166-7)." Based on your experience with the Cheques Lab, how far do you agree with this explanation of history?

-I agree with this explanation to a pretty large extent. With the Cheques Lab experiment, we received some facts and drew conclusions about them which really may have had nothing to do with what happened. Because one check was made out to mothers against drunk driving, we immediately came to the conclusion that there was a drunk driving accident of some sort. This could have had nothing to do with what actually happened, because there are plenty of people who just donate to MADD for no personal reason. However, this fact seemed to make a good story so we used it. There were other facts that we left out though, that didn't fit with our story, that could have been important to what actually happened. Therefore, history is totally created by the historian, because it is never what it actually is.

6. In your opinion, "how will future historians so elect to describe what is going on now (p. 167)?"

- I think that it will pretty much be decided the same way that it is now. People will find a ton of facts about what is going on now, and they will try to pick out pieces of information that seem important and disregard the others. They will probably get the history of us completely wrong, but that is okay because it is totally based upon their newer developed systems of thinking. It is no different than the history we have gotten wrong in the past.

7. What is historical pluralism?

- The definition of historical pluralism as defined by Maurice Mandelbaum is "the grand sweep of events which we call the historical process is made up of an indefinitely large number of components which do not form a completely inter-related set. Historical pluralism denies that every event is related to every other event."

8. The list of events (or non-events) listed on p. 168 makes Abel ask the question: "Is there, then, no hard core or bed-rock of indisputable facts that the historian must recognize." Does it matter if there ever was a man named Trotsky?

- Well, for our own knowledge that we have today, Trotsky is important, and his existence does matter. However, if we never learned about Trotsky, we would be fine not knowing about him, because we would have learned about someone else in history class rather than Trotsky. I guess it doesn't matter who we learn about, as long as we learn about someone, because there are always going to be people from history left out. Maybe there were people who were way more important than Trotsky, but we just never got to learn about them because historians decided it wasn't important.

9. How is a historian like a physicist?

- Historians nor physicists never know all there is to be known about a particular situation. Both "go beyond the evidence," making their own conclusions about what they have found. They both select their facts, and leave out what they don't see to be important.

10. What are the Five Frameworks or Hypotheses of History?

-We may begin with Ecclesiastes.

-A second group of philosophies of history may be called functional because of the way in which they isolate and stress certain causative factors.

-The idea of progress as a philosophy of history is relatively new.

-History is a great drama of sin and redemption, according to the Christian view.

-Organismic theories consider society to be a kind of living organism.

11. Do you believe in Historical Inevitability?

-Not really. I think the idea that a war will happen regardless of if there is a cause to it isn't true. People don't just randomly go and kill other people without a reason for it. It is possible that the reason for a war isn't explicitly known, but there is still an underlying reason. Wars won't happen if people don't cause them to happen.

12. What does Abel mean when he says: "no crucial experiment can test the validity of a theory of history, any more than it can the truth of a metaphysical theory (p. 174)."?

- He basically means that there is no way of proving whether or not these stories that historians create about the past are actually true. For all we know, some of the things we were told by historians may have never even happened; they could have simply gathered some data and jumped to conclusions about it, making stories that seemed to fit. We will never know if the history we have is right or not, because we were never actually there when these things were happening.

13. Abel writes: "Macaulay regards history as a branch of literature (p. 174)." How would Jill Lepore of Just the Facts, Ma'am respond? Please provide a specific quote from the article to justify your claim.

- I'm not quite sure how she would respond. She totally sees a separation between literature and history though, because she says that "novels boast a certain truth that even the best history books can't claim." I suppose she feels as though novels have much more truth in them, because the author creates the story and therefore they cannot be wrong. However, there is no definite answer to history, which is what sort of separates history from literature- at least in Jill Lepore's mind.

14. How does the footnote at the bottom of page 175 relate to the Shaper from Grendel?

-In the footnote, there are different stories told about the Jewish history, and the stories are different based upon who was telling it. For instance, there is only one piece of information about Masada, because only one person ever bothered to share this information with people. In Grendel, the shaper goes around telling different stories to different people, depending upon who he is telling the story to. These two instances are similar, because the stories that are told change depending upon the person who is hearing the stories.

