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In the campus protests over the war in Gaza, language and rhetoric are—as they have always been when it comes to Israel and Palestine—weapons of mass destruction.
By Zadie Smith
A philosophy without a politics is common enough. Aesthetes, ethicists, novelists—all may be easily critiqued and found wanting on this basis. But there is also the danger of a politics without a philosophy. A politics unmoored, unprincipled, which holds as its most fundamental commitment its own perpetuation. A Realpolitik that believes itself too subtle—or too pragmatic—to deal with such ethical platitudes as thou shalt not kill. Or: rape is a crime, everywhere and always. But sometimes ethical philosophy reënters the arena, as is happening right now on college campuses all over America. I understand the ethics underpinning the protests to be based on two widely recognized principles:
There is an ethical duty to express solidarity with the weak in any situation that involves oppressive power.
If the machinery of oppressive power is to be trained on the weak, then there is a duty to stop the gears by any means necessary.
The first principle sometimes takes the “weak” to mean “whoever has the least power,” and sometimes “whoever suffers most,” but most often a combination of both. The second principle, meanwhile, may be used to defend revolutionary violence, although this interpretation has just as often been repudiated by pacifistic radicals, among whom two of the most famous are, of course, Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr . In the pacifist’s interpretation, the body that we must place between the gears is not that of our enemy but our own. In doing this, we may pay the ultimate price with our actual bodies, in the non-metaphorical sense. More usually, the risk is to our livelihoods, our reputations, our futures. Before these most recent campus protests began, we had an example of this kind of action in the climate movement. For several years now, many people have been protesting the economic and political machinery that perpetuates climate change, by blocking roads, throwing paint, interrupting plays, and committing many other arrestable offenses that can appear ridiculous to skeptics (or, at the very least, performative), but which in truth represent a level of personal sacrifice unimaginable to many of us.
I experienced this not long ago while participating in an XR climate rally in London. When it came to the point in the proceedings where I was asked by my fellow-protesters whether I’d be willing to commit an arrestable offense—one that would likely lead to a conviction and thus make travelling to the United States difficult or even impossible—I’m ashamed to say that I declined that offer. Turns out, I could not give up my relationship with New York City for the future of the planet. I’d just about managed to stop buying plastic bottles (except when very thirsty) and was trying to fly less. But never to see New York again? What pitiful ethical creatures we are (I am)! Falling at the first hurdle! Anyone who finds themselves rolling their eyes at any young person willing to put their own future into jeopardy for an ethical principle should ask themselves where the limits of their own commitments lie—also whether they’ve bought a plastic bottle or booked a flight recently. A humbling inquiry.
It is difficult to look at the recent Columbia University protests in particular without being reminded of the campus protests of the nineteen-sixties and seventies, some of which happened on the very same lawns. At that time, a cynical political class was forced to observe the spectacle of its own privileged youth standing in solidarity with the weakest historical actors of the moment, a group that included, but was not restricted to, African Americans and the Vietnamese. By placing such people within their ethical zone of interest, young Americans risked both their own academic and personal futures and—in the infamous case of Kent State—their lives. I imagine that the students at Columbia—and protesters on other campuses—fully intend this echo, and, in their unequivocal demand for both a ceasefire and financial divestment from this terrible war, to a certain extent they have achieved it.
But, when I open newspapers and see students dismissing the idea that some of their fellow-students feel, at this particular moment, unsafe on campus, or arguing that such a feeling is simply not worth attending to, given the magnitude of what is occurring in Gaza, I find such sentiments cynical and unworthy of this movement. For it may well be—within the ethical zone of interest that is a campus, which was not so long ago defined as a safe space, delineated by the boundary of a generation’s ethical ideas— it may well be that a Jewish student walking past the tents, who finds herself referred to as a Zionist, and then is warned to keep her distance, is, in that moment, the weakest participant in the zone. If the concept of safety is foundational to these students’ ethical philosophy (as I take it to be), and, if the protests are committed to reinserting ethical principles into a cynical and corrupt politics, it is not right to divest from these same ethics at the very moment they come into conflict with other imperatives. The point of a foundational ethics is that it is not contingent but foundational. That is precisely its challenge to a corrupt politics.
Practicing our ethics in the real world involves a constant testing of them, a recognition that our zones of ethical interest have no fixed boundaries and may need to widen and shrink moment by moment as the situation demands. (Those brave students who—in supporting the ethical necessity of a ceasefire—find themselves at painful odds with family, friends, faith, or community have already made this calculation.) This flexibility can also have the positive long-term political effect of allowing us to comprehend that, although our duty to the weakest is permanent, the role of “the weakest” is not an existential matter independent of time and space but, rather, a contingent situation, continually subject to change. By contrast, there is a dangerous rigidity to be found in the idea that concern for the dreadful situation of the hostages is somehow in opposition to, or incompatible with, the demand for a ceasefire. Surely a ceasefire—as well as being an ethical necessity—is also in the immediate absolute interest of the hostages, a fact that cannot be erased by tearing their posters off walls.
