Aldous Huxley’s Cautions to Society
Imagine a world in which the government takes their control a step further? A world where the government controls people by forcing society to be happy, conditioning society to think a certain way, and designing babies to work a certain job and be in a certain social class. Brave New World is just that. The author, Aldous Huxley, forewarns that if present society was taken a step further, it may mirror the Brave New World society. Huxley accomplishes this by created similarities between the use of happiness, conditioning, and science to control society in both present day and the brave new world society. Soma is similar to present day technology, drugs, and alcohol. Hypnopeadia is similar to present day socialization, …show more content…
In Brave New World, the children are conditioned through hypnopeadia and shock therapy. Hypnopeadia is the use of a tape recorder suggesting how each child should act while they are sleeping. These suggestions are repeated over and over again until they are ingrained in the child’s mind. The director explains the conditioning by saying, “‘Till at last the child’s mind is these suggestions, and the sum of the suggestions is the child’s mind. And not the child’s mind only. The adult’s mind too – all his life long. The mind that judges and desires and decides – made up of these suggestions. But all these suggestions are our suggestions! […] Suggestions from the State!’” Another way in Brave New World, children are conditioned by shock therapy. Books and flowers are put in front of babies and then when the children play with the books and flowers the director says, “now we proceed to rub in the lesson with a mild electric shock’” (Huxley 20). The director shocks the babies because they are not supposed to like books or flowers because they are Delta’s, one of the lower castes. In today’s society, like in the brave new world society, children are conditioned. But instead of hypnopeadia and shock therapy, children are conditioned by socialization, which is a process for children to adopt the norms and ideology of society. Children today are socialized by agents of socialization. …show more content…
In Brave New World, the babies are made and grow in test tubes while the Bovanovsky process makes the embryos into different castes. The director described the Bovanovsky process to the new Alphas by saying, “One egg, one embryo, one adult-normality. But a bovanovskified egg will bud, will proliferate, will divide. From eight to ninety-six buds, and every bud will grow into a perfectly formed embryo, and every embryo into a full-sized adult. Making ninety-six human beings grow where only one grew before. Progress” (Huxley 4). Also, in order to make the lower casts dumber and shorter and less attractive, alcohol is added to the test tube and the embryo is deprived of oxygen. The director describes how the embryos are deprived of oxygen by saying, “The surrogate goes round slower; therefore passes through the lung at longer intervals; therefore give the embryo less oxygen. Nothing like oxygen-shortage for keeping an embryo below par” (Huxley 12-13). The brave new world society has a way more technologically advanced process to create babies that present society, but there definitely are similarities and our process is becoming more advanced. Today, babies can be made in a test tube and then implanted in a women’s uterus if she is struggling to get pregnant. This is similar to the beginning of the Bovanovsky process. Also, in present society there is
Imagine a world in which the government takes their control a step further? A world where the government controls people by forcing society to be happy, conditioning society to think a certain way, and designing babies to work a certain job and be in a certain social class. Brave New World is just that. The author, Aldous Huxley, forewarns that if present society was taken a step further, it may mirror the Brave New World society. Huxley accomplishes this by created similarities between the use of happiness, conditioning, and science to control society in both present day and the brave new world society. Soma is similar to present day technology, drugs, and alcohol. Hypnopeadia is similar to present day socialization, …show more content…
In Brave New World, the children are conditioned through hypnopeadia and shock therapy. Hypnopeadia is the use of a tape recorder suggesting how each child should act while they are sleeping. These suggestions are repeated over and over again until they are ingrained in the child’s mind. The director explains the conditioning by saying, “‘Till at last the child’s mind is these suggestions, and the sum of the suggestions is the child’s mind. And not the child’s mind only. The adult’s mind too – all his life long. The mind that judges and desires and decides – made up of these suggestions. But all these suggestions are our suggestions! […] Suggestions from the State!’” Another way in Brave New World, children are conditioned by shock therapy. Books and flowers are put in front of babies and then when the children play with the books and flowers the director says, “now we proceed to rub in the lesson with a mild electric shock’” (Huxley 20). The director shocks the babies because they are not supposed to like books or flowers because they are Delta’s, one of the lower castes. In today’s society, like in the brave new world society, children are conditioned. But instead of hypnopeadia and shock therapy, children are conditioned by socialization, which is a process for children to adopt the norms and ideology of society. Children today are socialized by agents of socialization. …show more content…
In Brave New World, the babies are made and grow in test tubes while the Bovanovsky process makes the embryos into different castes. The director described the Bovanovsky process to the new Alphas by saying, “One egg, one embryo, one adult-normality. But a bovanovskified egg will bud, will proliferate, will divide. From eight to ninety-six buds, and every bud will grow into a perfectly formed embryo, and every embryo into a full-sized adult. Making ninety-six human beings grow where only one grew before. Progress” (Huxley 4). Also, in order to make the lower casts dumber and shorter and less attractive, alcohol is added to the test tube and the embryo is deprived of oxygen. The director describes how the embryos are deprived of oxygen by saying, “The surrogate goes round slower; therefore passes through the lung at longer intervals; therefore give the embryo less oxygen. Nothing like oxygen-shortage for keeping an embryo below par” (Huxley 12-13). The brave new world society has a way more technologically advanced process to create babies that present society, but there definitely are similarities and our process is becoming more advanced. Today, babies can be made in a test tube and then implanted in a women’s uterus if she is struggling to get pregnant. This is similar to the beginning of the Bovanovsky process. Also, in present society there is