Throughout history philosophers and authors have attempted to convey their idea of a perfect and happy society. Those same people have preached about finding the ultimate truth and using that to find ultimate happiness. The two however do not directly coincide together for there is much room to doubt where to find this and putting forth this philosophy to everyday life. Since there is no previous record of ultimate truth as well as ultimate happiness how does one achieve this and in what form does Aldous Huxley convey this message through Brave New World because in my understanding, his view is wrong.
"Ignorance is bliss," this is the message that is used over and over again within the classroom setting of our seminar with one another and about how to find ultimate happiness and ultimate truth. I ask the question back, how does one propose to find the ultimate truth and how does one know what ultimate happiness feels like. When a baby is born happy with loving parents a good house to live in and well nourished; it is assumed that this happy, but what does a baby know it is only an infant? Take a teenage boy. With the ups and downs in childhood an adolescent can distinguish between happy and sad like knowing to glad when receiving an "A" as lousy for an "F" middle school. Teenagers do not know everything there is to life, but then they are only kids and have not seen the world. An adult with a good job, good kids, and a good spouse is happy more often than not, but what does it matter if they have not won a Nobel Prize for knowing everything this grand world has to offer. Adults can be happy without the worlds suffering cries and hardships bearing on their mind.
How can someone be happy when the knowledge he posses kills him. Socrates and Seneca each were killed and not saved by the knowledge they possessed. The same holds true for John the Savage. These people each possessed more knowledge about truths than their surrounding peers yet did not live to their life expectancy.