Genetic Engineering In Aldous Huxley's Brave New World

Genetic Engineering in the World
Eighty-five years ago, the publication of the novel Brave New World by Aldous Huxley changed the perspective of Americans towards genetic engineering. “Genetic engineering is the deliberate modification of the characteristics of an organism by manipulating its genetic material” (Michaels 1). In this novel, there is an abundant misapplication of genetic engineering to control society. The practice of genetic engineering in Huxley’s world is extremely dangerous as it denies social order, diminishes individual freedom and enhances government supremacy within the society which is manifested in modern civilization as well.
In the modern days, many of Huxley’s technological ideas in the novel are portrayed. Although
In the novel, babies are born with no mother and father at a hatchery. Instead, in this hatchery their future is predetermined as their intelligence is programmed depending upon their future roles; those destined to the lower classes are given less oxygen circulation so that they are kept below par. The ones below par are the Epsilons while the most prestigious ones are the Alphas. By separating people into certain groups, the government successfully terminates social order: “They hurried out of the room and returned in a minute or two, each pushing a kind of tall dumb-waiter laden, on all its four wire-netted shelves, with eight-month-old babies, all exactly alike (a Bokanovsky Group, it was evident) and all (since their caste was Delta) dressed in khaki.” (Huxley 2). It is evident that in the novel, people of different social castes dress in different ways and that is a way to determine their rank in society. By programming people to be a certain way and to see each other in a different lighret, the government removes the citizen’s need for the family unit and the possession of any emotional closeness between them. If the need to be together in order to reproduce is inexistant, then any incentive for monogamy is removed. Thus, by genetically modifying humans in the first place, the government successfully absorbs the freedom of each member in the society which can be represented in
Through individual freedom control and social control the government is able to be all-powerful. The novel is a satire of a totalitarian government and although it is fantasy, there are early traces of it occurring in modern day. It is hard to imagine a government that is solely based on the ideals of the people when there is an elected government body that makes decisions. The government’s goal is to have steadiness and affluence and that, at times, is accomplished at the expense of the individuals who are governed. Accordingly, there is danger in having an all-powerful state because personal freedoms are lost. The state motto of “community, identity and stability” has only become reality to a certain extent. In today’s society, individualism is still very common. However, like in the novel, the government, at least in the Western hemisphere, tries to force its people into certain kinds of communities, for example schools. Additionally, the point that identity is influenced through genetic engineering is becoming relevant today, too. Stability is also a term that is important today – in almost all countries. Every leader (or leading party) wants stability and tries to achieve it through different measures. Compared to Brave New World, it is interesting to see that most of the states today which want to achieve stability and have control over their citizens, try to intimidate them rather than trying to keep