Does The Government Have The Public's Best Interests At Mind?

Does the government have the public’s best interests at mind? Many a time have people unsatisfied by their government asked that question. It was asked by the French revolutionaries before abolishing the monarchy, the Bolsheviks before deposing the Tsar, the Nazis before ridding Germany of democracy. And it is one of the many questions one may ask after reading Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World. Written in 1932, Brave New World follows the stories of several citizens of the World State, where all is controlled by the government. Deeply unhappy, shackled, isolated from their peers, and questioning their leaders’ motives, they long for change. Though different in ideology, the World State is no different in its approach to ruling from the French
In most countries, issues concerning the altar, the bedroom, the womb, and the hospital room are seen as things that ought to be outside the government’s jurisdiction. The World State is the opposite: it operates hatcheries where it genetically engineers and clones human embryos by the tens of thousands (Huxley 1-6). The World State’s tampering with the genetic makeup of humans is an encroachment on the human body and is a gross affront to what many hold dearly as the sanctity of life. What could have been used to cure illness and improve the human body’s physical and mental capabilities is used to support the World Controllers’ production- and consumption-oriented agenda. If the World State were a democracy, where the government does not have total control, the hatcheries would be met with furor; however, having conditioned the public to reject liberty and democracy, which would have given a platform for dissent, the World State manufactures babies with free rein. Moreover, the hatcheries, as described by Henry Foster, have total control over the roles the babies will play in society: “‘We also predestine and condition. We decant our babies as socialized human beings, as Alphas or Epsilons, as future sewage works or future…’ He was going to say future World Controllers, but correcting himself, said ‘future Directors of Hatcheries,’ instead” (Huxley 10). Relating back to the lack of liberty,
Beginning before birth, the government taps into the human mind by altering one’s intelligence. Members of the lower castes are made unintelligent—“The lower the caste … the shorter the oxygen” (Huxley 11)—and are to serve the World State not as thinkers but as bovine workers. Those of the lower castes could not think for themselves even if they were permitted to do so. Their feeblemindedness is irreversible, which is undeniably heinous of the World State. In a similar vein is the World State’s conditioning processes, which disseminate the World Controllers’ propaganda, promote social cohesion, and make slaves out of the citizens. The World Controllers’ goal is to condition everyone, beginning during childhood, until “at last the … mind is these suggestions, and the sum of the suggestions is the … mind,” and until the mind is “made up of … our [the World Controllers’] suggestions!” (Huxley 23). The World Controllers implant thoughts into the minds of their inferiors as if they were their own. Opposing the World State, for most, is seemingly impossible. The World State, having appropriated the human mind, is undoubtedly in full control of its