BNW Chapter 13

1. What does Lenina mean when she says, "For Ford's sake John, talk sense. I can't understand a word you say. First it is vacuum cleaners; then its knots. You're driving me crazy." (p. 191)?

Lenina means that she does not understand what he is talking about, because he wants to grow old with her and is quoting romantic Shakespeare at her. She doesn't understand that he wants more than just sex, that he wants to have a life with her, because those concepts don't exist in the World State.

2. How does John react when Lenina makes advances towards him?

John reacts very badly when Lenina makes advances towards him. He becomes very angry, slaps her and calls her a whore, and when she locks herself in the bathroom, he starts reciting King Lear's speech on the evilness of women.

BNW Chapter 12

1. In what ways does Bernard remind you of Dr. Treves or the nightwatchman in The Elephant Man?

Bernard reminds me of Dr. Treves because he is trying to introduce John, a savage, a freak (like John Merrick), into conventional society. He is also like Dr. Treves because he believes that what he is doing is the best for John. However, Bernard is also like the nightwatchman, in that he wants to show John off for his own benefit, to make him more successful and popular.

2. Why does John have to use Zuni to express how he feels?
John has to use Zuni to express how he feels because there are no adequate words in English to describe how he feels.

3. Why does Lenina feel "a sense of dreadful emptiness, a breathless apprehension, a nausea." (p. 174)?
Lenina feels a"sense of dreadful emptiness, a breathless apprehension, a nausea," because she is worried that John doesn't like her, because he is not coming to the Party. It is evident that Lenina has strong feelings for John.

4. Why doesn't Mustapaha Mond want "A New theory of Biology" not to be published? Does the work remind you of anything that we have studied recently?
Mustapha Mond doesn't want "A New theory of Biology" to be published because it is "heretical," and "dangerous and potentially subversive " to the social order. The work reminds me of the idea of Creationism and the messages of the Bible, that what we do on Earth is determines what our afterlives will be like.

5. Do you agree with Bernard's belief in the "principal functions of a friend" as described on p. 179? Why does he feel this way toward John and Helmholtz?

I do not agree with Bernard's belief in the "principal functions of a friend," because although it is nice to have a friend to vent and rant to, that should not be a main reason why you have a friend, but simply a bonus. Also, it seems to me, cruel that one would inflict symbolic punishment on a friend instead of an enemy. Bernard feels this way towards John and Helmholtz because they are accessible to him, and they give him superiority over others, or at least John does. Both Helmhotz and John "forgive and forget," as friends would do.

6. What does Helmholtz think of Shakespeare?

Helmholtz is delighted at Shakespeare, because it presents such foreign concepts to him, in a way which makes him laugh. He does not understand some of the social commentary that Shakespeare is making.

BNW Chapter 11

1. Why is Dr. Shaw glad "to have had this opportunity to see an example of senility in a human being." (p. 155)?

Dr. Shaw is glad "to have had this opportunity to see an example senility in a human being," because he can study the a human who was born into the World State, but was forced to abandon the ways of the World State for those on the reservation, and he can study the way this has affected her, but also the way returning to the World State and it's standards, affects her, which he can see through the amount of soma she is taking, will kill her within two months.

2. Why are people saying behind Bernard's back that, "He won't find another Savage to help him out a second time." (p. 157)?

People are saying behind Bernard's back that, "He won't find another Savage to help him out a second time," meaning that his success at finding a Savage will not last, and he will go back to being odd, and depressed, unlike everyone else around him. His success with John, and the excitement to from Society to study the oddity who proclaimed the ex-Director to be "my father!," will eventually end, as John is either returned to the reservation or integrated into the World State.

3. Why do the Eton students in the Beta-Minus Geography room laugh at the religious activities of "savages"? Why do you think it significant that there are no twins at Eton? Do you think that is still true today?

The Eton students in the Beta-Minus Geography room laugh at the religious activities of the "savages," because it seems so ridiculous and foreign to them that they can not take it seriously, or understand it at all. I think it is significant that there are no twins at Eton, because there must be individual thinking, not thinking as a whole group. This is so that Etonians can react separate of each other in unexpected emergencies. I think that today, everyone thinks individually, whethe s/he is a twin or not. Twins may have similar ideas, however, in this day and age, everyone is there own person, and completely different from those around them.

4. How do children in the World State learn about Death?

Children in the World State learn about Death starting at eighteen months old, and spends two days a week at the Hospital for the Dying. They keep all the best toys there, and they are given chocolate ice cream on death days. This way "they learn to take dying as a matter of course"

5. Why do lower-caste workers receive daily Soma rations? Do we do this today?
Lower-caste workers receive daily Soma rations for completing their day's work. Today, this is like giving a child a snack of cookies everyday after s/he gets home from school as a sort of reward for going to school.

6. Why does John tell Lenina that, "I don't think you ought to see things like that." (p. 169)?

John tells Lenina that "I don't think you ought to see things like that," because he thinks the film was "base," and "ignoble." He finds the film horrible because of the Beta-blonde's becoming a mistress to all of her rescuers, and the perhaps because of the racial allegations the film presented.

BNW Chapter 10

1. Why does the director feel that Unorthodoxy is worse than Murder? What does the Director want to do with Bernard Marx?

The Director feels that Unorthodoxy is worse than Murder because Murder kills only the individual, and individuality is an almost non-existent concept in the World Order. However, Unorthodoxy, "strikes at Society itself," meaning that Unorthodoxy affects many, and changes the, which affects the goal of uniformity of the World Order.

2. What surprise does Bernard bring to the Director?

The surprise that Bernard brings to the Director is Linda. Grown old, "deformed," and ugly, living on the reservation, the Director does not recognize her and calls her a "monstrous practical joke." Bernard also brings John, who calls the Director "my father," to his great humiliation.