Part of the significance of a student protest is the ways in which it gives young people the opportunity to insist upon an ethical principle while still being, comparatively speaking, a more rational force than the supposed adults in the room, against whose crazed magical thinking they have been forced to define themselves. The equality of all human life was never a self-evident truth in racially segregated America. There was no way to “win” in Vietnam. Hamas will not be “eliminated.” The more than seven million Jewish human beings who live in the gap between the river and the sea will not simply vanish because you think that they should. All of that is just rhetoric. Words. Cathartic to chant, perhaps, but essentially meaningless. A ceasefire, meanwhile, is both a potential reality and an ethical necessity. The monstrous and brutal mass murder of more than eleven hundred people, the majority of them civilians, dozens of them children, on October 7th, has been followed by the monstrous and brutal mass murder (at the time of writing) of a reported fourteen thousand five hundred children. And many more human beings besides, but it’s impossible not to notice that the sort of people who take at face value phrases like “surgical strikes” and “controlled military operation” sometimes need to look at and/or think about dead children specifically in order to refocus their minds on reality.
To send the police in to arrest young people peacefully insisting upon a ceasefire represents a moral injury to us all. To do it with violence is a scandal. How could they do less than protest, in this moment? They are putting their own bodies into the machine. They deserve our support and praise. As to which postwar political arrangement any of these students may favor, and on what basis they favor it—that is all an argument for the day after a ceasefire. One state, two states, river to the sea—in my view, their views have no real weight in this particular moment, or very little weight next to the significance of their collective action, which (if I understand it correctly) is focussed on stopping the flow of money that is funding bloody murder, and calling for a ceasefire, the political euphemism that we use to mark the end of bloody murder. After a ceasefire, the criminal events of the past seven months should be tried and judged, and the infinitely difficult business of creating just, humane, and habitable political structures in the region must begin anew. Right now: ceasefire. And, as we make this demand, we might remind ourselves that a ceasefire is not, primarily, a political demand. Primarily, it is an ethical one.
But it is in the nature of the political that we cannot even attend to such ethical imperatives unless we first know the political position of whoever is speaking. (“Where do you stand on Israel/Palestine?”) In these constructed narratives, there are always a series of shibboleths, that is, phrases that can’t be said, or, conversely, phrases that must be said. Once these words or phrases have been spoken ( river to the sea, existential threat, right to defend, one state, two states, Zionist, colonialist, imperialist, terrorist ) and one’s positionality established, then and only then will the ethics of the question be attended to (or absolutely ignored). The objection may be raised at this point that I am behaving like a novelist, expressing a philosophy without a politics, or making some rarefied point about language and rhetoric while people commit bloody murder. This would normally be my own view, but, in the case of Israel/Palestine, language and rhetoric are and always have been weapons of mass destruction.
It is in fact perhaps the most acute example in the world of the use of words to justify bloody murder, to flatten and erase unbelievably labyrinthine histories, and to deliver the atavistic pleasure of violent simplicity to the many people who seem to believe that merely by saying something they make it so. It is no doubt a great relief to say the word “Hamas” as if it purely and solely described a terrorist entity. A great relief to say “There is no such thing as the Palestinian people” as they stand in front of you. A great relief to say “Zionist colonialist state” and accept those three words as a full and unimpeachable definition of the state of Israel, not only under the disastrous leadership of Benjamin Netanyahu but at every stage of its long and complex history, and also to hear them as a perfectly sufficient description of every man, woman, and child who has ever lived in Israel or happened to find themselves born within it. It is perhaps because we know these simplifications to be impossible that we insist upon them so passionately. They are shibboleths; they describe a people, by defining them against other people—but the people being described are ourselves. The person who says “We must eliminate Hamas” says this not necessarily because she thinks this is a possible outcome on this earth but because this sentence is the shibboleth that marks her membership in the community that says that. The person who uses the word “Zionist” as if that word were an unchanged and unchangeable monolith, meaning exactly the same thing in 2024 and 1948 as it meant in 1890 or 1901 or 1920—that person does not so much bring definitive clarity to the entangled history of Jews and Palestinians as they successfully and soothingly draw a line to mark their own zone of interest and where it ends. And while we all talk, carefully curating our shibboleths, presenting them to others and waiting for them to reveal themselves as with us or against us—while we do all that, bloody murder.
