Response

"Huxley's book is the better written of the two." This statement, along with "Orwell's is the timelier of the two" I feel neglect to look at many aspects of the books. In my opinion I feel the opposite is true. Huxley's book can be related to America today in so many ways, I made many comparisons in my in-class essay two weeks ago. Things are becoming so easy for the American public, and the average person is no longer really trying to advance their own knowledge of the world around them, they are being neutrilized by their own contentment, which is what happens in Brave New World. " In Brave New World the standardizing force (apart from conditioning) is pleasure." We find this very true in our American society. However, 1984 uses terror to induce the cooperation of its citizens. We do not relate to this very directly, but many other countries probably do. I began to look at the human rights in North Korea today, to see if it can be related to that in 1984. I did not get very far before many terrifying parallels were able to be made. Citizens of North Korea are not allowed to leave and the conditions there are hard to determine because foreigners are rarely allowed to enter, and when they do they are kept under extremely close watch, so accounts on the conditions there are gathered from refugees. People there are not allowed to speak their minds, which is something we see in 1984 and thus is the use of doublespeak, to narrow the range of thinking, so it becomes impossible to even think something out of the ordinary. I may be going back on what I said earlier in this response, but I feel both of these books are equally relevant. They both encompass different aspects of the world today, some societies we are tamed by pleasure and convienience, and others people are kept by force and terror. Huxley, and Orwell had very different visions, but they were both very accurate.

Commitment to Free Religion

The right to practice whatever religion you want to is a right that I feel strongly about. Religious constriction makes no sense whatsoever because what good is it to force a religion upon a person who does not feel committed to it inside. It is like forcing someone to say that their favorite color is blue when it is really red. They may say that it is blue but inside they know that it is still red.
Also countries that force a religion upon their citizens is really only looking for themselves to prosper, not the spiritual well-being of their citizens. They force the religion to get more people to come to their churches ad contribute making them richer, they do not care about the God or whatever it is that they are forcing people to worship.
Religion is something that each individual on earth needs to find for themselves, if they feel just right in an organized religion then great, but if they don't they should not be forced to conform their spiritual needs. They need to search and find what they believe out for themselves. Kids who are forced to go to church when they are younger often have a period of doubt where they search through other ideas and see if there is anything that makes them feel more fulfilled, if not will go back to their original belief.
Another thing about religion that should be left open is the idea of being baptised and confirmed. Just because a person may not go through these rituals does not make them any more or less devoted to that religious group. They should not be discluded from the main group because of this. They have followed their own path to their own personal version of God. God is unknown, there is no concrete image of him and therefore no one has the right to say my God is the right one and if you don't follow him your going to hell and whatnot. Everyone's opinions should be respected an listened to because we do not know for sure that they are wrong and we are right.