Jared Diamond Questions

1. Please describe the background of the dispute between Dr. Samuel Huntington and Dr. Serge Lang.
Dr. Samuel Huntington was nominated to join the NAS,a nd was unlikely to be unchallenged in joining the society. Dr. Serge Lang had only joined NAS the year before, but had assumed ''the role of a sheriff of scholarship"


2.How did Lang respond to Huntington’s “pseudo mathematics?”
Lang was " Disturbed by what he saw as the use of 'pseudo mathematics' by Huntington," and sent subsequent letters and information attacking Huntington.

3. What aspects of the dispute between Lang and Huntington are “political?” How does the author, Jared Diamond, feel about “Academic Freedom?”
Some of Huntington's research was done for the State Department in 1967 and was said to be an early supporter of the "Vietnam War." Diamond feels that academic freedom should be that anyone can raise the issue of a scholar's politics, not just scholars. He implies this with a sarcastic tone, in his statement, "evidently,academic freedom means that outsiders can't raise the issue of a scholar's politics but other scholars can."

4. Why does the NAS exist? Why does this make that attacks against Huntington seem peculiar?
NAS exists to advise the Congress on questions of science and technology. This makes the attacks on Huntington seem peculiar because he was willing to advise Congress, yet he was condemned for it by some NAS members.

5. Why does Diamond find fault in the traditional perceptions of the hard sciences?
Diamond finds fault in the traditional perceptions of the hard sciences because there are some "phenomena that are intellectually challenging and important to understand, but that can't be measured to several decimal places in labs."

6. Why are soft sciences difficult to study?
The soft sciences are difficult to study because"You can't start it and stop it whenever you choose. You can't control all the variables; perhaps you can't control any variable. You may even find it hard to decide what a variable is. You can still use empirical tests to gain knowledge, but the types of tests used in the hard sciences must be modified."

7. How did the NAS need to change in the early 1970s?
NAS was "confronted with the need to offer the government competent advice about social problems, [to] began to admit social scientists at all."

8. What are the problems in “operationalizing” a concept?
Problems in "operationalizing" a concept are that, "to compare evidence with theory requires that you measure the ingredients of your theory," so "you would have to design a series of actual operations that yield a suitable measurement."

9. Briefly describe how Diamond illustrates operationalizing in:
· Mathematics-it is necessary to quantify a general term, such as "many," otherwise the concepts such as "more" or "less" would be irrelevant.
· Chemistry-speculation about ingrediants, then one "proceeds by identifying some property of a substance of interest, or of a related substance into which the first can be converted."
· Ecology-comparative "differences among habitats, which at first seemed to resist having a number put on them, proved to explain a big part of the habitats' differences."
· Psychology-using a questionnaire, defined people into general clusters based on their answers, "the responses were then employed to define attitude scales, which were further validated in other ways."

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?
Operationalizations are more difficult in the soft sciences because of the large amount of uncontrolled variables. It leads to the ridicule of the soft sciences because they deal with familiar concepts, which "all of us fancy we're experts on."

12.Why does Diamond believe that Lang might be ignorant of the measurements taken by social scientists like Huntington?
Diamond believes that Lang must be ignorant of the measurements taken by social scientists like Huntington becausehe does not know anything about the social sciences.

13.Does Diamond believe the labels associated with the sciences be replaced? Explain.
Diamond does believe that the labels should be replaced because "hard" and "soft" denote that all the "soft sciences" are easy, while, in realitythey are "much more difficult and, to some of us, intellectually more challenging than mathematics and chemistry."

14. Does Diamond believe the soft sciences to be more valuable than hard sciences? Do you agree? Explain.
Diamond believes the soft sciences to be more valuable than hard sciences because "our survival depends on whether we progress with understanding how people behave." I disagree, in that i think that all of the sciences, hard and soft are valuable because the soft sciences allow us to understand people's behavior, and predict patterns and such, while the hard sciences allow us to understand the world those people are behaving in. Both elements are essential to beginning to understand the complexities of human life.

BNW Chapter 9

1. What did Lenina do when she got back to the rest-house?
When Lenina gets back to the rest-house she took six half-grammes of soma tablets, lay down on her bed and hallucinates for 18 hours.

2. What does Bernard ask his Fordship, Mustapha Mond?
Bernard asks his Forship, Mustapha Mond, for a special permit to take Linda and John off the Reservation and into London.

3. What does John say when he is by Lenina's bedside? Why is this significant?
John recites lines from Shakespeare's Romeo & Juliet. This is significant because the relationship from Romeo & Juliet is foreshadowing for what John and Lenina's relationship in the future.

BNW Chapter 8

1. How would you describe John's upbringing? Why do you think he says that he is "Alone, always alone." (p. 137). How does Bernard feel about John?
John had a horrible upbringing. He was neglected and lonely. This was because Linda slept with many men on the reservation, because that was what she was conditioned to do. Popé also brought her mescal which is like soma but it "made you feel ill afterwards" (like alcohol), and because many of the women were angry with Linda, John wasn't accepted by the Indians, so he was left alone a lot. He was abused by Linda, who didn't want him because he was the result of he failed contraceptive, and he's the reason she can't leave the reservation. She often forgot to feed him or wash him. I think he says that he is "Alone, always alone," because he is rejected by everyone around him except for the old Indian Mitsima. Bernard feels a kinship John, because he always feels alone as well. He is "rather different from most people," just like John.

2. Why does John say at the end of the chapter, "O brave new world!" (p. 139)?
John say, "O brave new world!" because he is going to get to experience life off the reservation, a world he has never known, and a world where things like monogamy and mending are horrifying concepts, which excites John greatly.