And now here we are, almost at the end of this little stream of words. We’ve arrived at the point at which I must state clearly “where I stand on the issue,” that is, which particular political settlement should, in my own, personal view, occur on the other side of a ceasefire. This is the point wherein—by my stating of a position—you are at once liberated into the simple pleasure of placing me firmly on one side or the other, putting me over there with those who lisp or those who don’t, with the Ephraimites, or with the people of Gilead. Yes, this is the point at which I stake my rhetorical flag in that fantastical, linguistical, conceptual, unreal place—built with words—where rapes are minimized as needs be, and the definition of genocide quibbled over, where the killing of babies is denied, and the precision of drones glorified, where histories are reconsidered or rewritten or analogized or simply ignored, and “Jew” and “colonialist” are synonymous, and “Palestinian” and “terrorist” are synonymous, and language is your accomplice and alibi in all of it. Language euphemized, instrumentalized, and abused, put to work for your cause and only for your cause, so that it does exactly and only what you want it to do. Let me make it easy for you. Put me wherever you want: misguided socialist, toothless humanist, naïve novelist, useful idiot, apologist, denier, ally, contrarian, collaborator, traitor, inexcusable coward. It is my view that my personal views have no more weight than an ear of corn in this particular essay. The only thing that has any weight in this particular essay is the dead. ♦
The day the dinosaurs died .
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Diana Nyad’s hundred-and-eleven-mile swim .
Photo Booth: Deana Lawson’s hyper-staged portraits of Black love .
Fiction by Roald Dahl: “The Landlady”
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By Susan B. Glasser
By Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor
By Jay Caspian Kang
By David Remnick
This essay about Aldous Huxley’s “Brave New World” provides an analysis of the dystopian themes and societal critiques presented in the novel. It discusses the futuristic setting where the World State controls every aspect of life, categorizing citizens into castes and eliminating individuality through conditioning and the drug soma. The narrative follows characters like Bernard Marx and John the Savage, who challenge the societal norms and expose the cost of maintaining such a controlled utopia. The essay explores the novel’s reflection on contemporary issues like technological control, loss of personal freedom, and the ethical dilemmas of progress, suggesting that Huxley’s work remains relevant today as it questions the balance between societal stability and personal freedom. Through “Brave New World,” the essay prompts readers to consider the moral implications of our own societal choices and the future we are navigating.
How it works
In his dystopian novel “Brave New World,” Aldous Huxley presents a terrifying picture of a society in which the government has painstakingly planned every aspect of society to guarantee stability and happiness for all. First published in 1932, the book continues to be a key work of dystopian literature, addressing issues of control, technology, and the willingness to give up personal freedom in the name of social harmony. As we delve deeper into Huxley’s universe, we find a civilization that at first glance could seem utopian—all disputes and discomforts are supposedly eliminated—but a closer look exposes a troubling price for this peaceful way of life.
The futuristic London of “Brave New World” is ruled by the World State, which assumes the appearance of kindness but really has an iron grip. From birth, the residents are socialized into classes that range from the highly intelligent Alphas to the lowly Epsilons who work as laborers. This indoctrination permeates every aspect of life, as individuality is reduced to a historical idea and free will is given up for the benefit of the group.
The government ensures compliance through the distribution of soma, a drug that eradicates pain and ensures compliance among the masses, promoting an ethos of “a gramme is better than a damn.” Huxley’s narrative begins to twist when Bernard Marx, an Alpha plus psychologist, feels out of sync with the society he’s supposed to lead. His restlessness leads him to question the foundations of the World State, a curiosity ignited further by his relationship with Lenina Crowne and his interactions with John, a “savage” from an unassimilated reservation in New Mexico.
John, who grew up outside the societal norms of the World State, serves as a poignant contrast to the controlled denizens of the utopia. His presence in London acts as a catalyst, challenging the core tenets of this society. His struggle with the World State’s ethos of consumption, sexual freedom, and emotional suppression brings the philosophical debates to the forefront of the narrative. The tragic arc of John’s character underscores the novel’s central thesis: the loss of human dignity and freedom in the face of technological and governmental control.
Through vivid characterization and a richly imagined world, Huxley critiques contemporary issues of his time, many of which resonate profoundly today. The novel contemplates the impact of advanced science and technology on human values and behaviors, highlighting the dangers of a society willing to sacrifice liberty for perceived security and comfort. It prompts a reflection on the meaning of happiness and the price of progress, questioning whether true contentment requires a balance between freedom and order.
As we reflect on Huxley’s work in the context of modern society, it’s apparent that many of the ethical and philosophical questions he raised remain pertinent. From genetic engineering to the role of government in personal lives, “Brave New World” offers a crucial lens through which to examine the moral implications of our choices. Huxley’s speculative world, with its technological wonders and social stratifications, serves not only as a warning but also as a mirror, reflecting our own struggles with technological advancement and ethical governance.
