Exploit in Huxley’s Dystopia: Eugenics and Psychological Conditioning A utopian society is already an intimidating idea to most people; how can one ensure that the simple idea of a utopia will send people running in the opposite direction? Add eugenics and psychological condition to the conversation. In Aldous Huxley’s dystopian novel, Brave New World, that is exactly what he does. Taking America by storm in 1932, and causing great controversy ever since, Brave New World did nothing less than stir the pot among those of the literary community. The foundation of this new world order relies heavily on scientific breakthroughs that allow for the implementation of eugenics and psychological conditioning on a global scale. Shockingly different from any …show more content…
Differently from many other utopian and dystopian authors, Huxley does not exterminate the concept of money. Instead, he uses eugenics and psychological conditioning to manipulate different social classes to purchase various goods and services; in doing so, Huxley is able to capitalize on his own citizens. Gammas, Deltas and Epsilons are conditioned to like flowers and nature (Huxley 31). “The idea [is] to make them want to be going out into the country at every available opportunity, and so compel them to consume transport” (Huxley 31). In this example, Huxley is making a profit off his people by manipulating their desire to spend money. Lower classes, like Epsilons, are conditioned to “grow up with what psychologists used to call an ‘instinctive’ hatred of books and flowers” (Huxley 30). The purpose of this is to trick Epsilons and other working classes into thinking that learning and nature are bad; this allows the World State to capitalize on Epsilons production in the
The human mind consistently wonders what if, and soon finds itself looking into the future for different possibilities in life. In Aldous Huxley’s novel Brave New World, the reader finds Huxley exploring a nuance in humanity, creating a dystopia, where science becomes the new focus and humans are mass produced in test tubes. Huxley creates a world which contrasts to some aspects of what the world is today. In this dystopia, the values of people are in the technologies which are developed to speed the process of developing babies. Through Huxley’s effective use of syntax and diction, his use of literary techniques, the structure, and playing of theme, Huxley creates an image of a society that worships technology
In Brave New World Huxley creates a society which is carefully balanced, and the two factors that maintain the balance are reproduction and production. The reproduction aspect comes from the government's control over the creation of people, and breeding them to fulfil particular purposes and
Our civilization has chosen machinery and medicine and happiness. That's why I have to keep these books locked up in the safe. They're smut." -Mustapha Mond (234). Instead of relying on fear to control the people and letting them choose from their own perspective, the government controls them through happiness; a fake happiness which is put into their heads as they grow up. In the novel, according to the World State, happiness is combined with stability. The basic goal of the brave new world is, supreme: the "happiness" of all, even if the consequences lead to the loss of freedom and free will. We can see how important it is for the state to improve happiness upon the people when Mustapha Mond says: "The world's stable now. People are happy; they get what they want, and they never want what they can't get. They're well off; they're safe; they're never ill; they're not afraid of death; they're blissfully ignorant of passion and old age they're so conditioned that they practically can't help behaving as they ought to behave. And if anything should go wrong, there's soma." (220). The government's goal is to control people but it uses a very inhumane way. People aren't experiencing what life is really about because the state wants to keep people away form questioning. The essay Brave New World Society's Moral Decline found in www.123helpme.com, talks about Huxley's beliefs and predictions of the future when he was writing the novel. Some of these, he believed were
Everything comes at a price, and the price that is paid for the new order is sadly high, costing the Utopians the benefits of high art, true religion, real science, and family life, which all have been removed to promote stability. "'Othello's better than those feelies.' 'Of course it is But that's the price we have to pay for stability. You've got to choose between happiness and what people used to call high art. We've sacrificed the high art. We have the feelies and the scent organ instead.' 'But they don't mean anything,'" (Huxley 226) This conversation shows one of the tradeoffs made. Stories like Othello are inspired by strong emotions, and Utopia has done away with them. Now, there is nothing to write about, and if something was written along the lines of Othello it might cause people to think, causing instability. The movies people see are idiotic and plotless, based solely on sensations. Religion as we know it has been done away with also, as Mustapha Mond showed by his comments quoted at the beginning of this paper. Religion usually involves self-denial, and that is contrary to everything the new society is based on. With instant gratification
Throughout Aldous Huxley’s dystopian novel, Brave New World, the reader is thrust to the forefront of a society merely based on consumerism, class loyalty, and conventional principles. The motif of brainwashing is used in an effort to abolish individualism throughout Huxley’s novel. He does so by eloquently mirroring the beliefs of the totalitarian governments of the past by establishing a government that brainwashes its own citizens to conform to their beliefs. The “World State” uses hypnopedia as a tool to accomplish this goal of conformity. They teach young children, their principles to reduce the probability of an uprising against the tyrannical power.
