Technology In Brave New World

I. Introduction
Brave New World, written by Aldous Huxley in 1931, shows a fictional dystopian society located in London that greatly relies on technology and rejects today’s values such as love, family and emotion in order to achieve maximum societal stability and gain a false sense of happiness. The novel grasps concepts of futurology, which bolster the idea of the book satirizing modern society and showing what it could become. In the not so distant future, the novel predicts that humans will innovate technology and enable it to control the genes of the community members and continue to mold them using repetitive hypnotic treatments and other mentally challenging processes. Manipulation of such reproductive and mind altering procedures
enabled the World State to shape their own community and let each person’s physical and mental attributes match their assigned class. The gap between social classes took great importance in the novel. Higher caste humans were made genetically superior while lower castes were deprived of more handsome qualities. Yet, each member of the caste was made comfortable with their place through mental conditioning starting at a very early age.
People were stripped of the ability to be an individual, given drugs (soma) to feel happy and avoid the facing the realities of their current situations. The novel also praises the works of Henry Ford as they use his name in place of God’s and model the society after the assembly line and mass production. It continues to show how the community is influenced by machines and industry to create a sense of uniformity, conformity and efficiency. The author’s attitude about the importance of technology and science is that it can transform life completely and negatively affect society. People are taught to gratify their needs with the simple consumption of soma and to avoid personal connections. Wants such as sex, happiness and material goods are almost immediately attained so that negative feelings will not influence anybody to stray from their job or role to the system. In order for the society to function as a whole in this novel, every member is “programmed” to fit in, engage in sexually satisfying acts with others without establishing a personal relationship, and keep away from finding the truth about life as we know it. Although, the State seems to function well, it is still considered a dystopia due to it’s lack of truth, free will and ability for
others to be unique.

II. Scholarly Article The article, Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World - Still A Chilling Vision After All These Years by Bob Barr calls to show that humans do not seek stability in life. Humankind strives to better itself, search the unknown, learn, and accomplish these tasks with imagination and courage. It also points out that government is the arch enemy of humanity, saying that it revolves around conformity and total control. Government was more able to take control of citizens through use of technology. It continues bringing up parallels between the modern world and the World State in Brave New World such as the push for stability and liberty. The article also shows the dangers that arise from a nearly perfect society. I agree with the major points created in this article. Government has indeed suppressed individuals all throughout history and the use of technology could certainly lead to total control. Brave New World’s Mustapha Mond, for example, was marked as a benign dictator who offered the society sexual, mental and physical gratification and in turn received their lives to dedicate to the community. Modern societies could very likely use this method of reward over punishment to take control of the population. This method, I believe, would work the best in countries full of poverty. Those homeless citizens would, no doubt, give their time and lives in exchange of basic necessities such as food, water and shelter. Lastly, I concur with the idea that an almost perfect society is still a dystopian society. If such a society is created and modeled after that in Brave New World, creative geniuses would not have survived. Humans would be stuck in a perpetual dark age, where there would be no advances in the arts, literature, science, and so forth. The unknown would remain unknown and mankind’s thirst for truth would remain unquenched. So, in conclusion, the road to finding stability and security in society is indeed an uninteresting one.

III. Author’s Style
Aldous Huxley’s writing style in this excerpt of the novel is very scientific. Huxley’s characters introduce a false scientific breakthrough called Bokanovsky’s Process which allows “the principle of mass production [to apply to] biology.” (7) The Process is further explained and given numerical examples to make the reproductive method seem more plausible and remarkable. The process may also reference Gregor Mendel’s work about heredity and reproduction. This subtle reference to an esteemed scientist increases the believability of Bokanovsky’s process once again. As the director speaks about the embryos, he thinks of them almost as if they were plants rather than living human beings. This proves that their dependance on modern technology to create life has removed the feeling that life is precious and replaced it with a cold relation to machinery and mass production. Mass production is also another important concept in this excerpt and throughout the novel. Creating lives has become so simple through innovative technology and humans themselves have become factory products. The director even mentions that the goal of the hatching center is to “manufacture as many batches of identical twins as possible.” (8) Huxley’s diction only continues to show the important role of industry and technology in this dystopian society. Key words such as manufactured, and decanted support this technological importance in the novel. Overall, Huxley’s style is machine like and scientific in order to prove a point that continuation in sciences to better technology could lead to his view of dystopia.

