Utopia

Utopia means the idyllic state as first used by sir Thomas Moore as the title of his book in 1516 (Brave New World’s Barron’s Notes by Anthony Astrachan).

The Utopia achieved by the world-state in Aldous Huxley’s A Brave New World had a terribly High price. A price which, I think is not worth it. Their citizens live in as oblivious and ignorant kind of bliss in world that is free of war, fear, violence, disease and all the other draw-backs of living in the real world (Sybille Bedford, Aldous Huxley: A Biography, 1974, cited in Brave New World’s Barron’s Notes by Anthony Astrachan).

The characters from Utopia in the novel do not even know freedom. They are happy and contented in their respective occupations and are satiated by spending their free time wallowing in pleasure even though they are all alike in each class and behave in much the same way as each other save for a few idiosyncrasies Uniformity is stressed and individuality becomes like a sickness and all characters who had even a minor difference from other citizens in the same class were cruelly crushed into either conformity or the final escape of death in John’s case.

However, if the price of such comforts would be the ignorance of the existence of freedom, an idea that many countless people have died fighting for in the real world, I think Utopia is not worth it.

A. Huxley did very well in highlighting this point. John’s suicide after seeing that his beloved joined the mob to watch him suffer is a great point at rejecting the idea of Utopia in the book.

Even when John found a place where he could live with all the things that he thought were necessary, including pain, he was followed by a huge crowd which had come to watch him suffer. Seeing Lenina come to watch him whip himself causes him to kill himself.

In the novel, Huxley plays with the idea of how technological advances would affect society. In Utopia, humans are grown in bottles. No one has a mother. Multiple copies of a single person can be made in one go. This is a very extreme way to highlight the author’s point, completely removing the “humanity” from humanity to the point that even the genuine personal bond of parent and child is removed.

The achievement of stability is attained by keeping everybody in an artificial state of perpetual happiness and contentment.  Pain and grief is removed from the realm of human emotion thereby removing all the deep feelings we associate with the feeling of being genuinely “alive”.

Citizens in Utopia are encouraged to be promiscuous. Anybody can have sex with anybody they want and vice versa. Family life and the formation of intense personal relationship are obliterated so that these cannot interfere with the stability of society. Love is non-existent. Anybody who’d date or have sex with a single person for an extended period is looked on as weird.

I think that the author was successful at highlighting his point. His characters were only secondary to the ideas that he proposed especially considering the time and context when he propounded them. He makes me feel as if the novel’s version of Utopia is not far from becoming a truth. Today’s culture promotes the culture of almost mindless consumption, too much indulgence in pleasure and diminishing of the family.

Technology is a result of human endeavor. It allows us to live in a better world with all of our modern necessities and comforts. In this book however, a different view is illustrated. While it acknowledges the former to be true, it declares resoundingly that the opposite is possible also. Technology also has the potential to wipe out the essence of humanity. It can wipe out genuine happiness, individuality, close personal relationships, deep emotions and family.

References

BLTC, Brave New World? A Defence of Paradise-Engineering, Retrieved on April 13, 2008, from http://www.huxley.net/index.html

BLTC, Brave New World’s Barron’s Notes by Anthony Astrachan, Retrieved on April 13, 2008, from http://www.huxley.net/studyaid/bnwbarron.html

BLTC, Brave’s New World’s Monarch Notes, Retrieved on April 13, 2008 from http://www.huxley.net/studyaid/index.html

In Arthur Miller’s playwright, The Crucible, the reader is exposed to different examples of what could be considered a dystopian society. A dystopia is a society characterized by human misery and unhappiness. The characteristics of a dystopian society in include religious control and this playwright contains a dystopian protagonist.

Throughout The Crucible, the townspeople in Salem, Massachusetts are living in a theocratic government. A theocratic government is a government subject to religious authority. In Miller’s playwright the court is often affiliated with the church, therefore the characters can be prosecuted if they are thought to be associated with the Devil. believes that “the Devil is precise” and that “the marks of his presence are definite as stone.” This statement shows the paranoia of the townspeople and how they thought any wrong doing or any unanswered act was the work of the Devil.