A Brave New World Chapter 4

Part 1.

1. What puzzles Lenina about Bernard Marx's behavior?

- He acts awkward when Lenina asks him to have sex with her; he wants to talk about it in private. However, Lenina doesn't see it as something that needs to be discussed in private because it was just sex, and in this book sex is nothing to be hidden.

2. Please provide examples of Lenina using what she learned from hypnopaedia.

-I don't really see any direct references to hypnopaedia, but maybe the references that she is making to Bernard about sex could be learned from hypnopaedia. They could be brainwashed to think that sex is something that can be publicly discussed without any embarrassment. Also, at the end of the chapter she says something about how horrible the color khaki is, which is something that was obviously learned through hypnopaedia.

3. Where are Lenina and Henry going?

-They ride in Henry's helicopter, where they end up at Stoke Poges, to play obstacle golf.

Part 2.

1. What makes Bernard Marx distressed? Why?

-He feels that he has many enemies that he doesn't want to see, and they are making him feel guilty and alone. Everyone was making him suffer, even Lenina. He wants to ask her to have him, but he was too afraid that she would deny him. He also hates dealing with members of the lower castes, because it makes him feel bad that their physical appearance is not any better than his own.

2. Where does Helmholtz Watson work? What is his job?

- He works on one of the top eighteen floors of the College of Emotional Engineering. He is a lecturer and an emotional engineer. "He wrote for the Hourly Radio, composed feely scenarios, and had the happiest knack for slogans and hypnopaedic rhymes."

3. What does Bernard have in common with Helmholtz Watson?

-Both of them have physical "defects" which are isolating them from the other men in their caste. They are both extremely small compared to the average man, which effects them mentally because they feel like they are enemies with everyone.

4. What is troubling Helmholtz?

-He feels that he has some things to say, but he can't figure out how to say them. He also feels that his phrases that he creates aren't good enough.

TOK and History

The checks lab is very similar to Carr's view of history, if we pretend that we are historians. This is because we received plenty of facts, some which we threw out and didn't see important. These facts didn't make it into our view of what happened- or what was history. For instance, we totally ignored the fact that there were names of animals on the tops of the checks, because we didn't see it as important. However, if we were positivists, we wouldn't have ignored it, because it would have been a fact. I think that history is indeed everythign that has happened in the past, however there are things that don't make it into text books, because they aren't important. Therefore, history is only what we want to see as history. It is like what we discussed yesterday in class... everything we see is based upon who we are.

Prescribed Titles Number 7

"We see and understand things not as they are but as we are." Discuss this claim in relation to at least two ways of knowing.

This quote can be related to perception a lot, because the things that we perceive are based upon the way we interpret things. In TOK class, we were given pictures of people, and we were told that there were people who were from the city, and who were not from the city. We had to pick which people were from the city, and which were not. Based upon our perception, we chose the people who had baseball caps on as city-people, and the others, who were dressed differently, as not city people. However, in reality, they were all the same people- nobody was from a city because they were all the same people. However because of our experiences, and our perception, we saw these people differently and immediately grouped them into categories, basically without realizing it. Therefore, this shows that the way we are, everything that we are made up of, completely effects how we perceive and understand things. If we were from a different country, and we were given this type of task to complete, we probably wouldn't interpret them as city people, or not city people, because instead we would find something else that would fit into our schema. Maybe we would focus more on their hair style, or their height, and we would group the people based upon that. Regardless of what we would be grouping people as, we would group them as something, because we need an explanation for why something is the way that it is. We gravitate towards an explanation that we can relate to best, which is what we did in this situation, which was that because they had different clothes on- they were from a different area.

