Huxley's World State In Brave New World

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.

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.

In Neil Postman's response, he debates that Huxley's view of the future in Brave New World is more acceptable and applicable today than Orwell's vision in 1984. He begins his response by stating that in Orwell's book, he suggested that the world, would be governed by a dictorial state with absolute power. The reader understands at this point, that Orwell's version already displays a misconception. Because of the panic at the time, the Cold War. Americans feared that they will lose their democracy to communistic Russia.

There is no way to predict the exact path of change the world will take, but change is guaranteed. The author of Brave New World, Aldous Huxley, shares, “I feel a good deal less optimistic than I did when I was writing Brave New World. The prophecies made in 1931 are coming true much sooner than I thought they would.” Our society is slowly merging into the perfect society Aldous Huxley pictures in Brave New World.

Neil Postman claims that between the two books, 1984, written by George Orwell, and Brave New World, written by Aldous Huxley, the world we live in today is closer to the one in Brave New World. While I agree with Postman that “Huxley feared that what we love will ruin us,” (Postman, 19-20) and Postman’s overall point of our world being closer to the one portrayed in Brave New World, I disagree that what “Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book for there would be no one who wanted to read one.” (Postman, 19-20) Mankind in Brave New World did not simply stop wanting to read books, but they were pushed by the world and forced to hate books. According to Postman, “Huxley feared that what we love will ruin us,” and what

“Everyone belongs to everyone now,” are the often repeated words in Aldous Huxley’s ‘Brave New World’, a dystopic novel that explores countless imperative ideologies of the 1930s, as well as in present day. This chant of belonging is meticulously repeated by the naive subjects of genetic meddling after a closely monitored upbringing. The dystopia described in the book is one of immense control and genetic modification that distinguishes between classes. Yet, upon reading this novel, I found that despite its hard to follow nature, the unnerving correlation between Huxley’s fictitious dystopia and our own society were hauntingly similar. But despite this, I was aghast to find that of the many parallels between the book and our own lives, the

In his novel Brave New World, Aldous Huxley confronts the way in which mass production and capitalism serve to disempower the individual by cementing a self-reinforcing system of consumption and production wherein the individual is reduced to his or her utilitarian function. Although the novel touches on a number of ways in which the individual is disempowered and commodified in contemporary society, from pacifying drugs to an overreliance on technology, Huxley's critique of capitalism remains the most prominent, if only because the novel includes explicit references to the father of modern capitalist production, Henry Ford. Huxley's critique of capitalism becomes most apparent in the third chapter of the novel, when the tour group is taken over by Mustapha Mond, "his fordship" and the Resident Controller for Western Europe. Examining Mond's discussion of the time before the institution of the World State, Huxley's creative demonstration of capitalist reduction, and the function of the individual within capitalist society reveals the ways in which the novel seeks to highlight the dangers of unrestrained capitalist and the consumer culture is perpetuates.

Close romantic relationships do not exist in the world state. The people have been conditioned to avoid emotional attachments. The feelies and the belief that everyone belongs to everyone satisfy the basic human need for contact with others. To the World State’s inhabitants, extended relationships only lead to trouble. Being emotionally involved with another person can and often will lead to some distress, however, in Huxley’s eyes, as many people from his generation felt, society should not commend relationships that are purely physical.

Has The World Changed? No one is able to label the world as perfect or problem free due to conflicts. From the roles people play or the classes people are placed in there are many situations that could cause issues. Aldous Huxley proves this point by highlighting specific complications he notices in Brave New World.

We all dream for a utopia where we are all happy, equal, and safe. However in Aldous Huxley’s novel Brave New World, the utopia of the World State is achieved through dystopia characteristics such as heteronomy, mind control, and inequality.

Our present world is both good and bad. Were separated by man-made borders. As the Brave New World is based off of unity, and being strict straight forward. Brave New World is written by Aldous Huxley. Although in our present world the people have to deal with sickness, death, and disease, but in the Brave New world you don’t have to worry about those things as much.

Huxley also believes that the advances in scientific technology can also be a threat to society. In Brave New World, everything is completely made my machine and not human, decreasing the need for creativity and imagination. Ones creativity no longer needed because because machines are able to do much of the work that was made out for humans . The jobs available for people in Brave New World are those that work with mechanics. In Brave New World, any and everything they do is surrounded by technology.

America may seem like a utopia to many. It clearly consists of many perfect elements including an egalitarian democracy, luxuries, and a free country. However, this vision of a perfect society is only an illusion, as there are several flaws in the American society. In this sense, America is a flawed dystopia rather than a utopia. According to George Orwell and Aldous Huxley, there are two types of dystopian societies that will rule the world.

How would one depict the future? Would someone ninety years ago have perhaps dreamed of a change in society, no dying, or even a flawless government? Ninety years later, even with advanced technology, these problems remain. Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World examines such recurring subjects as social class, death and the dying, and a one-world government. Moreover, such topics tie together the issues Huxley’s “Brave New World” faced with those of today’s “Grave New World.”

The identity of a person is often considered to be synonymous with his culture, whether it be to a distinct nation, race, or way of thought. However, one of the greatest conflicts a person can endure is one with himself, when he is caught between the innate desire to belong and a sense of self and difference from the society that he belongs to. In Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, such is the case with Bernard Marx. Marx faces the immense dilemma of not fitting in in the greatly socialized and cohesive civilization that he lives in, the “Brave New World.” Despite how much Bernard disdains this world, which he identifies as brainwashed and infantile, he cannot help desiring to belong. Huxley brilliantly contrasts Marx’s hatred of his civilization with his eventual plea to remain a part of it after his exile is sealed in order to highlight the natural desire of man to belong, regardless of how different he may feel from his surroundings.