The Crucible shares characterization tropes with the dystopia genre such as a dystopian protagonist. John Proctor is a classic Arthur Miller hero, a man who struggles with the incompatibility of his actions with his self-image. He is a member of the Salem society who constantly feels trapped by the sin he has committed. Proctor also believes that the church of Salem is corrupt in the way they trial someone to committing witchcraft. When comes to question Proctor, Proctor tells him that the accusations are complete nonsense and Hale fires back by stating that all the people he has questioned have confessed to witchcraft.

Proctor then questions Reverend Hale by asking “why not, if they must hang for denyin’ it? There are them that will swear to anything before they’ll hang; have you never thought of that?” Reverend Hale gives Proctor his assurance that he has thought of that before but he has a hard time believing that someone would lie in the name of God. Throughout the story John Proctor does his best to bring the truth upfront in the court of Salem, however, in the end he is not believed.

Moreover, The Crucible isn’t considered to be a dystopia. The play does share some characteristics of a dystopia but it does not fit the requirement of taking place in the future. The way Arthur Miller frames 1692 Salem, Massachusetts as a dystopia is by showing the reader that the townspeople are living under a theocratic government where the only answer to questionable events is witchcraft. Not only can religious oppression and “naming names” lead to a dystopia-like environment in this play, but the fact that the citizens live in fear of being persecuted also leads to a dystopian society. For this is the true point of The Crucible; to show the reader of the dystopian characteristics this play comprises of and that not only the future can be interpreted as a dystopia but that the people of the past, and even the present, can be living in a dystopian society.

Aldous Huxley’s “Brave New World” relates a fictional society in which freedom is dead, morality is forgotten, and man’s future is bleak indeed. His work employs many parallels that can be drawn to society’s culture today, possibly even serving as a prediction of the future 500 years from now. With that said, a close look will be taken into several of Huxley’s themes within a “Brave New World” to best determine the impacts of his fictional society in regards to current cultural trends, and trends for the future. Huxley’s “Brave New World” is set far into the future, in 632 AF, or 2540 AD.

Plotted in this extreme, Huxley has liberated himself from any confines of modern literature and opened up the doors for a future entirely of his making, with his own rules, and own utopian predictions. For, written in 1931, Huxley was essentially inventing a society some 600 years into the future, one in which he has created a ‘negative utopia’— [a society] in which utopian dreams of the ‘old reformers’ have been realized, only to turn out to be nightmares” (Booker, 16), which, with the Utopian books of his time, was his very intention.

With that said, Huxley’s work should be “read primarily as a warning against runaway capitalism and as an anticipation of coming developments in Western consumer society” (Booker, 20). Further, in a direct parallel from Huxley’s work to modern society, capitalism could, very easily, take the same turn in an attempt to create a better, more stable economy. The story itself is a frightening version of the future that could be, all the while containing social and cultural issues of the early 1900’s.

The cultural impact of the Industrial Revolution alone highlights a major theme within the work that the world is moving at too fast a pace for survival tempered by the loss of intellectual individuality. In Huxley’s world, reproduction has no use as it is easier, and more economical, to essentially create new individuals via a hatchery process. Sex is no longer the means for reproduction but has been relegated the role of pleasure, where any man can have any woman, and there are no relationships based upon such intimacy.

There are no emotional ties to family, loved ones, or friends, and death is accepted as the natural cycle of life, not to be mourned, but not really to be thought about either. Huxley’s world is separated into a large caste system: with Alphas, Betas, Gammas, Deltas, and Epsilons. In this society, the upper-castes are given more time in the hatchery to develop intelligence and physical prowess, whereas the lower castes are essentially poisoned to have lower intelligence and lesser physical endowment.

Huxley’s employment of these plot conditions marks his greatest theme: that of the loss of individual identity. In his “brave new world,” people are mere products of creation, relegated into their castes, who live out their lives as they are supposed to, never questioning, never wondering, never living. With this basis, Huxley initiated the “reinforcement of desired behavior by reward rather than by punishment” (Fjellman, 3), with the “[prediction] that we might be tamed instead by desire and pleasure” (3).

