BRAVE NEW WORLD - A BRIEF SUMMARY

        The year 632 AF is no longer as we know it.  No longer is there freedom, individuality, family or instability.  The brave new world fashioned by author Ardous Huxley is a “benevolent dictatorship: a static, efficient, totalitarian welfare-state where society is stratified by a genetically pre-destined cast”.
              Written in the early 20th century as a warning to future generations, Huxley predicts a future with a morally corrupt society that has fallen into the grips of genetic engineering, social conditioning and the use of mind altering drugs to achieve social stability and progress. However is this dystopia really different from our current society?

 GENETIC ENGINEERING
Genetic Modification 
Social Hierarchy of Brave New World
              Perhaps the biggest shock to the readers of Brave New world is the imminent use of genetic engineering and highly advanced biotechnology in Huxley’s predicated future.  In this “Fordian” society genetic engineering is used to control reproduction to achieve biological social stratification. No longer are babies conceived viviparously. Instead embryos are grown in laboratories (Hatchery) where they are genetically modified in order to be put into five main classes – Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta and Epsilon. Huxley vividly describes how the “Alphas” and “Betas” are supplied with ample nutrients & hormones whereas the lower classes of gamma, delta and epsilon are deprived of these developmental necessities. Not only this, these lower cast embryos are also deprived of their identity. In the social classes of Gamma, Delta and Epsilon sexual reproduction is replaced by Bokanovsky process where one embryo which would normally develop to one adult is enhanced to produce 96 identical twins. The upper classes of this society are given jobs that involve “intellect” whereas the others are assigned menial jobs and thus do not need an identity or intelligence.  The use of genetic engineering in this society is a means of regulating over population and ensuring social stability through a pre-destined cast system.



COMPARISON TO TODAY’S SOCIETY
IVF PROCESS
Huxley’s predictions may seem terrifying to readers yet when we compare his predictions to our current society there exists many parallels.  The rapid expansion in scientific research means that many of Huxley’s prophecies are already being carried out today. Although children are still conceived “viviparously”, the use of technologies such as IVF today enables us to fertilise an embryo outside a mother’s womb which is akin to the process carried out in the Hatchery. Furthermore in the novel there is profound use of eugenics to control society. Although we currently do not modify children prenatally there exists a variety of diagnostic methods that enable us to terminate pregnancy if a child is found to have abnormalities. For example parents suffering from Achondraplasia (dwarfism) are given the decision to end a pregnancy if their child is not an achodrplasiac like. Mothers who find out their child has a genetic disorder have the right to an abortion.  furthermore , the exponential growth in stem cell research also alludes to a future where cloning may be a possibility Although these examples are not as extreme as Huxley’s predictions they are not too different to the eugenic and dysgenic practices performed in the Fordian society in Brave new world


SOCIAL CONDITIONING
Hypnpaedia ocuring in epsilons
Another strong theme in Huxley’s future seems to be the use of conditioning to control society. Social conditioning is carried out through hypnopaedia and Pavlovian shock conditioning. To ensure the genetic engineering carried out on embryos is effective children are classically conditioned. Readers are told how in the future the lower classes are deprived of high intellectual activities such as reading and in order to ensure this, gamma, delta and epsilon new borns are conditioned to hate books. . Huxley describes a scene in which babies of lower class are put in a room with books and flowers. When the babies move towards the books and flowers there is a tremendously loud noise and the floor electrified ensuring “they will grow up with what the psychologists used to call an ‘instinctive’ hatred of books and flowers”.  The society is also manipulated and conditioned using hypnopaedia. Hypnopaedia or sleep teaching seems to be the way this futuristic society ensures people remain docile. Hypnotic messages penetrate the subconscious of developing children during their sleep manipulating them to follow key social rules and remain satisfied with their pre-destined cast.

Propaganda used in Nazi Germany
COMPARISON TO TODAY’S SOCIETY

Propaganda and social conditioning have always been a means to control society. In Brave New world hypno
paedia is used to ensure members of higher caste find lower castes unappealing considering themselves “lucky they are not Gamma”. This is no different to powerful propaganda used by Nazi Germany who used posters and other forms of media to portray Jews as greedy and undesirable. In the modern society this social conditioning is more subtle but it is still prevalent. Media are constantly manipulating our opinions and the views we entail towards specific races or people with abnormalities is a strong testament to this mass conditioning.





OPIATE DRUGS 

              Along with powerful social conditioning and genetic engineering the futuristic society predicted by Huxley has also succumbed to the use of drugs to escape feelings of depression, sorrow and unease.  The citizens consume soma, “half a gramme for a half-holiday, a gramme for a week-end, two grammes for a trip to the gorgeous East,” Soma ensures that citizens do not question the rules and regulations created by the World Controllers and thus social stability is attained in this dystopia

COMPARED TO TODAY’S SOCIETY

Although written in the early 20th century, Huxley’s predications about drug dependency
Wide variety of drugs used in society today
is quite applicable to the current society.  The rapid advancement in medicine has been accompanied by the mass exploitation of drugs. No longer do we rely on our natural immune defence to carry out its role instead citizens of the modern society are in a hurry to find the quick fix – be that for a headache , cold or any common ailment. The parallels drawn between the two societies forces us to question are we heading towards the future Huxley predicted?

OTHER ASPECTS OF THE BRAVE NEW WORLD


Aside from the prevalent use of genetic engineering, drugs and social condition Huxley also suggests that the future society will lack individual autonomy and a sense of identity and belonging. Children created in laboratories are raised in conditioning centres rather than “homes”. The thought of families and parents is considered undesirable and thus any chance of individuals acquiring a self-identity is eliminated. Even as adults they are constantly told “everybody belongs to everybody”. the inhabitants  are encouraged to have uncontrolled sexual relationships in order to forget ideas of marriage, family or love that are threatening “to the stability of the community” where staying four months with one partner is regarded as “intense or long-drawn out.