Aldous Huxley 's Brave New World

As for intelligence there have been three capacities and virtues that should be targeted for moral enhancement, which are the sensitivity to the features of situations, thoughtfulness about doing what is moral, and the proper capacity for people to make proper judgments. The continued progress in the modification of learning, cognition, memory, the capabilities of decision-making will help assist the moral enhancement with these tasks. There have also been many neurochemicals that have been used to enhance cognitive abilities, which include increased attention span and cognition span. Drugs like OxyContin have also been used to help with empathy, and to make people feel happier. It may be believed that a drug like soma was only possible in Aldous Huxley’s novel Brave New World, but perhaps not. Utilitarian’s have been pushing for human enhancement that uses drugs, genetic engineering and nanotechnology to ensure the maximum amount of happiness possible while attempting to eliminate any pain. Proponents believe that this would reset the brain’s thinking patterns, and allow people to think more positively by keeping our minds engaged, rather than in a constant dull and depressing state. Many anti- depressant drugs are attempting to do just this. It is safe to say that moral enhancement is not just a potential innovation, but a technology that is already beginning.

The color of the groups uniform determined how intelligent and skillful the people were mentally. A certain color(grey) determined if you were clever, an Alpha, and another color(green) determined if you were vapid, an Epsilon. More specifically, every individual was made to believe this in their sleep. As Huxley states, “Alpha children wear grey. They work much harder than we do, because they’re so frightfully clever. I’m really awfully glad I’m a Beta, because I don’t work so hard. And then we are much better than the Gammas and Deltas. Gammas are stupid. They all wear green, and Delta children wear khaki… Epsilons are still worse. They’re too stupid”(Huxley 27/28). Huxley is stating that brain washing begins since one is born and occurs when an individual is not aware of what is going on in their surroundings.

In the world of sex, drugs, and baby cloning you are going to be in many situations where you feel like the world we live in should be different. In the story Brave New World, they had sex with multiple partners along with a very bad use of drugs.

Today, one 's perceptions of happiness are more often than not associated with material achievements, advancements, or perhaps, love. In Brave New World, however, happiness is based upon the pursuit of stability and emotional equilibrium Aldous Huxley 's dystopian novel, Brave New World serves as a warning of the ominous. Set in London, the totalitarian regime instills the motto of "stability, community, [and] identity"(Huxley.1.1) in its citizens. Huxley 's dystopia attempts to find the greatest amount of happiness for the largest sum of people. The simple, less complex characters of the novel seek to achieve happiness through means of scientific conditioning, thus, leaving one

In Brave New World, the author Aldous Huxley predicts a future, like no other, where truth is trumped by happiness. The people in the World State are ignorant of the truth. They mistake the truth as happiness. This ignorance leads them to believe that a tablet called soma is used “to calm your anger, to reconcile you to your enemies, to make you patient” (Huxley 213). Through drugs and conditioning, the government has kept the World State uninformed of the truth. Being controlled by the government, people in the World State do not know society is built upon lies. Throughout this novel, John, Bernard, and Helmholtz, go through this Dystopia lifestyle being a savage, a misfit and too intellectual for the society they are born or

These characters, when they came face to face with the truth of how brainwashed and controlled they have been, are often struck with sadness and a feeling of loneliness. It is a recurring theme in the book to have characters grow sad and feel out of place when they finally realize the truth. This shows the real incompatibility between happiness and truth. Once a person realized the truth, all the “happiness” they had been experiencing is gone. When John the Savage, a lover of shakespeare, goes to speak to the Controller Mustapha Mond, he complains about the large amount of control placed over the people. It is then revealed that Mond is also well versed in literature. John becomes confused as to why a fellow lover of literature has created a society so forced and

He expects that since he is an Alpha, he should be taller and have all the traits that Helmholtz Watson holds. However, after finding John and bringing the Savage back into civilization, Bernard finally gets the attention that he craved. He is showered with recognition left and right and the way people treat him changes. He even brags about his carnal relations to Helmholtz, boasting, "I had six girls last week. One on Monday, two on Tuesday, two more on Friday and one on Saturday" (136).