Then, perhaps for balance, Huxley introduces the character of Bernard Marx, a psychologist and an Alpha Plus. Despite his caste rank, Bernard is an outcaste in their society, based mostly on his physical condition, which socially marks him as a lower caste because of his smaller size. Bernard, of course, falls for a Beta Plus, Lenina, who is so far in the societal doe that she cannot even question her own actions and is tormented by her “friends” for not being promiscuous enough.

As for Lenina, Huxley “reserved especial bile for the female of the species, whose presence provokes even more heated rhetoric” (Higdon), and her character the ultimate parody of the female species. Further, Huxley “offers a remarkably sexist vision which suggests—if it does not outright say—that only Alpha men are capable of being unhappy, of being unorthodox, of being rebels. Only once, in a remark by Mustapha Mond, does the work suggest that women can become as troublesome to the State as men and suffer exile for their unorthodoxy” (Hidgon).

This rebel nature and ability to see the world for the reality of what is can be seen “through the actions and thoughts of its four male rebels: Bernard Marx, Helmholtz Watson, John the Savage, and Mustapha Mond—each of whom has been driven in one way or another to question and to rebel against the not-to-be-questioned values of the Fordian/Freudian world of 632 A. F. Each of these men has wandered dangerously far into unorthodoxies that threaten the community, identity, and stability of the World State” (Higdon).

From this basis, Bernard is the first male character to begin his rebellion when he realizes that there is something very wrong within their society—that everyone has been given “memories” from the hatchery based on subliminal suggestions and not actual events. Moreover, many critics refer to this rebel nature as Huxley’s “response to early cinema…[it] was far-reaching in its implications, recognizing cinema’s stimulation of the body as well as the mind and imagining cinema’s potential to be either an instrument of social and political reform or a medium of cultural degeneracy” (Frost).

Indeed, Huxley considered music a powerful medium, once writing that “‘the darkness of the theater, the monotonous music induce in the audience a kind of hypnotic state’” (Frost), exactly like Huxley’s soma does to the characters. Further, Huxley’s narrative form “[shows] the individual in society, serves to heighten the sense of his helplessness and vulnerability” (Ferns, 132). Moreover, Huxley’s world “is an unsettling, loveless and even sinister place. This is because Huxley endows his ‘ideal’ society with features calculated to alienate his audience.

Typically, reading BNW elicits the very same disturbing feelings in the reader which the society it depicts has notionally vanquished – not a sense of joyful anticipation. [Huxley himself] describes BNW as a ‘nightmare’” (Pearce). Indeed, Huxley writes in his Forward that his work is “a book about the future and, whatever its artistic or philosophical qualities, a book about the future can interest us only if its prophecies look as though they might conceivably come true” (Huxley, ix).

For his part, Huxley avoids any real technological advancements (like computers, aviation, or even the evolution of the automobile) within “Brave New World,” instead focusing on the evolution of the human being and the social cultural advancements that 600 years into the future might bring. More, Huxley writes that the “only scientific advances to be specifically described are those involving the application to human beings of the results of future research in biology, physiology, and psychology” (ix-x). Indeed, in choosing this form, Huxley has created a society that could exist in the very near future—and not one 600 years distant.

Further, “it is only by means of the sciences of life that the quality of life can be radically changed…the people who govern the Brave New World may not be sane…but they are not madmen, and their aim is not anarchy but social stability. It is in order to achieve stability that they carry out, by scientific means, the ultimate, personal, really revolutionary revolution” (x). With this epiphany, Huxley made, for the first time, a purely utopian society in which it is not the technological advances that relegate the future of mankind, but it is mankind themselves who make it for themselves, for the good or for the bad.

And it is this ideal that makes a frightening assumption for the future of mankind. 500 years into the future, surely Huxley’s world could come into fruition, but, in an even more frightening realization, Huxley’s world could come into society slowly, and within a period of decades, the current society, in an attempt to create a more safe and stable life for its inhabitants, could instead transform into the dystopian world predicted in a “Brave New World. ” Overall, Aldous Huxley, in a “Brave New World” demonstrates a dystopian future in which mankind is subjugated by the very essence of being human.