IV. Theme
In Brave New World, the State is almighty. They are able to mass produce humans and shape their mental and physical attributes to fit their social caste. This manipulation is made possible through the extensive innovation of machines. In turn, through this technological breakthrough, it becomes a necessity for dividing social classes and providing social stability. Reliance on technology becomes a major theme throughout the novel. The order of social status from highest to low is as follows: Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta and Epsilon.
The Humans are categorized into such groups before they are “born” (live birth no longer exists and test tube babies are made instead). Alphas, the superior class, are enhanced with the best genes to make them taller, stronger, and smarter and so forth. The lower caste embryos are intentionally maimed and undergo cruel tests to alter their genes and let their physical form show inferiority. One process mentioned in the novel to disadvantage these low class humans was to “put alcohol into [their] blood-surrogate” (46). The alteration of genes shows great importance in the story. As an Alpha, Bernard Marx, is constantly troubled by his physical deficiency caused by alcohol accidentally mixed into his blood. Several other methods are used to differentiate the castes from each other. For example, to harm the brains of the Epsilons and other low status embryos, (they are made for factory/manual labor and are believed not to need intelligence for such a job) they are put under an oxygen shortage. Mr. Foster, an Alpha working in the Hatching Center, even exclaims “nothing like oxygen-shortage for keeping an embryo below par,” (14) proving that they use technology to put limitations on the different social classes. In a Brave New World, technology was manipulated to shape the community, their physical and mental features. By doing this, the gap between social classes becomes more
distinct and members of the community will be well aware of such differences between each other. In these ways, reliance on technology remains a major theme in the novel.

V. Conclusion Aldous Huxley's Brave New World is a fantastic satire of today's society and what it could easily become through manipulation of technology. Many parallels could be made between the novel and reality, so therefore it is quite possible for today’s society to evolve into that of Huxley’s novel. Mankind continues to improve and make innovations to technology to make them more efficient, faster, able to produce more of anything (including humans) than ever before. All the processes mentioned in the Brave New World are plausible and could very well create a path to reproductive/genetic control and then total government control of the population. Obsessing over science to improve technology and leading to an industrial/manufacturing breakthrough is proved, through the novel, to possibly lead to a dystopian society. As mentioned in the article, themes in Brave New World could be applied to our reality and it can already be seen today that technology takes a huge toll on people’s lives. People today become dependent on their phones, computers and other products, so transforming into a society created in the novel is very plausible. Yet mankind’s thirst to learn and discover the unknown provides a large enough barrier from keeping that transformation to occur. People are accustomed to want a more eventful life, to avoid stability and uniformity. The novel provides it’s audience with a realistic look into the future and allows us to view the terrors of that society and their outrageous values. By showing this horrible and miserable life without individuality and creativity or imagination, people and governments are taught to avoid the flaws that the World State made, which was to again rely on technology to the point where they lose sight of human nature.

VI. Poem
The poem “I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings” by Maya Angelou features two birds (one free, one imprisoned). The caged bird yearns to be free, fun and wild like the other bird and therefore sings for his freedom. This poem can be related most to the character of Bernard Marx in Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World. He can symbolically be recognized by the caged bird in Angelous’ poem. There are several instances in the novel where Bernard acknowledges his physical and mental differences from other and is fearful of such dissimilarities. Yet, he chooses to recognize and accept the fact that he feels different, therefore gaining a sense of freedom (free will). Through his realization that he is, indeed, different from the rest, he chooses not to conform with how his society feels or acts. For example, rather than having meaningless, drug influenced sexual relations with the beautiful Lenina, Bernard rather wishes she were not such a tool for me. Another way Bernard shows individuality through his attitude and disinterest in common community pleasures (sex, sports, etc). In a way, his social status also keeps him from being free. Although he is a member of the highest caste in society, his physical deficiency (height) keeps him from fitting into his assigned social class. Bernard is left to feel trapped by his inability to fill the physical role of an Alpha plus and nonconformist ideas about the world around him. Lastly, like the bird in the poem, Bernard’s call for freedom is answered although much to his dismay. Bernard is exiled from the World State and forced to live on an island where other nonconformists are banished.