In summary, “Brave New World” is a pertinent remark on the modern world as well as a relic of dystopian literature. Readers are prompted to consider the future of our civilization by its examination of the human condition, societal expectations, and the frequently hazy boundary between utopia and dystopia. Huxley’s book serves as a timely warning of what happens to us when we let the monetization of human experience determine our future, even while we forge our own daring new paths. It is an engaging investigation on the extent and price that mankind should pay in its quest for the ideal society.
This classic story still functions as a critical analysis of our decisions and goals, demonstrating how a deeper comprehension of a work this complex may enhance not only our enjoyment of literature but also our grasp of society structures and the human mind.
A Fresh Perspective on "Brave New World" by Aldous Huxley. (2024, May 12). Retrieved from https://papersowl.com/examples/a-fresh-perspective-on-brave-new-world-by-aldous-huxley/
"A Fresh Perspective on "Brave New World" by Aldous Huxley." PapersOwl.com , 12 May 2024, https://papersowl.com/examples/a-fresh-perspective-on-brave-new-world-by-aldous-huxley/
PapersOwl.com. (2024). A Fresh Perspective on "Brave New World" by Aldous Huxley . [Online]. Available at: https://papersowl.com/examples/a-fresh-perspective-on-brave-new-world-by-aldous-huxley/ [Accessed: 12 May. 2024]
"A Fresh Perspective on "Brave New World" by Aldous Huxley." PapersOwl.com, May 12, 2024. Accessed May 12, 2024. https://papersowl.com/examples/a-fresh-perspective-on-brave-new-world-by-aldous-huxley/
"A Fresh Perspective on "Brave New World" by Aldous Huxley," PapersOwl.com , 12-May-2024. [Online]. Available: https://papersowl.com/examples/a-fresh-perspective-on-brave-new-world-by-aldous-huxley/. [Accessed: 12-May-2024]
PapersOwl.com. (2024). A Fresh Perspective on "Brave New World" by Aldous Huxley . [Online]. Available at: https://papersowl.com/examples/a-fresh-perspective-on-brave-new-world-by-aldous-huxley/ [Accessed: 12-May-2024]
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My essays and assignments were far from perfect, but I managed to get through them thanks to teachers who pointed out my mistakes. After correcting those errors, I had to send the revised versions for review, making sure to highlight where I made changes. If you need to highlight changes in your document to help your teacher or reviewer track your revisions, I'll show you how to track changes in Word for students.
Students often share group project documents to collaborate on adding their parts or revising the content. But what if you forgot to enable the "Track Changes" feature? Fortunately, WPS Writer, a free office suite solution, offers a "Compare" tool. This tool allows students to compare the original document with the revised version to track or acknowledge any changes made. The tool is very straightforward, so let's simplify the steps for comparing documents.
Step 1 : Let's open the original or updated document in WPS Writer.
Step 2 : Go to the "Review" tab in the toolbar and click on the "Compare" button.
Step 3 : Select "Compare..." from the drop-down menu.
Step 4 : The Compare dialog will open. First, browse and upload the original and revised documents by clicking on the "Folder" icon.
Step 5 : Once the documents are selected, click on the "More" button for advanced settings.
Step 6 : In the "Comparison settings" section, choose what to include in the comparison.
Step 7 : In the "Show changes" section, select how to view differences and where to display them in the document.
Step 8 : After exploring advanced settings, click "OK" to proceed.
Step 9 : And here we have the comparison details. It appears that my group member decided to remove some words from a passage that I wrote.
Comparing documents is useful in academic settings as it allows you to learn more in a group setting. Just like how I reviewed the changes made by my group members and tried to understand their purpose, which helped me learn from my mistakes. Additionally, comparing documents can help track changes made by group members at a glance, saving time compared to scrolling through the entire document.
Word is a great tool, especially for students who need to write essays. However, if you want to ensure compatibility across devices—whether mobile, Windows, or Mac—WPS Office is a better choice. It's a free office suite that works with all Word document versions and can even convert your papers to PDF without compromising the original formatting.
When writing an essay and you want to draw attention to a specific part, especially one that marks a significant change or correction, highlighting is an effective method. By highlighting, you can ensure that your reader or reviewer notices the changes quickly, making it easier to identify key sections of your work. This is particularly useful when collaborating with teachers or peers for feedback and revisions. Follow these steps to learn how to track changes in Word.
Step 1 : Firstly, let's open the report document in WPS Writer to make some revisions.
Step 2 : Now, to remember the changes made, head to the Review tab and click on the "Track Changes" button. Alternatively, use the shortcut key "Ctrl +Shift + E" to activate this feature.
Step 3 : You'll notice the icon changes color from white to gray, indicating that Track Changes is now active.
Step 4 : Scroll down and make changes in the document; added content will be highlighted in a different color.
Step 5 : Similarly, if content is removed, it will be struck through to highlight the changes
Step 6 : To adjust settings like highlight color or author name, click on the small arrow in the "Track Changes" icon.