Where pleasure is a form of reinforcing punishment and sex is nothing more than an activity of the popular. The future that Huxley predicts is, in reality, a truth that every society may yet face. For, in removing the technological advances that mark many utopian works, Huxley has given the story over to human nature itself. And, in every future, there lies a culture where stability is the goal—and in that ideal, a “Brave New World” is not so far advanced, after all. Works Cited. Booker, Keith M. The Dystopian Impulse in Modern Literature: Fiction as Social Criticism. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1994. Fjellman, Stephen M.

Vinyl Leaves: Walt Disney World and America. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1992. Frost, Laura. “Huxley’s Feelies: The Cinema of Sensation in Brave New World. ” Twentieth Century Literature, 52. 4 (2006): 443+. Higdon, David Leon. “The Provocations of Lenina in Huxley’s Brave New World. ” International Fiction Review, (2002): 78+. Huxley, Aldous. Brave New World. New York: Bantam Books, 1958. Ferns, Chris. Narrating Utopia: Ideology, Gender, Form in Utopian Literature. Liverpool, England: Liverpool UP, 1999. Pearce, David. “Aldous Huxley: A Brave New World. ” (2008). BLTC Research. 26 June 2009 <http://www. huxley. net/>.

A Utopia is an ideal province for society nevertheless, a Utopia is impossible to accomplish because a perfect universe does non be. A dystopia occurs when the commanding agents take control over all of society while taking away their rights, and freedom. A dystopia is obviously presented in the two novels Brave New World by Aldous Huxley, and Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell. It is presented through the novels that control is merely possible with the usage of engineering. There are two distinguishable methods used to do a dystopia, Huxley uses felicity, while Orwell uses fright. Nevertheless, entire control over humanity is non unflawed because a rebellious quality will ever be, such as John, and Winston Smith. Both novels wish to obtain an indistinguishable end, to take complete control over humanity, but due to the defects within the dystopia complete use can non be. The commanding agents think they are making a Utopian society unlike the characters, who are the lone 1s that realise it is a dystopia. Despite the differences that exist within the societies of each novel, they both have the indistinguishable result of a dystopia.

It is apparent in the novel Brave New World and Nineteen Eighty-Four, it is impossible to accomplish complete control over humanity even through the usage of felicity. Brave New World attempts to take human individuality by taking over the procedure of maternity and childhood, and doing each babe born to their conditions and wishing. The babes are organized into their future societal groupings: “ We besides predestine and status. We decant our babes as socialised human existences, as Alphas or Epsilons, as future sewerage works or futureaˆ¦ ” ( Huxley 10 ) . They are basically taking the function of God nevertheless, human nature can be modified, but non removed. This is apparent in John who clearly demonstrates true human nature that is in the Fordian society: “ in Brave New World, the separation of gender and reproduction becomes the agencies whereby single individuality is made vulnerable and capable of being destroyed ” ( Martin 1 ) . John, unlike the Fordian society was born from a female parent which makes him portion of a alone society. His acknowledgments of the dystopia nowadays in the Fordian society makes him go a Rebel, as he recognises the defects and efforts to contend against them: “ ” Do n’t you desire to be free work forces? Do n’t you even understand what manhood and freedom are? ” … “ I ‘ll do you free whether you want it or non ” aˆ¦he began to throw the small pill-boxes of soma tablets in smattering out into the country. ” ( Huxley 187 ) Through John it is apparent that his rebellious behavior was a defect in the society because of his acknowledgment of the dystopia. Rebellion will be because of the inability to take human nature which is what finally lead John and Winston to going Rebels.

In the fresh Nineteen Eighty-Four, protagonist Winston Smith is a Rebel. Winston, likewise to John has the ability to acknowledge the dystopia due to his human nature. Winston belongs in a alone portion of the society that rebels against the accountant Big Brother. He is determined to destruct Big Brother and finally destruct the dystopia. This purpose is exemplified when he states: “ I do n’t conceive of that we can change anything in our ain life-time. But one can conceive of small knots of opposition jumping up here and there-small groups of people banding themselves together, and bit by bit turning ” ( Orwell 141 ) . He non merely has the dedication to destruct it even if he is a little fraction of the Oceanian society, but he states that there are other people similar to him. Unlike the Fordian society, Oceania attempts to cover with the Rebels by seeking to alter their human nature and do them into blind followings of the party: “ O’Brien turns the one rebellious Winston into another thoughtless drone of the Party, representing the almighty nature of the authorities, and the futility of contending against it. ” ( Beaird 1 ) . Although Winston was turned into a follower of Big Brother, he was portion of a society that exemplifies human nature and farther recognizing the dystopia. Both societies have Rebels within them such as John and Winston therefore, the rebellious presence depicts the societies as non flawless.

