A Brave New World - Happiness

In the novel, A Brave New World, the author Aldous Huxley creates a world where the people are ignorant of the truth, and are, therefore, in a state of bliss that they mistake as happiness. The people in the World State are in a world where they don't know what true happiness is. The way they have lived their lives has blocked out real happiness. Through conditioning and drugging the government has kept the people of the World State ignorant to the truth. The people in the World State believe they are happy when really they are in an ignorant bliss.

When people are, "born" in the World State they are put through a process called conditioning. This conditioning changes how they would normally feel about something and makes them do what the world state wants them to do. For example, if the World State wanted the person to like working outside, they would condition that person to like working outside. So now even if the person liked to work inside he would think he likes to work outside and be happy about it, but if he knew better he wouldn't be happy. The ignorance of that person keeps him in a state of bliss, but not happiness.

As people live their lives in the World State they work the jobs they have been conditioned for, and do what the government tells them to do. The people think that their jobs are the best thing they can do. The government and their society says that they should be promiscuous. Some of the people in the book feel the need to settle down, but most just go on being promiscuous never knowing what it truly means to love and be happy. Not knowing what love is they go on thinking they have achieved happiness. They have been kept from the truth so they don't know what it is like to be truly happy.

The final way the World State keeps people happy is a drug called soma. Soma is the perfect drug. Soma takes everything away and gives the ultimate high, without any bad side effects. It makes the people happy no matter what but its temporary and fake just like every drug. This drug puts the people into another bliss. Keeping the people from feeling, it makes them happy.

The people in this book have been played for fools and are ignorant to real happiness. The government uses conditioning, society and drug to keep them from the truth. If the people knew what they were missing then they wouldn't be happy with their lives, but since they don't