Reason is another way of knowing which relates to this quote. As human beings, we are constantly using reason to justify how we feel about a certain thing. If we don't believe that a thing is a certain way, we try to justify it and make it seem right for our own life. We always think that what we think is right, which effects how we may interpret certain situations. We sort of block out other views, which limits what we see, or if we don't do that, we create syllogisms to make what we think seem right. For example, in TOK class we studied Karazdick, and argued whether or no he was a monster. Some people believed he was a monster, and used reason to justify how they felt. A syllogism of this would be "All people who kill massive numbers of people are monsters. Karazdick killed massive numbers of people. Therefore, Karazdick was a monster." Therefore, even though this may not be true that he is a monster, the person is interpreting it this way because of their own personal feelings, and they are using reason to justify it. Another person could say that "Humans can not be monsters. Karazdick is a human. Therefore, Karazdick is not a monster." This is another view of Karazdick, both views are correct, and it is based solely upon the person who is saying their viewpoint as to what is right or not.

A Brave New World Chapter 3

Please explain how each of the following areas are different in the World State as compared to our world in 2009.

a. sex, monogamy, and romance: Well, in the World State, children played games that involved sex, even at very young ages- like 7 years old. This is totally different than in our world in 2009, because children that young never ever have sex. The earliest people in our world start to have sex is through their teenage years, but even then it is frowned upon by our culture. Also, they believe that everyone belongs to everyone else, which is different than our world in 2009 where we believe that we belong to one person.

b. sports: Their sports are completely different than ours, because they don't believe in competition like we do. We only play sports to compete, and to "win" in the end. However, they play sports just to play- also, they only view sports as things that involved a ball. In 2009, anything that involves physical activity is considered a sport... swimming, cheerleading, cross country- all of those things are huge sports and they don't involve a ball. Also, they mention something about "bumble-puppy" which we don't play here in 2009, I'm not even sure exactly what it is. I remember it was in a book that we read in English class though, A Room With A View.

c. entertainment: I'm not really sure what they did for entertainment. They talk about "soma" which was a drug that they basically always took... I guess this could be considered an enterntainment of some sort, because they did it for fun. On holidays, they would have two grammes of soma, rather than the nomral amount that they would have which is less. I guess people nowadays use drugs to have fun as well, except their whole life isn't based around it. When I think of our society's view of entertainment, I think of television, or video games. People go to see movies for entertainment, they don't sit around taking drugs all day.

d. parenthood: It talks about how in the World State center, mothers act similar to the way cats act towards their babies- they are very protective of them, always saying "my baby." I think that this is a little bit similar to how we feel in our world during 2009, however one thing that took me by surprise here was that the mothers were fascinated by breast feeding. I don't think that mothers nowadays talk about how wonderful it feels to breast feed, so that's the only difference I saw.

e. materialism: It seems as though people in the World State center are very materialistic; some of the things that they repeat are phrases like " I love clothes." Also, they are talkinga bout the new "Ford T Model," and someone claims that they have had it for nearly three months, as though that they are better than the other person considering that they have had it longer. I guess in a sense this is similar to our world today in 2009, because we constantly want to have the newest thing out there. If we get something new, our culture constantly updates things to make us want more... I think this is the one thing that we are similar to each other in. The only difference is that it appears as though these people are brainwashed to want more than what we have, where we sort of do it on our own.

f. religion: They speak about how in the past (which would be now, more or less) there were religions. They speak of Christianity, which they believed was absurd basically. They also mention democracy, liberalism, and the caste system. They basically don't believe in any of these sorts of things, because they believe they all belong to each other. They only thing they do believe in a little is the caste system, because they rank everyone in their own social status- however there is no moksha or dharma as there is in today's world.

g. intoxicants: The intoxicants which are mentioned in the World State Center are chemical drugs that I have never even heard of, I don't even know if they even exist. However, when I think of intoxicants in today's world, I think of alcohol, marijuana, cocaine, etc. Therefore, their basis of drugs is much different than ours.

Finally, to the best of your ability provide a brief history of how the World State Center came to be.

The World State Center originated with Ford, who was basically their leader in a sense. He created the World State Center so that the populations could be controlled- so that everyone would be created equally, and nobody would feel left out. By creating everyone equally, and controlling their life completely, he was able to eliminate people from having fears, because they were totally brainwashed. When they slept, tape recordings were played in their head, which forced them to have certain thoughts, and elimate others. By doing this, the population was muc more emotionally steady because everyone thought the same exact things. Although this may not have been the best idea, to eliminate emotions, it is what they did, and Ford thought it would be better this way.