Social pre-destination is a method undertaken in chapter one of brave new world. This is the process by which embryo’s are adapted before birth in order to make them suited to their job as a human being. This means that they will be adapted to what their job is. One example of this is explained in chapter one when the future steel workers and miners and acetate silk spinners are conditioned to thrive on heat during their conditioning. They are made to develop a horror of cold through the form of hard x-rays. This in turn, causes them as humans to migrate to the tropics. They will be taught to love the heat. Another such example occurs when the director talks of the next generation chemical workers being conditioned to tolerate certain chemicals. Yet another example can be seen when he speaks of the future rocket-plane engineers. Before birth they are adapted to be comfortable with topsy-turvydom. This improves their sense of balance for later life.
It can be said that this demonstrates a loss of freedom on behalf of the people in brave new world. They are not being given the chance to choose their own career; rather it is chosen and determined for them as early as before birth.
Chapter two
One of the aspects of brave new world demonstrated in chapter two is Neo-pavlovian conditioning. This is a form of conditioning carried out on the babies. This is unlike the types of conditioning previously mentioned because this conditioning is undertaken after birth whereas the others are carried out before birth. This method of conditioning is used to control from a very early age what the babies like and dislike for the rest of their lives. This is done through associating things with certain reactions. For example, the director electrically shocks the babies and creates loud explosions as a reaction to their playing with the books and the flowers. This will create a idea in the babies heads that every time they try to play with books or flowers these horrible consequences will happen. They learn after continuous repetition of this method, to associate books and flowers with explosions and electric shocks. This will cause them to hate books and flowers for the rest of their lives. The reason for this method in terms of books is in order to keep them away from books, thus never wasting the community’s time over them. In terms of the flowers, it was purely a method used to benefit the economy. If humans were allowed to like flowers and the countryside, although they would still be spending money on transport, they would not be spending any money on anything else. He mentions about flowers, “They are gratuitous. A love of nature keeps no factories busy.” Instead, babies were conditioned to like country sports but hate the countryside. Therefore they would want to go out to play sport, this being beneficial to the community due to the expensive apparatus required for the sports, and regularly consuming transport at the same time.
This technique however, raises the question of whether it is right to control what people like and don’t, just to benefit the economy. Does anyone have the right to chose what other human beings like and don’t. This is yet another aspect of a loss of freedom of the people in brave new world.
Hypnopaedia is a method manipulating the thoughts of humans during their sleep. It could be described as brainwashing. It is a form of sleep teaching described in chapter two. Children are played tapes containing lessons while they are asleep. These lessons are played to them repetitively every night of every week of every month. This essentially drums the thoughts played by the tape into the minds of the children, in turn causing them to follow these ideas and thoughts. This technique is used to make the children happy with the caste they are in and content in their jobs. It is to make every individual happy and content in their individual lives. This technique allows the individuals to be happy with their level of intelligence and to be happy working in their individual jobs, no matter how little or greatly demanding their job may be.
However this process does raise a certain issue of happiness. Although these people truly are happy and content in their careers, can it be argued that this is a genuine happiness. Can it not be argued that this is a false happiness; merely being an artificial feeling created for them. However it can be argued that even if this is an emotion created for them, it is still happiness. Why not make people happy if we can? If people have to live their chosen career why not make them happy in it? However this then raises the question of whether it is morally wrong to condition one’s emotions. It may also be said that they have lost a sense of freedom in the way that they are conditioned to be happy in their career. It could be argued that people should have the right to choose their own emotions, whether they are happy or not in their career.
Elementary class consciousness is
Chapter three
One of the more surprising aspects of Brave new world which becomes apparent to us in chapter three is the attitudes to sex. Sex, is seen as a very open subject by the people in the novel and is even permitted to children from a very early age. In fact, when the DHC informs the students that it was considered morally wrong for sexual play to be undertaken by children, they are shocked and amazed. This is perhaps one of the more surprising aspects of the novel because of the way it differs from our own normalities and morals surrounding sex. Sex in our time is considered rather more of a taboo subject whereas in the play we see it as a very casual and open subject between people. In the novel relationships are not supposed to carry on for any longer than four months. Monogamy is a thing of the past. Single partners and romance are considered bad. There are restrictions on sexual relationships forming any emotional bonds. This is one of the reasons monogamy is not allowed. Families and all the aspects of family life are thought to be a thing of the past. Families are not wanted in brave new world. This is the major reason why emotional bonds are not allowed to form between people. Emotional bonds result in deeper relationships, hence families. Families are thought to be dangerous. Family life is described extremely negatively in the novel. Homes are thought to have been like prisons, physically claustrophobic. The members of the family in the home are thought to create a very mental claustrophobia in the home. The members of the family being horribly intimate with each other. A great emotional claustrophobia being developed. Family life is thought to be very dangerous. It allowed no happiness, and freedom. The emotional pressures were extreme. In fact the origins of brave new worlds sexual moralities were developed from the savages in the tropics. Here everybody belonged to everyone else, every child belonged to every home.
Sex is something undertaken very casually between people and theoretically, everyone is attainable to everyone else. This is justified as being done to eliminate the stress, negative reactions and leaving people unsatisfied. This is another issue of ensuring that everyone is happy in Brave new world. Sex is not considered anything special, just another pleasure. Sex is just another aspect of satisfaction. However, homosexuality is considered abnormal, even morally wrong in the book. In this way it can be said that our world today there is actually more freedom of sex, because of the fact that whereas there is a number of people that think it is wrong, it is treated as much less of a big deal and it is much more common and casually treated.
History is an aspect in brave new world which is treated very negatively. History is not wanted in Brave new world. This can be illustrated in one of Ford’s sayings, “History is bunk.” The people in brave new world are taught no history. This idea however seems very immoral in the way that who has the right to say history is bunk? Who has the right to throw the past away? Surely if people wish to learn about the past they should be able to chose to. Who has the right to blind these humans of what they should be able to see and learn about.
Soma is a drug used in brave new world as a drug to make people happy. It is in a sense an alternative to one of our drugs such as cocaine, only it does not have the side affects or dangers of our drugs. This drug is very commonly used by most people. However, it must be questioned that maybe there is something unattractive about this idea. If people constantly feel they need to take this drug in order to be happy, there may be some suggestion that the world they live in is not so pleasant. If people can’t be happy enough with their surroundings itself, and need to find happiness elsewhere, there must be some unattractiveness to their lives.