Techne in a Brave New World

Technology is defined as using the entire body of science, methods, and materials to achieve an end.  Technology, or techne, is so preoccupied with weather it can, it never considers if it should.  In "Of Techne and Episteme," a article on technology and humanities, the author Eddy warns us that a society without epistemological thinking would lead to a society of  "skilled barbarians."  This is the topic of the novel Brave New World in which Aldous Huxley portrays a future world where babies are manufactured on an assembly line and put into a social class while they are still embryos in a test tube.  As children they are

engineered to be content with their rank in this world where love, viviparous reproduction, and knowledge of anything beyond your job serves no purpose.  A look at Brave New World supports Eddy's beliefs on the importance of humanities in society because of unethical genetic experimentation and the character's lack of individuality.

The society of Brave New World has gained the knowledge to produce babies much like their God, Henry Ford, produced the Model T.  They have taken this technology and exploited it for their own benefit.  They have created with their hands without using their head or heart.  Scientists toy with the embryos, cutting off oxygen to those predestined to become lower caste members.  Those chosen to work as rocket plane engineers were in constant rotation during the embryonic phase of their life.  "Doing repairs on the outside of a rocket in mid-air is a tickish job.  We slacken off the circulation when they're right way up, so that they're half starved, and double the flow of surrogate when they're upside down.  They learn to associate topsy-turvydom with being well-being."  These procedures would be considered morally incorrect today, however, in the future the lack of ethics allows this to be a normal procedure.  Eddy stresses the importance of humanities, and teaching of moral ethics.  Schweitzer said that "If any age lacks the minds to force it to think about the ethical, the level of its morality sinks, and with it, its capacity to answering the questions that present themselves."  This quote could not apply its-self more to Brave New World.

Each of the characters in Brave New World lacks an important human characteristic, individuality.  I feel individuality is one of the most important things that defines us as humans, we were each created differently, and, like a snow flake, no two people are alike.  In the future, due to the advent of genetic engineering, up to 17 thousand babies can be made from a single fertilized egg.  Each person has their identity programmed in the "decanting room."  Each life has a predestined path that has been determined for them, robot slaves working for society and gain, no different than the "skilled barbarians" of Eddy's warning.

I feel that Eddy's beliefs are supported by Huxley's novel Brave New World.  Without humanities, Huxley's future thought only of the end and not of the means, there was no concern for life and each life lacked individuality.  I think the most unnerving part of this is I see many similarities between Brave New World and the present and today's social tendencies.