"I've got two daughters - nine years old and six years old - I'm going to teach them first of all about values and morals. But if they make a mistake, I don't want them punished with a baby. I don't want them punished with an STD at the age of sixteen." - Barack Obama, March 29, 2008.
Watch the video here: http://youtube.com/watch?v=eNzmly28Bmg
Brave New World here we come. I cannot believe Obama (or anyone) would think that a woman could ever be "punished" with a baby. PUNISHED. Wasn't there once a day when a baby was WELCOMED into the world, not viewed as a punishment? In fact, I'd argue most still are - and most women are still excited at the prospect of having a baby.
I have been reading the novel Brave New World by Aldous Huxley. It takes place 600 years into the future, when a one world government has transformed the world through scientific and psychological engineering. Efficiency, community, solidarity, and the value of the "collective" are all placed as the highest values. People are genetically engineered and conditioned to perform certain jobs and "everyone belongs to everyone."
But half way through the novel, we discover that not the entire world is under control. There is a group of "uncivilized" people. In that part of the world, "the Reservation," our main characters learn that "in the Reservation, children still are born, yes, actually born, revolting as that may seem ..."
There are other places in the novel where one cannot fathom that a child could be "born" for they are all cloned in this future world - all new people come into the world in a highly scientific and programmed way. There are not supposed to be any "unexpected" births, much less pregnancies. Everything is about efficiency and it wouldn't be efficient for women to unexpectedly become pregnant. That would be revolting.
Obama doesn't want his daughters or any women to be "punished by a baby." He seems to already be living in this Brave New World. The question is, will we?
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2 comments:
I think you should spend more time reading Brave New World before you make these sort of claims.
Huxley's universe in that book has little to nothing on common with our own.
If you read Brave New World, much of it is about how the world has become de-humanized, much as our own world is becoming, in so many ways.
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