Step 7 : Now select "Track Changes Options.." to customize the settings.
Step 8 : Here, you can change how content insertion or deletion is highlighted in the "Markup" section.
Step 9 : In the Balloons section, users can choose whether revisions appear inline or in a separate pane on the right side of the WPS Writer interface.
Step 10 : Once changes are made, exit the Track Changes option dialog by clicking "OK".
Step 11 : Furthermore, click on the small arrow in the Track Changes icon and select "Change username".
Step 12 : Here, students can update the username, ensuring it reflects their preference. Sometimes, your nickname may be shown based on your email ID, so it's possible to change it if needed.
As a student, particularly when tackling projects and theses, the ability to track changes over time is crucial. WPS Writer excels in this area. When I receive feedback from instructors, I utilize the "Track Changes" feature. This allows me to easily see their suggestions and incorporate them into my work while retaining a record of the original text. The "Compare" feature comes in handy when collaborating with classmates. It helps us effectively visualize and merge changes made by different team members. Overall, WPS Writer's constant evolution provides a comprehensive set of features and tools that streamline my workflow and simplify academic life.
As a student, you might wish things were a bit less tedious so you could focus on your studies instead of worrying about the tiny details. This is where WPS Office can make a huge difference. It not only saves you from the hassle of manual tasks like formatting and highlighting, but also provides the tools to create, edit, and organize your work efficiently. Whether you're preparing a thesis, crafting an assignment, or writing an essay, WPS Office has you covered.
WPS AI takes this further by offering assistance to correct grammar and spelling errors, ensuring your document looks professional and polished. It can even generate paper outlines and suggest topic ideas, giving you a head start on your assignments. With these capabilities, you can let WPS Office handle the heavy lifting while you concentrate on creating meaningful content. It's an invaluable tool for students who want to focus on the quality of their work without getting bogged down in the technicalities.
To ensure your thesis or assignment is error-free, let's utilize WPS Writer's AI Spell Check feature.
Step 1 : Open your document and activate the "AI Spell Check" option located at the bottom of the screen.
Step 2 : If you see a word or phrase highlighted with a colored line, simply click on it.
Step 3 : A panel for WPS AI Spell Check will appear on the right side, offering suggestions.
Step 4 : Review the suggestions provided and select the most suitable one.
Besides WPS AI Spell check, WPS Writer's AI feature is an excellent tool for tackling projects. It assists in creating detailed outlines, offering valuable assistance from start to finish. Let's delve deeper into its capabilities.
Step 1 : First, open WPS Office and click "New" on the left side.
Step 2 : Then, select "Docs" to start a new document.
Step 3 : Now, click "WPS AI" at the top right.
Step 4 : A panel for WPS AI will appear on the right.
Step 5 : With WPS AI, I usually share project details and let it create an outline for me.
Step 6 : After getting the outline, I review it and make any changes needed. Finally, I click "Insert" to add it to my document and format it the way I like.
WPS Office goes beyond traditional word processing software. It offers a comprehensive set of PDF tools that empower students to efficiently manage their documents. Fueled by advancements in AI, WPS PDF delivers an increasingly immersive learning experience.
Students can leverage WPS Writer to meticulously format their work. With the seamless conversion to PDF offered by WPS Office, all those formatting efforts are preserved, ensuring a polished final product. Furthermore, the versatile WPS PDF tools allow for further manipulation and management of these documents.
Here's a simple way for students to convert their papers to PDF using WPS Writer:
Step 1 : Open your paper in WPS Writer and click on the Menu button at the top left corner.
Step 2 : Then, select the "Export to PDF" option from the menu.
Step 3 : In the Export to PDF dialog box, choose "Common PDF" from the "Export Type" dropdown, and then click "Export to PDF" to convert your Word document to PDF .
1. can everyone see the tracked changes in word.
Yes, by default, the tracked alterations are visible to all individuals who access the document. However, you have options to control visibility. You can safeguard the tracked changes with a password or limit editing to specific users, ensuring that only authorized individuals can see or modify the tracked modifications. This feature is particularly beneficial for maintaining confidentiality and control over sensitive information within your document.
Tracking changes in Word serves multiple functions when working on essays:
Revision Tracking: It records all modifications made to the document.
Collaboration: It enables collaboration among peers or instructors.
Feedback: It allows others to give feedback on the essay's content and structure.
Employing WPS Office to demonstrate track changes in Word holds significance due to its compatibility across various devices and operating systems, including mobile phones, Windows PCs, and Mac computers. It ensures that students can effectively engage with the track changes feature regardless of the device they are using.
