Carl von Ossietzky University Oldenburg, English Department
Course: “Literary Utopias and Dystopias in Britain”
Semester: Summer Semester 2005

Aldous Huxley′s "Brave New World" –
Major Themes and what has become reality today

by: Florian Schumacher

Table of contents

1. Introduction

2.1 Community, Identity and Stability in Contrast to Individual Freedom
2.2 Technology Used to Control Society
2.3 The Dangers of Genetic Engineering
2.4 The Misuse of Psychological Conditioning
2.5 Promiscuity to Achieve Happiness
2.6 The Extreme Pursuit of Happiness through Drugs and Mindless Consumption.
2.7 The Destruction of the Institution “Family”
2.8 The Ingenious Caste System in Brave New World
2.9 The Dangers of an All Powerful, Totalitarian State
2.10 The Incompatibility of Happiness and Truth

3. What are the Costs and Benefits of a Society Like the One in the Novel?

4. How can we Prevent our Society from Becoming a Brave New World?

5. Bibliography

1. Introduction

Being a utopian novel, Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World describes the future, including events that must have seemed fantastic and even unrealistic to most of Huxley’s contemporaries. Today, however, most of those things no longer seem so fantastic and some of them have become reality – at least to a certain extent. Aldous Huxley himself said that “the theme of Brave New World is the advancement of science as it affects human individuals” (written in the preface of Brave New World). This paper is going to focus on several different, and in my opinion important, themes of the novel and it will also take a look at how many of the novels “visions” have become reality today.

The first theme that is going to be discussed is the contrast between the World State’s motto “Community, Identity and Stability” and individual freedom. After that, the paper will focus on technology used to control the society in Brave New World and on the dangers of genetical engineering. The misuse of psychological conditioning, promiscuity used to ensure happiness and the extreme pursuit of happiness trough drugs and mindless consumption are also important themes that will be looked at. Afterwards, I will discuss the destruction of the family, the ingenious caste system of Brave New World, the dangers of an all powerful, totalitarian state and, finally, the incompatibility of happiness and truth. After looking at each theme more closely, I will give an account of how much of a certain theme has become reality today and I will conclude the essay with the question “What are the costs of a society like in Brave New World and how can we prevent things like in the novel from becoming reality in our society today?”

2.1 Community, Identity and Stability in Contrast to Individual Freedom

The motto of the World State in Brave New World is “community, identity and stability” and most of the things done by the government revolve around those three terms. Community is seen as a result of identity and stability and it is also achieved through a “religion” that encourages people to achieve solidarity through sexual orgies. Community is also accomplished by organizing the life of the citizens in such a perfect way that a person is almost never alone and has to conform to the masses. Identity in the novel is mostly a result of genetic engineering. The state uses hypnopaedia and behaviorism to condition its citizens and to give them an identity that is desirable – at least to the state. The society in the novel is divided into five classes and into hereditary social groups and the state also influences the identity of its citizens by teaching them conformity. Whoever feels different in Brave New World (like Bernard Marx or John, the savage) is almost immediately made to feel like an outcast and strongly criticized by other people. You can say that the state’s motto is completely incompatible with individual freedom. There is no room for individual thinking or freedom in the society, nobody can ever be alone and, since people only do what they are conditioned to do, they do not even think about individual freedom – in fact, they hardly think on their own at all.

The entire society in the novel is organized to ensure stability. It is divided into a caste system and the government tries by all means to keep its people happy. Also, the cloning system assures stability because genetically identical “individuals” are less likely to come into conflict with each other or the system. A quote of the Director shows that cloning and stability are closely related: “Bokanovsky’s Process is one of the major instruments of social stability”.¹ Stability in the novel means minimizing risk, conflict and most of all change. The World Controllers try desperately to avoid any kind of change because they believe that change undermines stability. Therefore, even though they make “progress” one of the key features of the World State, in reality they stick to the technology they already use and try to prevent progress in scientific research.

How it is today

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. But we are still far from conditions like in the novel. Additionally, the point that identity is influenced trough genetic engineering is becoming relevant today, too. I will go into this in more detail later when I take a look at the theme of genetic engineering. 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 them happy at all costs. And even though there is no traditional class system anymore today, most of the societies are still divided into classes, although some people deny this.

2.2 Technology Used to Control Society

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1 The director on page 7 in the novel