Brave New World

The novel Brave New World is like no other in fantasy and satire.

It predicts a future overpowered by technology where the people have

no religion. Has Huxley written about a degrading way of life or has

he discovered the key to a perfect world that should be called Utopia?

This essay will show that upon close analysis the way of life in the

novel is justifiable and all the precautions that are taken are needed

to preserve their lifestyle. This essay will also show that however

different and easily looked upon, as horrible as their lives seem to

be, in actuality it is better than ours.

The first argument that would contradict the fact that Brave New

World is a Utopia is the government overpowering the world, causing

the loss of freedom and liberty in the people. Before judging their

lives the reader must ask himself one simple question: Is it really

that bad? Obviously no it's not. In the novel, the people don't have

to worry about having a job. One must remember that being born and

raised in Utopia, one does not know what freedom is and therefore does

not know what is missing. Freedom leads to happiness, and if one

already possesses happiness, then there is no need for freedom,

especially if your government is making sure that all your needs are

satisfied.

Religion plays an important role in people's lives. It represents

our principles and values. Religion guides us, gives us something

to believe in and a set of rules to live by. However, who is to say

that one hundred years from now people will still believe and

practice religion? Mustapha Mond when referring to the Holy Bible says

that "they're old; they're about God hundreds of years ago. Not about

God Now" (Huxley, p.237). Mustapha Mond is saying that with the

evolution of time the need for religion has disappeared and has been

replaced by the worship of another God who is Ford. They basically

live a fulfilled life and then they die. Also thanks to their

conditioning they do not fear death but accept it as a way of life.

That alone is a task that our world still has not been able to

accomplish. In our world we must go through the ritual of the funeral.

After one has died, his family must go through an enormous task of

planning, organizing and dealing with the death of their now gone

loved one.

In utopian civilization, the people are isolated from one another,

divided into five different classes. The classes range from the

Alphas, the Betas, the Gammas, the Deltas and finally, the Epsilons.

The members of each class are ranked according to their mental

capacity and physical appearance. During the D.H.C.'s lecture to his

students he tells them how by depriving certain embryos of oxygen will

affect their stature. "The lower the cast, the shorter the oxygen."

(Huxley, p.13) It seems unfair that even before you are born, your

future is already written out for you. However upon further study, one

will realize that this sort of precaution is necessary. In our world,

one has to face racism and stereotypes because people feel threatened

by what is different. This conditioning is how the utopian society

eliminated the problem. First of all, each class is conditioned to

love their ranking and to realize that everyone is important and is

indispensable to the society. The important thing here is that the

lower classes are not jealous of the superior classes but even believe

that their work is too tiring for them. The mental inferiority is very

important for the survival of the utopian society. If the lower

classes got too smart they would want to move up in life and that

would ruin the stability of the society.

Another precaution taken to prevent chaos to the society is the

restraint of history, culture and art to the utopian civilization.

According to our views, these things are unquestionably important and

we would go as far as saying that we could not live without them. But

for these people, they are insignificant. Education to us leads to

knowledge and for us knowledge is power and power runs the world.

However for them there is no need for education because they do not

need power. Power will not get them any farther in life then what is

already written out for them. The only kind of books in Brave New

World accessible to the public are reference books. Books with

opinions and emotions are non-existing. This discretion is needed