Brave New World

Imagine living in a world without mothers and fathers, a place full of faceless human clones. This is the society portrayed in Aldous Huxley's 1932 novel entitled Brave New World. Huxley describes a futuristic society that has an alarming effect of dehumanization. This occurs through the absence of spirituality and family, the obsession with physical pleasure, and the misuse of technology. In this world, each person is raised in a test tube rather than a mother's womb, and the government controls every stage of their development, from embryo to maturity. Each new human is placed into a certain class, such as Alpha, Beta, and so on. The embryos are manipulated chemically to stimulate or to hinder their physical and mental growth. By repeating phrases over and over while the children sleep, the government can condition each person to accept his role in the world around him and to behave in what the government deems to be a "safe" manner. This creates a society full of human clones, completely devoid of personality. Every person is conditioned to love three things: Henry Ford, their idol; soma, a wonder drug; and sex.

One of the things that makes the society in Brave New World so different from ours is the lack of spirituality. The pleasure-seeking society pursues no spiritual experiences or joys, preferring carnal ones. The lack of a religion that seeks a true transcendental understanding helps ensure that the masses of people, upper and lower classes, have no reason to rebel. What religious ritual they have begins as an attempt to reach a higher level of understanding as a community but quickly turns into a chance to please the carnal nature of man through orgiastic ritual. This denies the human soul, which is usually searching for a pleasure not experienced in the flesh but in the mind, and preserves the society based on happiness which they have established.

The novel addresses the importance of family values and the family structure as an integral part of our society. A new way to be born and raised has done away with the family and brought in a dehumanizing strict class structure and psychological messages to replace it. There are five rigid classes in this world, each with its own characteristics ranging from jobs to clothing to intelligence level. These classes are enforced from birth through experience and suggestion. A dislike of roses and books, for example, is enforced through electric shock while the children are still babies. The knowledge of the different classes in the world and why it is best to be in the class you are in is implanted in the child's mind through hypnopaedia, a series of hypnotic suggestions played while the child is asleep. Through the suggestions that make up the childhood of the adults in this society, the adults are "raised" by the leaders of the State to think and act as they are told. Rather than individual parents instilling their own values into their children, the State chooses how and what each child will learn. The parental relationship of a father and mother to a child has become a dirty and improper idea.