The chief end is for the commanding agents is to accomplish complete control over the society, although both novels use different techniques to try to accomplish complete human control the result is indistinguishable. Nineteen Eighty-four utilizations fear while Brave New World uses felicity to take control over people. The Fordian society makes each group enjoy their life, and be happy with what they are making as stated by the Director of Brave New World: “ that is the secret of felicity and virtuousness – wishing what you ‘ve got to make. All conditioning purpose at that: devising people like their unescapable societal fate. ” ( Huxley 12 ) . The Fordian society is based on fulfilling the demands of the people, but since the hatching Centre sets the people ‘s demands they are really easy to follow. Meloni emphasizes that because all the desires are obtained there is no demand for freedom: “ Desire is dead in the Brave New World: to acknowledge the being of it would intend to acknowledge the failure of the ideal province. That is why all cardinal demands, above all those related with the sexual inherent aptitude, are instantly satisfied except for the desire for freedom, which has necessarily been suppressed ” ( Varricchio 1 ) . The Fordian society does non necessitate freedom because they do non cognize what it is, an semblance is made that they are populating with freedom but in world even their freedom is controlled. Sexual activity and haoma, a drug that all of society takes to do themselves more relaxed and happy, finally distracts society from the real property and yesteryear, similar to the Oceanian society.

The Oceanian society presented in Nineteen Eighty-Four utilizations fright and propaganda to try to take control over all of humanity. Oceania is invariably watching people, and maintaining people sacred to either make something against the jurisprudence or even believe incorrect about Large Brother. The penalty as all the people know is either decease or terrible maltreatment, maintaining the society scared to make something incorrect. Both novels remove: the usage privateness, history, and the past to take control over the society: “ In the standardised societies depicted in both novels the media uphold conformance, denying persons their ain privateness and personal feelings. Simultaneously, they strengthen powers capable of commanding every individual aspect of their topics ‘ life by striping them of all critical attitude. Both societies have emptied of a sense of history and of memory of the yesteryear. In Airstrip One, the emptiness is filled by a host of images of propaganda whereas in the fordian universe is shallowness and sensationalism. ” ( Neilson 1 ) . One of the universe controllers O’Brien makes it really clear how rigorous the Party is to all of society, “ There will be no trueness, except trueness towards the Party. There will be no love, except the love of Big Brother. There will be no laughter, except the laugh of victory over a defeated enemyaˆ¦All viing pleasances will be destroyed. But alwaysaˆ¦there will be the poisoning of power, invariably increasing and invariably turning subtler. ” ( Orwell 242 ) . Sexual activity must besides be controlled by both societies to hold control over the people: “ Since gender lies at the nucleus of identityaˆ¦it must be controlled by the province every bit good. In Nineteen Eighty-Four, the method used is non physical control of gender and reproduction through engineering and conditioning, as in Brave New World. ” ( Martin 1 ) . Sexual activity in Oceania is considered a rebellious act if done with pleasance or joy, which is why Winston has sex with his spouse Julia. Even with Oceania utilizing fright, and the Fordian society utilizing happiness the result is that both of the societies have turned into a dystopia, which is apparent through the Rebels John, and Winston. But without the usage of engineering no control is possible.