When you're tracking errors and correcting them in your work, you would want to highlight the changes to ensure your teacher notices and gives you credit for the corrections and of that you must know how to track changes in Word for students. WPS Office is an excellent choice for students, offering intuitive tools to make highlighting and tracking changes simple. It's designed with students in mind, making it easier to get your work done efficiently. Download WPS Office today to streamline your editing process and ensure you earn those extra marks for your efforts.
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By Johann Hari
Mr. Hari is a British journalist and the author of “Magic Pill: The Extraordinary Benefits — and Disturbing Risks — of the New Weight Loss Drugs.”
Ever since I was a teenager, I have dreamed of shedding a lot of weight. So when I shrank from 203 pounds to 161 in a year, I was baffled by my feelings. I was taking Ozempic, and I was haunted by the sense that I was cheating and doing something immoral.
I’m not the only one. In the United States (where I now split my time), over 70 percent of people are overweight or obese, and according to one poll, 47 percent of respondents said they were willing to pay to take the new weight-loss drugs. It’s not hard to see why. They cause users to lose an average of 10 to 20 percent of their body weight, and clinical trials suggest that the next generation of drugs (probably available soon) leads to a 24 percent loss, on average. Yet as more and more people take drugs like Ozempic, Wegovy and Mounjaro, we get more confused as a culture, bombarding anyone in the public eye who takes them with brutal shaming.
This is happening because we are trapped in a set of old stories about what obesity is and the morally acceptable ways to overcome it. But the fact that so many of us are turning to the new weight-loss drugs can be an opportunity to find a way out of that trap of shame and stigma — and to a more truthful story.
In my lifetime, obesity has exploded, from being rare to almost being the norm. I was born in 1979, and by the time I was 21, obesity rates in the United States had more than doubled . They have skyrocketed since. The obvious question is, why? And how do these new weight-loss drugs work? The answer to both lies in one word: satiety. It’s a concept that we don’t use much in everyday life but that we’ve all experienced at some point. It describes the sensation of having had enough and not wanting any more.
The primary reason we have gained weight at a pace unprecedented in human history is that our diets have radically changed in ways that have deeply undermined our ability to feel sated. My father grew up in a village in the Swiss mountains, where he ate fresh, whole foods that had been cooked from scratch and prepared on the day they were eaten. But in the 30 years between his childhood and mine, in the suburbs of London, the nature of food transformed across the Western world. He was horrified to see that almost everything I ate was reheated and heavily processed. The evidence is clear that the kind of food my father grew up eating quickly makes you feel full. But the kind of food I grew up eating, much of which is made in factories, often with artificial chemicals, left me feeling empty and as if I had a hole in my stomach. In a recent study of what American children eat, ultraprocessed food was found to make up 67 percent of their daily diet. This kind of food makes you want to eat more and more. Satiety comes late, if at all.
One scientific experiment — which I have nicknamed Cheesecake Park — seemed to me to crystallize this effect. Paul Kenny, a neuroscientist at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York, grew up in Ireland. After he moved in 2000 to the United States, when he was in his 20s, he gained 30 pounds in two years. He began to wonder if the American diet has some kind of strange effect on our brains and our cravings, so he designed an experiment to test it. He and his colleague Paul Johnson raised a group of rats in a cage and gave them an abundant supply of healthy, balanced rat chow made out of the kind of food rats had been eating for a very long time. The rats would eat it when they were hungry, and then they seemed to feel sated and stopped. They did not become fat.
But then Dr. Kenny and his colleague exposed the rats to an American diet: fried bacon, Snickers bars, cheesecake and other treats. They went crazy for it. The rats would hurl themselves into the cheesecake, gorge themselves and emerge with their faces and whiskers totally slicked with it. They quickly lost almost all interest in the healthy food, and the restraint they used to show around healthy food disappeared. Within six weeks, their obesity rates soared.
After this change, Dr. Kenny and his colleague tweaked the experiment again (in a way that seems cruel to me, a former KFC addict). They took all the processed food away and gave the rats their old healthy diet. Dr. Kenny was confident that they would eat more of it, proving that processed food had expanded their appetites. But something stranger happened. It was as though the rats no longer recognized healthy food as food at all, and they barely ate it. Only when they were starving did they reluctantly start to consume it again.
Though Dr. Kenny’s study was in rats, we can see forms of this behavior everywhere. We are all living in Cheesecake Park — and the satiety-stealing effect of industrially assembled food is evidently what has created the need for these medications. Drugs like Ozempic work precisely by making us feel full. Carel le Roux, a scientist whose research was important to the development of these drugs, says they boost what he and others once called “satiety hormones.”
Once you understand this context, it becomes clear that processed and ultraprocessed food create a raging hole of hunger, and these treatments can repair that hole. Michael Lowe, a professor of psychology at Drexel University who has studied hunger for 40 years, told me the drugs are “an artificial solution to an artificial problem.”
