Brave New World: Methods of control Tiffany Yeung
All around the world, there are different figures of authority with different methods of control in order to prevent chaos from rising within the society. “Brave New World”, is a dystopian novel written by Aldous Huxley and in the brave new world society, we witness a futuristic approach to a variety of methods of control in order to maintain stability. In our society today, many countries use fear as a way to manipulate and to control, however in the world state, they take on a different approach and use different methods to suppress rebellion.
The world state uses scientific development and technological advances to manipulate human behaviour into making the citizens happy with their predestined roles. Specifically, the use of conditioning, the controlled reproduction and medical labs, and the use of soma is all used as different factors in order to manipulate the citizens and create a society based on science and technology, consumerism and happiness. By having the citizens being manipulated to enjoy their lives and be happy, there is little room for rebellion resulting in maintained stability and order for the world state.
The use of classical conditioning is thoroughly described and used in the book and is a major factor that contributes to the manipulation of the citizens. This process was first discovered when a young boy recited an entire broadcast that was played during his sleep without comprehending what was heard. This discovery makes this process efficient and effective for the citizens to be brainwashed into however the world state chooses to teach. In the book, young babies are taken in from labs and are exposed to things such as books and flowers while simultaneously sending electric shocks to them. This programs their brain into associating them with negative thoughts and feelings therefore making them undesirable and abolishing the future desire for them due to their previous experiences. By using this method of conditioning, the world state can control what the citizens like and dislike to the states desires which is also used to help benefit their economy as well. In the book, they abolish the desire for flowers to help promote more consumerism so they would not like or enjoy nature but they would enjoy expensive country sports. They also abolish the desire for books which decrease the risk of them being deconditioned while also abolishing the desire to learn more and to be curious. The conditioning and the scientific methods are kept very secretly from the rest of the society and the world state abolishes the concept of all truth in order to maintain their stability.
This process proves to be effective as the citizens behave and dislike what the state conditioned them to dislike. It can also be very effective in our society and is already presently evident in the behaviour of dogs through the process of classical conditioning. By pairing a conditioned stimulus with an unconditioned stimulus resulting in the unconditioned stimulus to produce a conditioned response. This process is proven to be effective in dogs and can likely be used upon humans in our society as well which is well seen in the book on a much larger scale.
Hypnopaedic conditioning was another type of conditioning or method of brainwashing the citizens and is also known as “sleep learning”. This process is used when the children are sleeping and learn “class consciousness” and to further condition them. Throughout this process, they teach moral education which reinforces their thinking and the conditioning to manipulate them into behaving a certain way with a specific set of morals designed by the world state. They are also taught about sex, programming them to engage into the desire for sexual activity and viewing it as a recreational activity with no meaning past the action. The children also learn to dislike nature to encourage consumption and transportation to advance the economy to the world state’s benefit. With these different “class consciousness”, their morals, values and thoughts are all defined by the state resulting in the world state’s values being everyone’s. The concept has been heard of in our world today, also known as “sleep- teaching” or “hypnopaedia”. "It has been proven that natural sleep is identical with hypnotic sleep and that during natural sleep the unconscious mind is most receptive to suggestions.” says Alois Benjamin Saliger who invented the psycho phone for sleep learning. From recent research, it is proven that classical conditioning can be used during sleep and that humans can strengthen previous memories but it is currently unknown whether obtaining and acquiring new information is possible.
The growth of the population is meticulously controlled since reproduction is conducted in labs and ovaries are surgically removed. The Bokanovky process is used to create multiple clones from one single egg that will bud and produce 96 identical human beings instead of just one. Not only do they control reproduction but they conduct more labs with the fetuses and predetermine their roles for the future. They use their technological advances to predestine and to help them adapt to their environment such as having some tolerate the heat for working in warmer locations and some who are designed to work upside down for mining. Some are exposed to large amounts of alcohol to lower their IQ to predestine them for machinery work.
This process however does not apply to the Alpha’s and Beta’s as they are higher up on the social standard and are predestined for more manageable jobs since they have a higher IQ. This however does not apply to our society nor prove to be effective since the cloning of an egg will decrease genetic variation making humans more susceptible or vulnerable to certain diseases with the same genes.
The consumption and production of soma is one of the more significant factors and symbols which is known to strip away one’s freedom as quoted by John. It is described as a near perfect drug with nearly no negative side effect which gives the user a “vacation” from reality and replaces the unpleasant with happy hallucinations. The regular use of soma in the society helps reinforce their ignorance towards the truth and helps maintain stability for the world state. The citizens are conditioned and designed for their predestined roles will be happy with their roles which leaves no room for rebellion if they are happy and satisfied. Their society’s definition of happiness is defined as the ability to satisfy one’s desire which in turn destroys human truths such as friendship and love. This also helps create self-delusion to avoid the truth behind the world state which is why soma is so frequently and casually used. The world state uses their happiness so they would not care about their personal freedom and it proves to be very effective in the book. As John described, Soma clouds the reality and is a poison used to brainwash the citizens to promote social stability. This drug can draw a parallel to our world as there are also many drugs used in our society today. People use drugs or alcohol as an escape from reality so they would not have to deal with their present issues. The use of drugs are proven to be effective for drug users as they rely on them as an escape from reality.
In conclusion, there are several factors that are responsible for creating this delusional society controlled by the world state from the use of classical and hypnopaedic conditioning, controlled reproduction, predestination in labs and the production and creation of soma. These factors and methods help restrict one’s freedom and individuality resulting in a loss of morals, emotions and humanity as a whole.
Works cited
Huxley, Aldous. Brave New World. New York: Harper Perenial, 1969. Print.
"Sleep-learning." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation. Web. 27 May 2015.
Why Do People Use Drugs? How Do Drugs Work? - Drug-Free World. Web. 27 May 2015.