"Brave New World" vs. Today's Society

Aldous Huxley's "Brave New World" has several striking similarities to today's society. The World State and today's world utilize comparable methods of promoting consumption and they also experience some of the same problems in society, though different practices are used to prevent or suppress them. There are also other significant differences that inhibit our society into becoming a dystopian society.

In the World State, the government overpowers everything; it is a totalitarian government. All freedom and liberty are lost, but the population does not seem to know what it is missing since one has never known freedom. The government provides for everything -- jobs, food, homes, etc.-- that would keep the population happy and satisfied. People are designated a caste, in which their future is practically written out for them. Everyone is specially conditioned to love their ranking in life and the work that they do. This prevents social unrest, which further reduces the need for freedom.

In this world, hypnopædic training and the power of convention have merged all individuals into one whole: the social body. They have become an interchangeable part in the society, valuable only for the purpose of social stability. Uniqueness and eccentricity are disapproved of, as everyone is supposed to be like everyone else. The hypnopædic quote "When the individual feels, society reels" demonstrates the assault on individuality. Early in the book, the process of mass human production is introduced. The Bokanovsky Process allows for the creation of virtually identical human beings, which are deliberately deprived of their unique, individual natures, thus making them easier to control. Stability lives, but individuality is basically exterminated.

Our society does not completely abolish freedom, although it certainly is not anarchic. Our government does not limit freedom as extremely as the government of the World State. It also does not attack individuality, but rather, in some ways, encourages it. Each individual is valuable not only for their contribution to society, but also for their distinctiveness. Our government might not be as tightly controlled as the World State's government, but it does grant the population the liberty to make their own decisions and choose their own paths in life.

An area in which the World State and our society correspond is consumption. Both worlds use propaganda and advertisements to bombard and pressure the population into buying certain things, even though it might not be to the consumer's benefit. The difference lies in the methods used to achieve mass consumption. The World State uses hypnopædia, or sleep-teaching, to drill into their subjects' minds phrases such as "Ending is better than mending" and "The more stitches, the less riches," which encourage the incessant consumption of new clothes. Our society uses various television ads, the radio, and the internet to promote consumption, but it does not force these kinds of propaganda onto our citizens. However, since most people are exposed to it almost every minute of their lives, they might as well have been.

In the Brave New World, emotions are suppressed. People raised here do not feel love, anger, sadness, jealousy, etc. Because viviparous reproduction is banned, the words "family" and "mother" elicit no feelings but disgust. People are encouraged to be promiscuous, as monogamy is considered to be abnormal and unorthodox. In this society, "everyone belongs to everyone else." Sex became just a recreational activity, as seen in the Solidarity Services. This undercuts passion, the intense feeling of one person for another. If an individual does experience "negative" feelings, there is always soma. The World State is greatly dependant upon soma, as in our world where prescribed drugs and drug abuse are prominent. Soma and drugs are used to escape the harshness of reality, and some people, both in our world and theirs, absolutely could not imagine a life without them.

The final theme that both world differ in is in religion, science, history, and art. In our world, religion plays an important role in people's lives. Religion guides us, and gives us something to believe in and a set of rules to live by. In Brave New World, Mustapha Mond devalues religion, stating that "[The Holy Bible is] old; they're about God hundreds of years ago. Not about God Now." The new "God" that he is referring to is of course, Ford. Everyone lives a happy and fulfilled life, thus eliminating the need for religion. People are also conditioned to not fear death but accept it as a way of life. That alone is a task that our world still has not been able to accomplish. Another measure taken to stabilize society is the restraint on science, history, and arts. To us these things are highly significant; most could not live without them. To the citizens of the World State, they are irrelevant and even repulsive. Culture from the past is actively suppressed, since it might incite the spark that could threaten social stablility. It could challenge all the very foundation of society. If stability is endangered, so is the utopian world.