Huxley, Plato Comparison on Education

Andrew Surratt
March 27, 2012
Political Theory
Dr. Ramona Grey

Plato’s goal of education for enlightenment differs from Huxley’s perverted use of education for indoctrination.

In Plato’s Republic, Plato believed the state was responsible for the education of its citizens for the purpose of their individual enlightenment. Huxley, in his work Brave New World takes this part of Plato’s utopian society and perverts it in order to indoctrinate the citizens of his state. I will attempt to argue that Huxley uses education by the state to indoctrinate its citizens and ultimately undermine Plato’s theory on education by the state for individual enlightenment. The ways in which Huxley uses education to indoctrinate the individual are diverse. Music or rather hypnopaedic sound was used to indoctrinate the citizens while they slept (Kindle, Huxley, loc 385). Eugenics but more precisely the Bokanovsky Process is used along side with Podsnap’s Technique to create the individual. These processes combined allowed the state to alter embryos and make people into whatever the state desired (Kindle, Huxley, loc 84). The use of music to educate the youth was something Plato originally stated in his utopian society. He stresses that when people are young they are more susceptible to influence (Kindle, Plato, loc 8578). Huxley’s state does this as well and plays hypnopaedic sound (music) while the young are sleeping over and over again to indoctrinate them, and slowly alter their thoughts or make them remember certain things. The uses of hypnopaedic sound vary by tones and tongue but are ultimately used to create “social stability” which is another way of saying “control of the populace”. Hypnopaedic sound is used to make the citizens never try to fix anything or use old things, but buy new ones instead. One of the sounds for this type of indoctrination is “ending is better than mending, ending is better than mending” (Kindle, Huxley, loc 1328). This process of convincing people they need to buy things is a way of gaining contentment and satisfaction as well as benefitting the state by creating a consumer society. The saying or sound “every one belongs to every one else” is also used to create a society where everyone has sex with each other and there are no relationships. The sex is not for procreation but for entertainment seeing as the state creates the individual and regulates childbirth. Plato also favored this sharing in his Utopia but only for his guardian class of citizens. Huxley applied this to his whole society but the sharing is only in-between classes never outside of classes. Another sound to further indoctrinate is “Every one works for every one else. We can’t do without any one. Even epsilons are useful. We couldn’t do without Epsilons. Every one works for every one else. We cant do without any one”(Kindle, Huxley loc 951). This is a type of farce, seeing as not all the citizens of Huxley’s world perform the same tasks or duties. Hypnopaedic sound is also used to convince people to take soma (Kindle, Huxley loc 2699). “A gramme in time saves nine” and “One cubic centimeter cures ten gloomy sentiments” are some of the hypnopaedic sounds used (Kindle, Huxley loc 1140). The drug soma was developed when the government of Huxley’s society took over the pharmaceutical industry. Soma has no side effects except providing an escape for people away from their problems, anxieties or feelings (Kindle, Huxley, loc 1328). This is really another means of control and also perversion by Huxley, which is compounded by hypnopaedic sound. The sound “everybody’s happy now” is used to make people believe they are happy and if you believe you are happy, you are happy (Kindle, Huxley, loc 968). This form of perverted education by Huxley is how the state indoctrinates the individual but this is just a part of it. Huxley’s world state employs the method of the Bokanovsky’s Process to create or rather grow its citizens some thousands at a time (Kindle, Huxley, loc 84). This process combined with the Podsnap’s Technique allows the state to mold and create the individual into whatever the state dictates by using eugenics. Plato favored a process of eugenics also as a means to breed out imperfection. Huxley took this process to creation itself instead of modification through generations (Kindle, Plato, 1252). This is Huxley’s way of specialization, which Plato also talks about in his utopian educational system as a necessary way for the state to function (Kindle, Plato loc 4953). Huxley perverts this and takes it a step further and does not give the individual a choice in what their life may be. Citizens are grown in tubes and altered by means of chemicals, additives, and even gravitational forces (Kindle, Huxley, loc 170). By these alterations people cannot think or do outside of what their task or assigned job is by the states indoctrination. The citizen can only do what it is made to do by this process and cannot question it’s purpose. In Huxley’s world state everyone regardless of their class is completely content being what they are and nothing else. This is again because they cannot think outside of what they have been made and told to be by hypnopaedic sound and state modification. (Kindle, Huxley, loc 959). Huxley’s education by means of hypnopaedic sound and eugenics indoctrinates the citizens of his world state. This indoctrination keeps the people from questioning authority and the status quo and ultimately makes them slaves to Huxley’s world state. Huxley does a fine job in Brave New World of showing what can be possible after a great tragedy occurs and the people need someone to save them. This tragedy would then lead to drastic changes in the way people live and ultimately lead to a whole brave new world. Huxley’s Brave New World does not seem possible in the actual world. Brave New World is more of a cautionary tale of what if and the totalitarian state. The real world is to globalized now and states are interdependent upon one another but hey what if?

Works Cited
Plato, and Benjamin Jowett. Plato 's Republic. Superior Formatting, 2010. Kindle.

Huxley, Aldous. Aldous Huxley 's Brave New World. Amazon, 2010. Kindle.

Cited: Plato, and Benjamin Jowett. Plato 's Republic. Superior Formatting, 2010. Kindle. Huxley, Aldous. Aldous Huxley 's Brave New World. Amazon, 2010. Kindle.