Yet we have reacted to this crisis largely caused by the food industry as if it were caused only by individual moral dereliction. I felt like a failure for being fat and was furious with myself for it. Why do we turn our anger inward and not outward at the main cause of the crisis? And by extension, why do we seek to shame people taking Ozempic but not those who, say, take drugs to lower their blood pressure?
The answer, I think, lies in two very old notions. The first is the belief that obesity is a sin. When Pope Gregory I laid out the seven deadly sins in the sixth century, one of them was gluttony, usually illustrated with grotesque-seeming images of overweight people. Sin requires punishment before you can get to redemption. Think about the competition show “The Biggest Loser,” on which obese people starve and perform extreme forms of exercise in visible agony in order to demonstrate their repentance.
The second idea is that we are all in a competition when it comes to weight. Ours is a society full of people fighting against the forces in our food that are making us fatter. It is often painful to do this: You have to tolerate hunger or engage in extreme forms of exercise. It feels like a contest in which each thin person creates additional pressure on others to do the same. Looked at in this way, people on Ozempic can resemble athletes like the cyclist Lance Armstrong who used performance-enhancing drugs. Those who manage their weight without drugs might think, “I worked hard for this, and you get it for as little as a weekly jab?”
We can’t find our way to a sane, nontoxic conversation about obesity or Ozempic until we bring these rarely spoken thoughts into the open and reckon with them. You’re not a sinner for gaining weight. You’re a typical product of a dysfunctional environment that makes it very hard to feel full. If you are angry about these drugs, remember the competition isn’t between you and your neighbor who’s on weight-loss drugs. It’s between you and a food industry constantly designing new ways to undermine your satiety. If anyone is the cheat here, it’s that industry. We should be united in a struggle against it and its products, not against desperate people trying to find a way out of this trap.
There are extraordinary benefits as well as disturbing risks associated with weight-loss drugs. Reducing or reversing obesity hugely boosts health, on average: We know from years of studying bariatric surgery that it slashes the risks of cancer, heart disease and diabetes-related death. Early indications are that the new anti-obesity drugs are moving people in a similar radically healthier direction, massively reducing the risk of heart attack or stroke. But these drugs may increase the risk for thyroid cancer. I am worried they diminish muscle mass and fear they may supercharge eating disorders. This is a complex picture in which the evidence has to be weighed very carefully.
But we can’t do that if we remain lost in stories inherited from premodern popes or in a senseless competition that leaves us all, in the end, losers. Do we want these weight loss drugs to be another opportunity to tear one another down? Or do we want to realize that the food industry has profoundly altered the appetites of us all — leaving us trapped in the same cage, scrambling to find a way out?
Johann Hari is a British journalist and the author of “Magic Pill: The Extraordinary Benefits — and Disturbing Risks — of the New Weight Loss Drugs,” among other books.
Source photographs by seamartini, The Washington Post, and Zana Munteanu via Getty Images.
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Connectives fall into three grammatical categories: conjunctions, prepositions, and adverbs. Conjunctions: are a type of connective BUT they're not the same. Conjunctions join words, phrases, clauses and sentences together to form longer complex sentences. For example: and, but, for, or, yet.
50 linking words to use in academic writing. academic writing. linkers. essay writing. thesis. ESL. English. It's very common for students to use long words they don't understand very well in their essays and theses because they have a certain idea of what academic writing should be.
Essay Writing; Vocabulary Exercises; Study Skills Tips; Drag & Drop Vocab; Connectives List. Connectives connect and relate sentences and paragraphs. They assist in the logical flow of ideas as they signal the relationship between sentences and paragraphs. In prose, the material is supported and conditioned not only by the ordering of the ...
Like. Too. As. As well as. Moreover. Here are some examples of additive linking words in a sentence. The group found that a constructivist approach leads to higher test scores. Moreover, essay examinations show higher levels of learning. The resort has tennis courts.
Misused transition words can make your writing unclear or illogical. Your audience will be easily lost if you misrepresent the connections between your sentences and ideas. Confused use of therefore "Therefore" and similar cause-and-effect words are used to state that something is the result of, or follows logically from, the previous.
Linking words play an important role in academic writing: They connect different paragraphs, sections or ideas in a text. Therefore, they considerably improve the readability and argumentation of academic texts such as a thesis, dissertation, essay or journal publication. This list of 75 linking words includes examples of how they can be used in academic
These linking words and phrases can help you express similarities between two or more ideas, situations, or individuals. Use them appropriately based on the context to highlight shared characteristics or experiences. Examples: Likewise: Sarah enjoys reading; likewise, her brother is an avid reader.
To join ideas and sentences, we use a number of connecting words and phrases. For example: Addition To add an idea. Additionally, and, also, apart from this, as well (as), in addition, moreover, further, furthermore. Condition to provide a condition. If, in that case, provided that, unless. For comparison To show how things are similar.