Technology is as a necessity for accomplishing domination. Through both novels Brave New World and Nineteen Eighty-Four it is exemplified that merely with the usage of engineering it is possible to command people. Both Fordian, and Oceanian society use the engineering otherwise nevertheless, for the same intent. Brave New World uses engineering to do different groups of people assigned to different occupations in their life, engineering is besides used to keep properties of immature age and felicity: “ We preserve them from diseases. We keep their internal secernments unnaturally balanced at a vernal equilibriumaˆ¦We give them transfusions of immature blood. We keep their metamorphosis for good stimulated. Youth about unimpaired till 60, and so, cleft! The terminal. ” ( Huxley 95 ) . Technology is the most of import portion of the citizen ‘s lives, and for the commanding agents because it is easier to modify human nature from birth. Besides with old age and unhappiness society would non obey their orders, and effort to better their lives taking to blemish within the dystopia: “ On suction reserves reside people who lack technological “ progresss. ” The abode of Malpais, in contrast with the citizens of the World State, pattern a simple, agricultural life style. They give birth to kids of course and pattern monogamousness. ” ( Beaird 1 ) . The little society outside of the World State is non controlled because they will non let themselves to be, and without engineering they will populate their lives in a free and rebellious mode as exemplified by John. Unlike the World State, Oceania is watching and commanding everybody at all times.

In the fresh Nineteen Eighty-Four, engineering is used to watch people and all their actions. While all of society knows they are being watched it non merely lets the accountants keep society under their orders, but makes society scared to disobey: “ the innovation of the telescreenaˆ¦is righty considered of the extreme importance for the care of a constabulary stateaˆ¦The telecasting is hence shown to attach to every individual minute of people ‘s life, developing them to entire passiveness ” ( Beaird 1 ) . Without the telescreen watching society, people would be close and have a sense of security finally, taking to rebellion: “ The telescreen received and transmitted at the same time. Any sound Winston made, above the lever of a really low susurration, would be picked up by it ; furthermore, so long as he remained within the field of vision which the metal plaque commanded, he would be seen every bit good as heardaˆ¦You had to live-did unrecorded, form wont that became instinct-in the premise that every sound you made was overheard, and, except in darkness, every minute scrutinised. ” ( Orwell 6 ) . Both novels use engineering to take control, and manipulate over society. Brave New World takes control of people from the beggary of their being, while Nineteen Eighty-four utilizations engineering to invariably watch society and penalize the disobeyers, finally doing fright. Nevertheless both novels successfully attempt to accomplish entire human control making a dystopia.

In both novels ; Brave New World and Nineteen Eighty-Four, their several societies are populating in a utopia, but for John and Winston they are able to see that it is a dystopia. Even with different methods and engineering used, it is exemplified through the Rebels John and Winston that the defects in the control system will ne’er let complete control. It is proven through them that human nature is possible to pull strings but non destruct. Therefore, this leaves human control and use possible to a certain extent. Despite the Fordian society and Oceania trying to accomplish a utopia utilizing different methods, it is apparent that accomplishing a Utopia is impossible because a perfect universe does non be, and the effort will finally take to an indistinguishable result.

Work Cited

Huxley, Aldous.A Brave New World. London: Chatto & A ; Windus, 1932. Print.

Orwell, George.A Nineteen Eighty-Four. Martin Secker & A ; Warburg Ltd, 1949. Print.

Martin, R.A A. “ Abortion and Birth Control in Literature. ” Literary Reference Center. Ebscohost.

Web. 13 January 2013

Glover, Beaird. “ Nineteen Eighty-four ” Literary Reference Center. Ebscohost. Web. 13 January

2013

Neilson, Keith. “ Brave New World ” Literary Reference Center. Ebscohost. Web. 13 January 2013.

Varricchio, Mario. “ Power of Images/A ImagesA of Power in Brave New World and Nineteen Eighty-

Four. ” Literary Reference Center. Ebscohost. Web. 13 January 2013.

Government: this word is used to define the system that maintains the state and her people. This system is run by officials who, hopefully, have the nation’s best interest at heart; but these best interests for a country often find themselves conflicting in their particular perspectives. In the novel Brave New World by Aldous Huxley, the government has chosen to preserve the interest of state and this dystopia is the result of mankind choosing the wrong faction in the conflict of interest.

To clarify, the principles, theories and arguments presented here in are democratic in orientation and not communistic, because the arguments aim toward freedom and rights. Those in control in Brave New World have misguided the nation’s populace into dystopia, they have lost the people’s interest, they have disregarded the people’s respect and they have effectively stolen evolution. There will always be a great conflict for those with the misfortune of being leaders: to preserve the state or the people.

