Dystopian Society In Aldous Huxley's Brave New World

Although the novel, “Brave New World”, encourages sexual intercourse, drug use, and opposes any form of family, and religion it should be kept in the high school curriculum because these are our worst features of our world drawn out and exaggerated, and humanity seems to be moving closer to Huxley’s dystopian vision.
Huxley’s literary work of “Brave New World” creates an almost reflective image with our world today. Many elements in his writing have an over whelming similarity to today’s society because our worst features are drawn out and exaggerated, but still based off the similar concepts and values. One feature that could be comparable with our society to that of the World State would be holding technology at religious standards. During the era of the novel, Henry Ford had just
introduced the model T an entirely new technological advancement, which the World State used as a symbol of religion. The dates are all written with the initials “A.F.” which stand for After Ford, which is very similar to our calendar system that begins with A.D. standing for the birth of Jesus, “in this year of stability, A. F. 632” (Chapter 1). Today’s society is shying away from religion and is focused more on technology, as shown in this novel. Other technical advancements that relate to our technology today are the production of organisms in a lab separate from its mothers whom, "Ninety-six seemed to be the limit; seventy-two a good average. From the same ovary and with gametes of the same male” (Chapter 1). This shows how we share many of the similarities compared to the novel; however, they are exaggerated compared to where we are technology wise.
Humanity seems to be moving closer to Huxley’s dystopian vision. This is due to the fact that our values are centered around industrial, economic, and technological growth. With the capabilities, knowledge, and technology the World State is able to modify the humans that they mass produce in order to never be satisfied, and to immediately satisfy these needs, or to obtain immediate gratification, so that they are be consumers, “to abolish the love of nature, but not the tendency to consume transport” (Chapter 2). Everything was looked through an economic view so the modification of humans was occurring in order to have maximum consumption and participate in the production, “Alpha children wear grey. They work much harder than we do, because they’re so frightfully clever” (Chapter 2). This demonstrates that a certain amount of the population was modified in order to be able to work much harder for maximum production. Our society today is based on consumption in order for growth economically, and to satisfy our needs and wants. Industries aid in our economic growth through the production of products to consume, and these products are either produced through the advancement of technology or are technology. Industries advertise in order to create the desire to obtain the product, and through today’s standards to be accepted in a social class, as in the novel.
In the novel certain behavior is encouraged such as sexual intercourse and the use of drugs, however, the encouragement of both of these behaviors are only encouraged in the literary work and have no such intentions to influence its readers in anyway. The intentions of Huxley were to create an image of a world as having such a dominant power it controls even the aspect of sexual interaction. They limit their reproductive rights as organisms, by sterilizing a certain number of the woman population, and for the remaining woman they are required to use contraceptives, they do this to the remaining woman’s population in order to remove their ovaries for the mass production of humans as needed, “some account of the technique for preserving the excised ovary alive and actively developing.” Another aspect of sex in the novel was used to show immediate gratification to satisfy the wants of individuals immediately. Immediate gratification was used in order to control the population, and immediate gratification was obtained by using the drug or sedative soma, “the warm, the richly colored, the infinitely friendly world of soma-holiday” (Chapter 5). These were the intentions the author intended the reader to interpret through the use of these symbols, and had no desire to directly influence him or her.
The writing also is against family and against religion; however, the purpose of this is to create a certain image of this dystopian society.
The reason the World State is against family and against religion is because they believe a family, participation in religion, or anything that allows personal thought may create unwanted problems. The overall goal for the World State is to create a society similar to a utopian society; however, they create the complete opposite not allowing anyone to expand their mind, completely controlling their life from beginning to end. Neither of these concepts is intended for the reader to become influence by them but instead only to convey the overall image.
The novel “Brave New World” should be kept in the high school curriculum because it creates concepts that are similarly based on today’s values. However, some may find it offensive due to some fragments of the literary work, and believe it should be banned from high school curriculum, but one is not intended to receive any misleading advice or become influenced based on the novels content. The novel provides a very vivid image of a dystopian society and that was Huxley’s intention and nothing
more.