Here are some examples: It started to rain and I got soaked - 'and' is the linking word that connects the two ideas of the individual being in the rain and getting soaked. It can't be the dog's fault nor the cat's - 'nor' connects the idea that neither the cat or dog was at fault. We could go shopping first then get a bite to ...
Below is a handy list of words that are both useful and appropriate to academic language. Describing similarities. Likewise. Correspondingly. Equally. Not only… but also. In the same way. Similarly. Showing cause and effect.
Linking/Transition Words. Transitions link one main idea to another separated by a semi-colon or full-stop. When the transition word is at the beginning of the sentence, it should be followed by a comma: Among other functions, they can signal cause and effect or sequencing (see examples in the table below). Additional comments or ideas.
Linking: Cohesion & Coherence Worksheet. This worksheet helps to consolidate what is 'cohesion' with a focus on pronouns, word forms and summary nouns. It also includes a coherence sheet on key connections and two practice activities. Example Level: ***** [B2/C1] / Webpage Link / TEACHER MEMBERSHIP / INSTITUTIONAL MEMBERSHIP.
Sharing is caring! Linking words and phrases are used to show relationships between ideas. They can be used to join two or more sentences or clauses. We can use linking words to give a result, add information, summarize, give illustrations, emphasize a point, sequence information, compare or to contrast idea.
GENERAL NOTES - CONNECTIVES OR LINKING DEVICES: • Avoid over-using linking words and phrases. It is not necessary to begin every sentence with a linking device. This can make your writing seem mechanical or formulaic. • If you think you are over-using linking devices, take them out and read the sentence / paragraph / section without them.
English connectors are little words and phrases that help you connect sentences, paragraphs and ideas. Used both in spoken and written English, they help make your English sound more logical and structured. You can think of connectors as like the thread that holds a necklace's beads (i.e. sentences, paragraphs and ideas) together.
ESLBUZZ is a cloud-based language learning application dedicated to providing high-quality educational resources to language students worldwide. We have experienced tutors, teachers, writers, and editors committed to helping students achieve their language goals. Linking words, also known as connecting words, are essential in any form of writing.
Essays commonly use linking words in the following places: The beginning of a paragraph. Beginning of a statement that expands on an argument or presents something new. At the start of a concluding statement. However, you need to use the right to link it from one another sentences or paragraphs.
Linker Words or Word Connectors are used to link large groups of words: phrases and sentences. You can also use them to connect paragraphs to give them coherence. Sentence connectors are usually placed at the beginning of a sentence and may be categorized as follows: 👉 CONTRAST. 1. HOWEVER. This restaurant has the best kitchen in town.
33 Transition Words and Phrases. 'Besides,' 'furthermore,' 'although,' and other words to help you jump from one idea to the next. Transitional terms give writers the opportunity to prepare readers for a new idea, connecting the previous sentence to the next one. Many transitional words are nearly synonymous: words that broadly indicate that ...
There are words in the English language that act like glue to help you stick your sentences together and show the relationships between the ideas that you want to express. These words are called 'connectives' (or 'linking words'). Connectives help your essay 'flow' and read more coherently. More specifically, connectives help you:
Linking Words and Phrases: connectives in essays. Subject: English. Age range: 14-16. Resource type: Worksheet/Activity. File previews. doc, 29 KB. A resourse that is aimed at helping pupils structure their essay correctly. It provides lists of connectives that students can use to provide structure, sum up, compare or contrast, persuade or ...
In the campus protests over the war in Gaza, language and rhetoric are—as they have always been when it comes to Israel and Palestine—weapons of mass destruction. By Zadie Smith. May 5, 2024 ...
Essay Example: Myths are the cultural bedrock of societies, pervasive narratives that give insight into the values, fears, and aspirations of the communities that cherish them. Far from being mere stories, myths serve as the complex connective tissue linking individuals with their cultural history
The essay explores the novel's reflection on contemporary issues like technological control, loss of personal freedom, and the ethical dilemmas of progress, suggesting that Huxley's work remains relevant today as it questions the balance between societal stability and personal freedom. Through "Brave New World," the essay prompts ...
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Answer: That violence and those Netanyahu actions are awful and harmful to a two-state solution as well. That is why I am intensely both anti-Hamas and anti-Netanyahu. And if you oppose just one ...
To ensure the sharing and security of your documents, instructors or teachers often require essays to be submitted in PDF format. However, finding a reliable conversion tool can be challenging. Many recommended tools either require payment or fail to preserve the formatting adequately. I too faced these issues until I discovered the life-saving tool I'll introduce to you in this article.
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They quickly lost almost all interest in the healthy food, and the restraint they used to show around healthy food disappeared. Within six weeks, their obesity rates soared. After this change, Dr ...