A decisive argument will skip the moral ethics and get right down to the primary idea: a nation is only possible through her people. This being said, it becomes logical that the right course of action for any leading party is that of the interest of the people; the interest of the people has been touted by many famous political icons throughout the ages as the most vital of a nation’s concerns. In fact “the nation’s concerns” is directly related to the concern’s of her people. This idea, being understood, it is absolutely impossible in a utopian setting that there would be dissatisfaction.

A good leader must make sure that their people are provided for, and this can be done simply by meeting the needs of the nation. If the nation wants for nothing, it can be assumed that order would automatically be ensured amongst her people. In Brave New World, the World Controllers have implemented human conditioning and predestination, these methods have indeed assured them that they operate within the nation’s best interest. In fact, one can say that by brainwashing the people they have stolen control and not earned it, and the ‘utopia’ in Brave New World can be defined as a controlled dictatorship.

This is but another example of how the State has failed the people. Any ruler worth his salt must first earn the respect, or alternatively fear, of his subjects in order to reign successfully. Respect earns the ruler the trust of the people: this trust then allows for orderly conduct amongst the citizens of the country. Earning respect can be achieved by conducting one’s self honorably and proving one’s capabilities. Huxley presents another technique of acquiring respect by employing “hypnopaedia” as means of earning respect and gaining control over the nation. “Of course they don’t.

How can they? They don’t know what it’s like being anything else. We’d mind, of course. But then we’ve been differently conditioned. Besides, we start with a different heredity”(Huxley,5). Brave New World’s Henry foster shows us how conditioning effects a person’s values. The citizens do not respect the controllers, they merely adhere to the rules. Though this does not mean that they are dissatisfied, in actual fact they have no sense of dissatisfaction unless it stands opposed to their hypnopaedic prejudice. “What a hideous colour khaki is,” remarked Lenina, voicing the hypnop? ic prejudices of her caste”(Huxley,4). Essentially what Huxley has wrought is a world of mindless drones with no sense of self, which is quite possibly the worse outcome for mankind, to become enslaved by a system they created and lost control over. There is one major variable that needs to be considered in keeping order in a nation. People change, things change, nothing will ever remain the same for long, and a good government should be as adaptable as the people. If one is to properly maintain order, one must be able to conform with society and trends.

These changes and trends are how mankind has learned and developed, and will continue to do so. As stated, government or those in power, must too be able to move forward or to risk losing control and becoming obsolete. This is quite possibly the biggest flaw in Huxley’s Brave New World: mankind now controls and predestines the people that inhabit their world, and the price for this control has become progress. A society built on the basis of ‘Community, Identity, Stability’ will never be able to face the ever changing, fickle nature of humanity. In order to preserve control they must therefore eliminate evolution.

They have stolen evolution’s format: the world and mankind will forever be stuck in the small cage of Brave New World, and in essence this eliminates anything that is truly either brave or new. In conclusion, it is safe to say that Huxley’s utopia went about achieving its status in the wrong way. Mankind has lost its free will to the controlling powers of a system. This system cannot be called government, as it is more akin in characteristics to slavery. Man no longer has freewill and order is kept not through respect and intellect, but via degeneration nd conduct. The former sections of this essay present strategies and techniques used to maintain order in a society of individuals. Finally, it may be argued that the Brave New World protects society by locking them in a cage of ignorance; however, this is at the cost of freedom, and this is unacceptable. Mankind needs be free in order to progress as has been explained. Protection is all well and good but not at the cost of freedom: humans must be free to make mistakes in order to evolve, grow and create. Societal order must still be maintained, but not abused.

Those in charge are well within their right to impose laws and rules, as long as these laws keep within a reasonable parameter. Protection is one thing, enslavement is another; if protection must come at the cost of freedom then it is not worth it, and I am sure that those in Brave New World, if given the chance, would choose freedom. Huxley’s utopia is a future that we should hope is never realized, it would bring us to ruin. If we must place faith in those in control, let us hope that they possess the qualities presented in this essay, and have the ability to lead a world of free people forward and beyond.