A World Without Freedom in Huxley's A Brave New World
A World Without Freedom in Huxley's A Brave New World, Literary Analysis and Discussion
Everyday people are given a choice – a choice to reach for their goals or do what makes them happy. In a perfect world, these would be one in the same. Aldous Huxley presents this utopian world in his book Brave New World, where the people are governed and trained in manner. He presents a totalitarian regime that not only ensures that people are happy, but also is able to control the behavior of each individual and keep society stable. Through the use of science, people are not only created, but also conditioned to guarantee they will be happy members of society. Throughout the book, Huxley also introduces many of the main philosophical issues that are social necessities for perfect stability within this society. These include the role of consumption, sexuality and emotions, the role of history, and the redefinition of religion.
Conditioning plays a large part in the success of this society. Children are taught throughout their life to be happy with their caste so they have no desire to change. The basic ideas of society are also “wedded indissolubly before the child can speak. But wordless conditioning is crude and wholesale; cannot bring home the finer distinctions, cannot inculcate the more complex courses of behavior. For that there must be words, but words without reason. In brief, hypnopaedia. The greatest moralizing an socializing force of all time” (28).
Conditioning is one of the main basis’ for this modern civilization. “The love of servitude cannot be established except as the result of a deep, personal revolution in the human minds and bodies” (xvi). Conditioning allows the government to establish this love of servitude and use it to their advantage in preventing such things as uprising and encouraging other things such as consumption.
The society Huxley presents is based on many things, on of which is the desire to consume. The people have been conditioned in this manner. From the economic standpoint of the society, if people consume readily as they do, there will always be a need for jobs thus completing the supply and demand cylce. In one instance, the masses are taught to “hate the county… but simultaneously [conditioned] to love all country sports. At the same time...