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Brave New World Ideology Analysis

Decent Essays

Censorship and Ideology: The "Brave New World" in Contemporary politics
Aldous Huxley wrote, in his novel Brave New World, of a society whose quixotic ambitions created a skeletal civilization that functioned in the absence of freedom. Now, almost a century later, the issues of that fictional society are significantly more relevant to contemporary society as we see the crusade for social stability trample over the notion of individual freedoms modern political discourse and conduct.
In order to understand censorship in the Brave New World society, we need first have a comprehensive understanding of its ideology. The BNW society’s ideology stems from its fundamental thirst for ubiquitous happiness which can only be attained should “the wheels [of society must be kept] steadily turning” (220), indicating that social stability is the required stimulus. Thus, individuals must make sacrifices of their sovereignty in the name of social stability because “when the individual feels, the community reels.” (94). As a result, the governing body of the BNW society strips its citizens of their autonomy through means including but not limited to censorship. The people in the bastion are effectively reduced to merely “cell[s] in the social body,” mindless automatons subjected to one purpose in life, assigned to one position in the assembly line. The Brave New World civilization’s ideology of the group being of greater importance than the individual prevails in many modern systems of

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