From the beginning of time, humans have strived to be happy. During this time, thousands of different people have given their interpretation of happiness. According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, the simplified definition of happiness is feeling pleasure or joy because of a certain situation. In Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, Controller, Mustapha Mond, conceals the truth in order to keep everyone happy. He gives his people drugs and brainwashes them into believing that their life is good. Satisfying. When John the Savage enters the novel, he questions all things concerning “civilization.” The civilized people are willing to do everything in their power to hide from the truth. These people were conditioned to stay away from the truth

Soma, intensely pleasurably yet numbing to the mind, is the Brave New World version of drinking soda. Everyone does it. “The soma habit was not a private vice but a public institution” (Bowering 70). The controllers of the world state researched the drug for six years, until soma was finally produced. No instant side effects are caused, although the over use of the drug can result in a shortened life span of around forty-to-fifty years. This drug is used to the advantages of the Controllers. Mustapha Mond, the lead Controller of the World State in Brave New World, is one of the largest proponents in the embracement of Huxley’s Fordist ideas (Brander 76). While he does read Shakespeare and thinking individually, he still leads the world to believe that true happiness is found in the middle of a Soma tablet (Bloom 23). This mentality is visible among almost all of the citizens in Brave New

In the World State, rather than suffer, the people are taught to resort to soma’s artificial happiness, while, as seen though John, outside of the World State suffering is embraced as part of being human, demonstrating how in order to keep the people happy the World State has annihilated the people’s ability to see matters from other perspectives apart from its own, resulting in a lack of individual mindset. Lenina’s first response after being introduced to the savage reservation and the suffering that came along with it was to immediately take some soma. Specifically, after watching a young boy being whipped as part of a sacrifice Lenina says, “‘Too awful! That blood! Oh, I wish I had my soma...A gramme is better than a damn, I wish I had my soma’” ( Huxley 78). The only way Lenina can cope with the suffering is by indulging in soma, which takes the consumer on a mental vacation away from reality, a reaction she

Bernard starts to realize that he is not happy in the condition he is. He feels that he should actually be free like Linda, and John. Similarly, John talks about the same things Bernard was unsatisfied with earlier in the book. John mentions how he would rather be unhappy than have a false sense of happiness like they do in the World State. Although John was not particularly liked on the reservation which made him unhappy he would much rather be unhappy than “happy” in the world state.

As human beings existing in an unpredictable world, we often attempt to envision ourselves thriving in an unrealistic or utopian lifestyle. Commonly, while placed within situations that are rather troublesome, citizens succumb to ailments such as materialistic things or drugs in efforts to escape from their problems for a while. Thus, making it seem as if people would rather be surrounded with the fabrication of happiness rather than accepting the truth and facing one’s problems. Incidentally, consumerism has been defined as, “the perpetuated idea that you cannot be happy unless you surround yourself with things”. The human tendency of succumbing to consumerism and ignoring reality in order to preserve industrialized happiness has been shown throughout literature. In fact, Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, entrails a society where brainwashed citizens turn to ailments such as soma in order to ignore the inevitable pains of life. Though, it is arguable whether or not taking happiness aids or given forced education against nature and sorts are beneficial to society as one would be living in a fabricated reality. Therefore, through the conditioning, denial of John’s enforced riot, the citizens’ dependency on soma, and the extremes made to preserve artificial happiness, it is made clear that the society revolves around monopolized consumerism which, in turn, ultimately leads citizens to artificial happiness as well as fabricated realities.

Aldous Huxley’s world accredited and celebrated masterpiece Brave New World’s futuristic world is just as horrifying as it is compelling. Nevertheless, it can be interpreted in many ways. Some of its audiences are infatuated by the technological and scientific advancements exhibited by the World State, some are mesmerised by the mere thought of a world free from sickness, torture and poverty, while others just see a fictional tale that is worth a good read. However I myself, think nothing of this. In a world plagued by unavoidable suffering – inequality, deprivation and mistreatment – my mind is filled with scepticism over how fictional this Brave New World really is. Of particular note, I am truly distressed and disturbed to know that Huxley’s interpretation of the “perfect world” is functioned through a totalitarian system of government which applauds and endorses a class system.

When you read a book, your learning of what’s going on in the characters society, you’ll get astonished of how they live their life. You might even relate a little, but you’ll never be aware of it completely. Sometime when we read books or watch movies we kind of get used to the idea, so if we do accounted any of those traits we wouldn’t react much or be aware. Especially when it comes to Fantasy, people start off with just imagining things but later on we will build on it to reality. Same goes for Brave New World.

The characters in Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World live in a society where they are trained from childhood to be the ideal, rule following, abide by their class citizens. They are taught that happiness comes from a stable society where people are born into one of five classes and taught during embryonic development what their life-long jobs will be. Brave New World illustrates a future where people live like robots, are discouraged from feeling anything but happiness, and told to shield their emotions from others. They have no families, no parents, and no relationships. The leaders of the World State ensure that every citizen knows his or her place in society; one mistake can lead to exile. Unlike today’s society, those in the World State