In Brave New World Aldous Huxley, creates a dystopian society which is scientifically advance in order to make life orderly, easy, and free of trouble. This society is controlled by a World State who is not question. In this world life is manufactured and everyone is created with a purpose, never having the choice of free will. Huxley use of irony and tone bewilders readers by creating a world with puritanical social norms, which lacks love, privacy and were a false sense of happiness is instituted, making life meaningless and controlled.
Aldous Huxley has a humanistic, deep and enlightened view of how society should be, and of what constitutes true happiness. In his novel, Brave New World, he shows his ideas in a very obscure manner. Huxley presents his ideas in a satirical fashion. This sarcastic style of writing helped Huxley show his views in a very captivating and insightful manner. The entire novel describes a dystopia in which intimate relationships, the ability to choose one's destiny, and the importance of family are strictly opposed. In Huxley's mind, however, these three principles are highly regarded as necessary for a meaningful and fulfilling existence.
Alexander Hamilton presents his knowledge of human nature in this statement, “The sacred rights of mankind are not to be rummaged for among old parchments or musty records. They are written, as with a sunbeam, in the whole volume of human nature, by the hand of the divinity itself; and can never be erased”. In 1954 William Golding Published the novel Lord of the Flies in order to get a deeper look into the flaws of society that are related to the flaws of human nature. During WWII a group of British school boys were being transported by airplane, nevertheless the airplane was shot down, killing the pilot and leaving a group of boys on an island where there is no adult supervision. Today our topic will be focusing on the pessimistic views of
“We are half ruined by conformity, but we should be wholly ruined without it”. The aforementioned quote by Charles Dudley Warner appears to parallel the views on conformity Aldous Huxley created in his novel “Brave New World”. Conformity, and with this, stability, in Huxley’s world is only possible with the excessive use of conditioning and the hyper-cloning of zygotes called “Bokanovsky’s Process”. Conditioning is not something created in “Brave New World”. Behaviorists like Ivan Pavlov and John B. Watson performed conditioning experiments on dogs and even children (in respective order). However, Huxley created a society where “people’s” lives are predetermined even before conception. This stimulates the question: “Is mindless conformity ethical?”.
When one reflects on the period during which Huxley’s novel was written and the modern world of his time, the comparison to the socialist world cannot be ignored. The whole idea of a utopia is very similar to socialism. The World State society is under the complete control of the government. Pre-destination department chooses what people will learn, what they will do and how they will look. Each caste wears a different color clothes and does different type of labor. None of these decisions are made by people themselves. In our society, even with the socialism, where government decides what products to produce, in what quantities, and how people will live, people still have a choice and opportunity to be different. Stability and individuality in utopia are reached by taking away the individuality from people. In the World State government controls desires and consumption by creating and destroying the demand for certain objects through the psychological training of infants.
In Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, the state quite literally ensures that all members of the same social class are created nearly identically. In an effort to ensure that all within the same class are equal, fetuses are given inhibitory drugs to prevent the full development of their mental and physical faculties. In order to further homogenize members of the same class, all children are raised and indoctrinated by the state, creating full equality of body and mind within a class. This eliminates the potential for internecine conflict.
In a Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley, the world state conditions babies to the environment and job they will have by caste. So if you're a Delta, the state conditions you to work in factories and to hate reading and nature. They condition you to like your work and your environment. Huxley gives us a new view of conditioning not by family, school, or friends. But instead by the government. In the story, there is a social predestination room that determines what job you will work in society. Huxley is showing predestination not on a supernatural level but on a political level. But in today's world, we are conditioned through other ways and have more freedom compared to the citizens in the world state.
The universal truth that Huxley is trying to say in The Brave New World is that every utopia is a dystopia. A society in which people believe the world they live in is pure and clean will believe that their society is a utopia but there are other people that think other wise. In chapters 1, 2, & 3 the book depicts a society that seems perfect and is in harmony. We learn that people in this society are conditioned, they cannot think for themselves but are told what to think.
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
One may think that the society in Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World is a gross representation of the future, but perhaps our society isn’t that much different. In his foreword to the novel Brave New World, Aldous Huxley envisioned this statement when he wrote: "To make them love it is the task assigned, in present-day totalitarian states, to ministries of propaganda...." Thus, through hypnopaedic teaching (brainwashing), mandatory attendance to community gatherings, and the use of drugs to control emotions, Huxley bitterly satirized the society in which we live.