The World State is an economically based community, so all activities must involve a high consumerism value. Children are conditioned to dislike the environment because it one doesn’t need to pay to enjoy nature; therefore, outside of travel, no consumerism is involved. Instead of nature, citizens are conditioned to enjoy country sports events. Citizens are always working at the World State. If the population isn’t at work, they are at play. The only time a citizen at the world state is alone is during sleep. There is no time to think; leaving no time to question the position they’re in. When John called the work that the citizens were doing “awful,” Mond argued the opposite: “On the contrary, they like it. It’s light and childishly simple…. Seven and a half hours of mild, unexhausting labor, and then the soma rations and games and unrestricted copulation and the feelies. What more can they ask for (224)?”
The World State eliminates any and all opportunities to be an individual. The individual, according to the World State, undermines society. Poetry, Shakespeare and outside religion are all forbidden and nearly unheard of, because they all promote individuality. The Bokanovsky Process is used in order to eliminate individuality. Multitudes of identical twins exist, all conditioned to work on one specific piece of machinery for the rest of their lives. Through conditioning, they are happy to be a single cell in the society machine, and feel no need to stand out.
Ideally, the World State would like to eliminate every emotion. Citizens are human, so they still need to release. Luckily, “orgy porgy gives release (84).” Soma also is a huge contributor to the release of each person. Soma helps eliminate any unpleasant sense, so everyone can escape their emotions. Having a family creates close attachments and increased emotion toward others, the World State keeps this aspect in check through Podspnap’s Technique, which, though a prodding of the ovary, does away with existence of family. Mustapha Mond described the apparent horror of a family: “My love my baby. No wonder these poor Pre-Moderns were poor and wicked and miserable. Their world didn’t allow them to take things easily, didn’t allow them to be sane, virtuous, happy…And feeling strongly (and strongly, which was more, in solitude, in hopelessly individual society), how could they be stable (41)?”
A recurring theme throughout the World State is that knowledge and happiness are incompatible. Again, soma helps this cause. The drug creates a cloudy abyss of dreams and satisfaction, and those who live in the World State sometimes take this when an unpleasant truth is revealed to them. An example of this was when Lenina tries to take soma during her visit of the Savage Reservation while the brutal sacrifice to the gods ceremony was taking place. Only a very select few know about true science. Not even Alphas such as Bernard and Helmholtz have any specific scientific training. Mond only knows about true science because he is a World Controller. When he was younger he actually got in trouble as a young scientist by challenging the scientific system. Mond argues that searching for truth through experimentation disrupts society. His basis is that experimentation promotes change, and change undermines the community.
The government in this novel is a totalitarian one. It controls its citizen’s lives and morals in order to keep its stability and power in order. Through technology that adjusts human behavior from before birth until after death, the World State maintains complete subservience of its people. The people among the World State are so happy and mentally complete that they don’t care about their personal freedom. Grand struggles and overwhelming emotion are substituted for the sake of social stability.
The World State gets rid off any and all sources that could be detrimental to the stability of the World State society. Bibles are forbidden, and anyone who acts as if they could influence others defectively would be exiled. There were those who fought against the World State, but before they could accomplish anything substantial, they found themselves on an island with other folks who tried to perform the same deed. As soon as Helmholtz and Bernard were exiled, they lost their fight against the World State.
Through complete control of society, the World State keeps the population happy. However, their definition of happy is instant gratification. True happiness is truly felt when one has had misery to compare to their current feelings. Without feelings, compassion, morals, values or emotions, a person is not getting the full human experience. Without humanity, no true happiness can be felt. By controlling their peoples actions and emotions, the World State is rendering their domain to nothing shot of a dystopia.
