The Social and Political Attitudes of Brave New World

What if there was a place where you did not have to, or rather, you could not think for yourself? A place where one's happiness was controlled and rationed? How would you adapt with no freedom of thought, speech, or happiness in general? In the novel Brave New World by Aldous Huxley, there are many different attitudes portrayed with the purpose to make the reader think of the possible changes in our society and how they could affect its people.

Brave New World is an unsettling, loveless and even sinister place. This is because Huxley endows his "ideal" society with features calculated to alienate his audience. Typically, reading Brave New World elicits the very same disturbing feelings in the reader which the society it depicts has notionally vanquished - not a sense of joyful anticipation. Huxley's novel presents a startling view of the future which on the surface appears almost comical. His intent, however, is not humor. Huxley's message is dark and depressing. His idea that in centuries to come, a one-world government will rise to power, stripping people's freedom, is not a new idea. What makes Huxley's interpretation different is the fact that his fictional society not only lives in a totalitarian government, but takes an embracive approach like mindless robots. For example, Soma, not nuclear bombs, is the weapon of choice for the World Controllers in Brave New World. The world leaders have realized that fear and intimidation have only limited power; these tactics simply build up resentment in the minds of the oppressed. Subconscious persuasion and mind-altering drugs, on the other hand, appear to have no side effects.

The caste system of this brave new world is equally ingenious. Free from the burdens and tensions of a capitalistic system, which separates people into social classes by natural selection, this dictatorship government is only required to determine the correct number of Alphas, Betas, all the way down the line. Class warfare does not exist because greed, the basic ingredient of capitalism, has been eliminated. Even Deltas and Epsilons are content to do their manual labor. This contentment arises both from the genetic engineering and the extensive conditioning each individual goes through in childhood. In this society, freedom, such as art and religion, in this society has been sacrificed for what Mustapha Mond calls happiness. Indeed almost all of Huxley's characters, save Bernard and the Savage, are content to take their soma ration, go to the feelies, and live their mindless, grey lives. The overwhelming color or ora throughout Brave New World is like a grey haze. Everything and everyone seems dull to the reader, except perhaps the Savage, who is the only bright color in the novel. This grey happiness is the ultimate goal of World Controllers like Mond. Only the Savage knows that true happiness comes from the knowledge that one has value. The savage alludes to this when he describes his childhood on the Reservation where the only time he was happy was after he had completed a project with his own two hands. This, not soma, gives him the self-confidence to find happiness. The Savage knows his own value is as an individual, not a member of a collective.

Other characters in Brave New World, however, have no concept of self-worth. Huxley uses the idea of illusions. For instance, he portrays a vivid picture of the slow but sure deterioration of every person that uses Soma. Like Linda, John's mother. She doesn't even know that she's wasting away. She's so wrapped up is her daily Soma dosage that she completely looses self control. This results in her inability to find the happiness known to the Savage and the rest of the pre-Ford world which lives in the Reservation. True happiness is a consequence of freedom, not slavery. Another example is how Bernard suffers throughout the book, being caught between both worlds: a life of Soma or a life of free will. Although he has been conditioned to accept his servitude, he is constantly longing for freedom. He sees this freedom in the Savage, and envies him for possessing the inner happiness-- genuine happiness-- which Bernard's society outlaws. Huxley uses Bernard to exemplify this struggle between freedom and slavery. Huxley argues that a genuine, free life requires suffering and pain by creating the perfect scenario: leaving someone to choose how they want to live their life. Become an individual or conform. Men without anguish are men without souls. Huxley's future describes a world without pain and a world without soul.

As perfect pleasure-drugs go, Soma under whelms. It's not really a utopian wonder drug at all. Soma does make one high. Yet Soma is more akin to a hangover-fewer tranquillizers or a psychic anaesthetizing like Prozac - than a truly life-transforming elixir. For a start, soma is a very one-dimensional euphoria. It gives rise to only a shallow, un-empathetic and intellectually uninteresting well-being.