Cayla Cobb
Mrs. Taylor
English IV Honors, Per. 4
16 November 2018
Research Paper
"Alpha children wear grey. They work much harder than we do, because they're so frightfully clever. I'm awfully glad I'm a Beta, because I don't work so hard. And then we are much better than the Gammas and Deltas. Gammas are stupid. They all wear green, and Delta children wear khaki" (Huxley, 27). This is an example of the voice that would be played through the night under sleeping children’s pillows. This information is repeated to the Beta kids while they slept so they recognize their status in life and learn to accept and be content with their lives as it is. The World State is a body that uses different forms of mind control to guarantee a functioning society of consumerism and false sense of happiness and identity. The children of the world state are being brainwashed with hypnopedia into acting and thinking a certain way that will stay with them throughout their lives. These messages promote societal ideals regarding class roles and proper behavior regarding sex and conformity. Child conditioning, Hypnopaedia, and forms of mind control in Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World are used to control and give a false sense of happiness and stability to the population of the World State and using methods that we still use today, catchy sayings and phrases and memorization, it promotes societal ideals regarding class roles, proper behavior regarding sex, and conformity and demonstrate how these methods are still used in certain forms of in our society today.
In the world state, citizens are regarded as the possession of the government. Children are not born out of sexual intercourse between a couple, but they are scientifically created in an assembly line and “decanted” in the same way Henry Ford manufactured cars. The World State strips it citizens of anything that would make them an individual and pushes them down to become slaves by “methods of ectogenesis, neo-Pavlovian conditioning and hypnopaedia” (Huxley, 50). The World State wants to stabilize the population, because there is “no civilization without social stability. No social stability without individual stability” (Huxley, 42). The use of hypnopaedia further took individuality from the citizens at a young age. Some of the slogans used in the messages delivered through sleep instilled a strong sense of consumerism while others strengthened the importance of drugs. “The implication of these dull slogans is two-fold. First, these consumption-inspiring proverbs are inculcated in the minds of children and become their ideals. Second, the children's mental and thinking powers are curbed as the sleep-teaching lessons form the constitutions of their minds” (Hamamra, 2017). Language is manipulated by the repetition of certain slogans through hypnopedia, which convinces the members of the World State that these slogans are absolute, obvious, and proverbial. "Community, Identity, Stability" (Huxley, 1) is the World State’s primary slogan. "Community" means that all citizens have to work with one another to insure well being of the society as a whole, and it happens through the artificial notion of "Identity" that each person holds. Alphas, Betas, Gammas, and Deltas are supposed to be satisfied with the identity they were born into. Lastly, "Stability" is the objective of society because only through the stability of the citizens as a whole can prosperity be conserved and ill-disposedness be removed.
As a consequence of conditioning, when the people of the World State mature into adults, they perform their social function efficiently and contently.
The World State has supremacy over its citizens in the cradle of consumption where it feeds on them by leaving them “no leisure from pleasure, not a moment to sit down and think” (Huxley, 55). The World State closes the doors of solitary amusements that impoverish consumption. Child conditioning is a prominent tactic used to keep lower caste children from spending time doing leisurely activities instead of working. Huxley paints a very graphic picture in the novel of shocking infants as they approach a set of colorful children's books and blaring sirens as the near a bowl of rose petals left out. The social conditioning of these children in its most extreme form is used for them to associate pain and loud sounds with nature and books. “The reason for this desirable hatred of nature is simple: an appreciation of nature takes people away from their duties of production and consumption; citizens are therefore made to believe that they can live in a natural environment only if they are wearing special clothing” (Hochman, 1998). The lower caste is conditioned to be afraid of nature, but also conditioned to love very complex and expensive games at a young age. Keeping the lower caste occupied with sports and keeping them oblivious to books will, in turn, keep them happy and keep them from gaining knowledge and rebelling.
The World State completely removes of cultural, aesthetic, and religious experiences, which impede materialist welfare. The inhabitants of the world state are brainwashed into believing what the World Controllers believe is best for them and the economy. Action is taken by replacing religion by the worship of Henry Ford, whom the people of the World State identify as the all mighty power of their civilization. The calendar year begins in A.F (After Ford) 632, “this year of stability” (Huxley, 4), thus, our previous calendar A.D beginning with the birth of Christ is eradicated from the World State. The elimination of religion emanates from the view that spiritual values, which cover all the intellectual and emotional ground and provide their devotees with uplifting rites, are contrary to machinery, happiness and scientific progress (Hamamra, 2017). Soma is a substitute for religion used by the World State as a guarantee against any disruptive ideas. Religion manifests itself as absence in the minds of the citizens because religion is in the mind of the conscious individual not in the "mind" of the mindless collective. In addition to suppressing religion and passions, the world state vanquish literature for it provides a critical understanding of humanity.
“There were some things called the pyramids, for example […] And a man called Shakespeare. You've never heard of them of course […]. Such are the advantages of a really scientific education" (p. 44). Through the juxtaposition of past and present narratives, Brave New World creates a future society full of void. John asks Mustapha Mond: "Why don't you let them see Othello instead [of the feelies]?"(p. 193). Mond claims that the idea of stability and "human progress" makes Othello incompatible with the modern world. This "world is not the same as Othello's [because] the world's stable now" (p. 193). Furthermore, the world state bans Shakespeare because it is old and beautiful. "Beauty's attractive", Mond explains, "and we don't want people to be attracted by old things. We want them to like the new ones" (p. 193). John the Savage's acquaintance with Shakespeare, which enables John to formulate potentially disruptive thoughts and emotions, discloses the reason behind the controllers' attempt to erase Shakespeare and other literary works from the landscape of the world state.
Child conditioning, hypnopædia, and mind control are all very prominent methods of controlling the population in Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World. These methods of control are enforced by the World Controllers to reinforce the societal ideas that are put in place to support their utopian society and consumerist lifestyle. The World State goes to very extreme lengths to make sure that all of their citizens are stripped of their individualism and free thinking. Children in the World State are conditioned from a young age to hate things that will lower the consumerist lifestyle. They are also stripped of any sense of history before the World State to keep them at bay. Although the controllers spent so much time protecting their craft and keeping everyone oblivious to how the world actually works, their societal standards were toppled by a singular young man who, unlike everyone in the World state, knew that this utopian society was on its last legs.
Citations
Schmerl, Rudolf B. "Aldous Huxley’s Social Criticism." Twentieth-Century Literary Criticism, edited by Lawrence J. Trudeau, vol. 336, Gale, 2017. Literature Resource Center, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/H1420122321/LitRC?u=mira63459&sid=LitRC&xid=38f0e44a. Accessed 5 Nov. 2018. Originally published in Chicago Review, vol. 13, no. 1, 1959, pp. 37-58.
Hochman, Jhan. "An overview of Brave New World." Literature Resource Center, Gale, 2018. Literature Resource Center, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/H1420001019/LitRC?u=mira63459&sid=LitRC&xid=41a283fb. Accessed 5 Nov. 2018. Originally published in an Essay for Exploring Novels, Gale, 1998.
Hamamra, Bilal Tawfiq. "A Foucauldian reading of Huxley's Brave New World." Theory and Practice in Language Studies, vol. 7, no. 1, 2017, p. 12+. Literature Resource Center, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A488510291/LitRC?u=mira63459&sid=LitRC&xid=27ac5a03. Accessed 5 Nov. 2018.