How close is modern America’s government to controlling all, if not most, of our society today? Our current government gradually begins to take over the lives of people like that in Brave New World. Aldous Huxley’s novel Brave New World depicts a futuristic society that utilizes science to control the lives of mostly everybody by categorizing them into specific castes. The author’s vision of a utopian society in his novel is relatively, but not entirely, close to modern American society. Although Huxley published Brave New World in 1932, his vision of the future society frightens people of the idea that they could be controlled through scientific advances which is quite possible in this time of age. Huxley’s utopian society in Brave New World emphasizes the use of science to manage the lives of people beginning from their birth and all the way to their death. In Huxley’s society, the five categories in the caste are Alphas, Betas, Gammas, Deltas, and Epsilons. However, only the Gammas, Deltas, and Epsilons “undergo Bokanovsky’s Process” to produce a mass of set identical twins (17-18). As a result of mass producing, individualism is completely removed out of the equation. Their society strips away any possible uniqueness by forcing everybody to be identical. In fact, Huxley writes that “every one belongs to everyone else” implying that promiscuity is acceptable in their society (46). Also, the government invented an anti-depressant drug known as “soma” that causes one to escape reality after experiencing an unpleasant emotion, such as: frustration, despair, anger, jealously (62). Soma prevents the people from ever having to experience negative feelings, which as a result strips away their humanity. Forced to like and dislike certain things, as well as behaving in a certain manner, the populace undergoes this experience through a program called hynopædia. Through hynopædia, Betas are taught that “Epsilons are [the] worse” because they’ve been deprived of oxygen the most which lowers their intelligence (35). Not only depriving them of oxygen to lower their intelligence, but also censoring the past to refuse the people any knowledge of the time before A.F. 150. Restricting access to history’s past allows the World State’s motto, “Community, Identity, Stability” to remain intact. Without restriction, people would have access to books that would include “tragedies [which would lead to] social instability” (198). Huxley’s society achieves stability, again, by restricting the people of having a range of emotions. Therefore, the restriction of history allows people to be stabilized and simultaneously decreasing the chances of a downfall in the community. Modern American society includes an abundance of similar concepts to Huxley’s vision.
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For example, the cloning process in today’s era produces similar results to Brave New World. Although not quite there to human cloning, scientific researchers have “successfully cloned sea urchins” which is a huge step towards the cloning process of people (Larson). However, current technology does not allow us to successfully clone another person without having any side effects. Not only does current technology hold us back, but ethical reasons as well. Dovey from Medical Daily states that only “one out of 100 cloning attempts ending in a viable animal,” resulting in many deaths just to achieve a single successful outcome (Dovey). Incidentally, people consume antidepressant drugs to make them feel better about themselves temporarily just to block out all of the negative emotions. Similarly, soma and antidepressants both have the same purpose, to remove all non-positive feelings. Equally important, technology nowadays seems to rip away people’s individuality because creativity “is simply there for us” on social media now (Arnold). Social media’s intentions to create an environment that is more accessible for people to communicate with each other all around the world, has a negative effect alongside it. According to Briana Ellison, technology proves to be “responsible for the rapid loss of relationships” (Ellison). In addition, new reporters and the government have the ability to censor certain types of events from the social media. As an example, “governments [try] to control the flow of information” by concealing certain knowledge about the past to make our country seem as if it were perfect (Bennett). After all, everything we learned about our country may just be a small portion of the events that have actually occurred. Although Huxley
For example, the cloning process in today’s era produces similar results to Brave New World. Although not quite there to human cloning, scientific researchers have “successfully cloned sea urchins” which is a huge step towards the cloning process of people (Larson). However, current technology does not allow us to successfully clone another person without having any side effects. Not only does current technology hold us back, but ethical reasons as well. Dovey from Medical Daily states that only “one out of 100 cloning attempts ending in a viable animal,” resulting in many deaths just to achieve a single successful outcome (Dovey). Incidentally, people consume antidepressant drugs to make them feel better about themselves temporarily just to block out all of the negative emotions. Similarly, soma and antidepressants both have the same purpose, to remove all non-positive feelings. Equally important, technology nowadays seems to rip away people’s individuality because creativity “is simply there for us” on social media now (Arnold). Social media’s intentions to create an environment that is more accessible for people to communicate with each other all around the world, has a negative effect alongside it. According to Briana Ellison, technology proves to be “responsible for the rapid loss of relationships” (Ellison). In addition, new reporters and the government have the ability to censor certain types of events from the social media. As an example, “governments [try] to control the flow of information” by concealing certain knowledge about the past to make our country seem as if it were perfect (Bennett). After all, everything we learned about our country may just be a small portion of the events that have actually occurred. Although Huxley