An Analysis of 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 Aldous Huxley’s novel a Brave New World, published in 1931, there are several attacks on society. Throughout this essay it will be seen what these problems were and if they were fixed. If the problems were fixed, it must be determined when they were. The primary focus is to answer whether we have changed for the better, women’s role in society and the social classes. In the end it will be obvious that a perfect society is impossible but we have made improvement.

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 his text Brave New World Aldous Huxley imagines a society genetically engineered and socially conditioned to be a fully functioning society where everyone appears to be truly happy. This society is created with each person being assigned a social status from birth, much like caste system in modern society or the social or the social strata applied to everyday society. Huxley shows the issues of class struggle from the marxist perspective when he says the structure of society in relation to its major classes, and the struggle between them as the engine change its major classes. Huxley describes a perfect society created through genetic engineering where each individual is assigned a class from the time of being . In Brave New World by Aldous Huxley it states “Why not? Bernard’s an Alpha Plus. Besides, he asked me to go to one of the savage reservations with him. I’ve always wanted to see a savage reservation. But his reputation?”(Huxley 123). Clearly the social interactions of the upper castes are a little more nuanced than a simple matter of agreed caste status.

The way that Huxley develops he's view of the new world and our is by showing how controlled the new world is compared to our. For example in page 18 "Community, Identity, Stability", which means that where they control the eggs, hatches the babies and educate them to do and what not to do. He's showing how this new environment has changed that we as human being cant have babies on our own, that now it's controlled by hatching them in a laboratory, which our work we don't do because that's something nature. Also, how they divide there people which is stated in page 23 " we decant our babies as socialized human beings, as Alphas or Epsilon...", which the Alphas and Epsilon are the upper class people, that are intelligent like knows how to read

Truth and happiness can be used in hundreds of different trivial ways, thoughtlessly. Merriam Webster defines truth as a “a judgment, proposition, or idea that is true or accepted as {fact}” and happiness as “a state of well-being and contentment”. Modern lexicon tends to mash the two together, like knowing the accepting facts are essential to ones physical and mental well being. So naturally when we discuss human issues in societies, specifically those of the fictional variety we apply our mashed set of ideals based on truth and happiness on each of these different societies . In Aldous Huxley’s A Brave New World, by conventional societies ideas the citizens of the world state know nothing of traditional reality and by the standards of the traditional world are far from a state of contentment, but if examined by the ideals of the society in question the overall appearance is quite different. the population seems happy because they don’t know the truth. In fact the characters that do know the truth are far unhappier by both societies measures.

Huxley uses contrast to reveal distinctive features of a character. In his novel, Brave New World, Helmholtz Watson is one of the characters who are involved with the use of contrast. Helmholtz is an Alpha Plus lecturer at the College of Emotional Engineering who is friends with Bernard Marx and shares a unique bond with John over Shakespeare. He is physically different from Bernard; he and John are culturally different and share different opinions; and he has psychological and personality differences with Bernard.

The flaws found in the world are what create the distinct characteristics that scatter the face of our planet. Today, in our world, there is no such thing as a perfect state in existence. In Brave New World, Aldous Huxley describes the World State as the perfect place to be, a dystopia where everyone is obliviously happy. Every member of the community is content with his or her position, no matter what their job is, because of the special conditioning revolving around the World State’s motto: “Community, Identity, Stability”. Balance within the World State is achieved through the sacrifice of the genuineness of the citizens, demonstrating the society’s value for stability and strong desire to maintain it, to the extent of living in entire falsehood.

The satirical world that Aldous Huxley curates in Brave New World possesses a futuristic society that the culture of today has yet to reach. Within Huxley’s novel, the residents of London devote themselves to the World State and live by the infamous motto: “Community, Identity, Stability” (3). They pride in sexual activity and view themselves superior to other regions of the world. They travel to savage reservations, such as Malpais, for vacations and romantic getaways to observe the savage people, who are uncivilized and lawless to the World State’s standards. Throughout the novel, Huxley hunts for true civilization through the parallel societies of the World State and Malpais. By creating Bernard Marx, an Alpha-Plus, and John the Savage; Huxley was able to connect the two worlds with different customs to conceive a clear discovery. The contrasted characters in Brave New World showcase the seemingly different forms of life, yet contain the same underlying flaw. Huxley built his novel upon the idea that the greatest comfort to people will bring the greatest pain.

Society today may be on a dangerous path leading towards disarray and dystopian values. Eugenics, promiscuity, elitism and class differentiation all are problems that are on the rise in America and other developed nations today. However, all of these topics are addressed in the dystopian society of “Brave New World.” Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World is an incredibly relevant piece that touches on multiple issues with which society is faced. Race, religion, feminism, and basic human rights are challenged and exaggerated throughout the novel in order to warn society of the disastrous effects of predetermined societal roles.

In Huxley’s Brave New World, after struggling to fit into New London, John runs away to live in the lighthouse in isolation. In Boyle’s Trainspotting, Mark fights his heroin addiction in order to break free from drugs and his friend group to rejoin society along with the duffel bag. The lighthouse in Brave New World and the duffel bag in Trainspotting, suggest that after one is isolated from a society, he can only rejoin that society by being willing to conform to its values.

In our world, there is a plethora of societies. Different societies have different approaches to freedom, and have different ideas of what freedom is. In our society, we are taught that freedom is something that everybody should have no matter who they are or where they are from. In A Brave New World, Huxley gives us two examples of societies. These societies are the World State and the Reservation and they both have very different types of and views on freedom. By using these two examples and providing the readers with multiple characters that live in each society, Huxley clearly shows us his view on the subject of freedom. The character that stands out the most is John, and this is because John is from the Reservation and his views

In Brave New World, John experiences a radical shift in his life after he leaves the Reservation and goes to the World State. In the reservation, he was already somewhat exiled, as he was the only white person other than his mother and was ostracized for that as well as for his mother’s promiscuity, but this was doubled down in the World State as he was very quickly exposed to what the rest of the world looked like, and he found himself in exile again, this time self-imposed in a lighthouse.

People's minds are not designed to multitask. Even though the human mind is capable of multitasking, while doing so the mind becomes focused on more than one thing at a time. This is a huge factor in dealing with texting and driving. Many people do not realize texting and driving is an act of multitasking. Texting while driving is an act of multitasking that becomes dangerous to everyone on the road. “The average driver takes their eyes off the road for 5 seconds per text message, covering an entire football field’s worth” (Moreno n.p). People do not understand the matter of events that take place in just 5 seconds. Time is fragile in today's