Brave New World social importance

Brave new world is an extremely important novel, providing many ideas for the consequences of over-socialization, mass production, and homogeneity. This commentary is a very interesting warning of the dehumanization that comes with a large society that holds all the same values. the loss of individuality is a prominent theme in this novel, one cannot have a true utopia without a certain loss of humanity because of the inherent design of humans. we cannot be satisfied unless things are getting better for us, and because of the limited resources if one person gets something good someone else isn't getting it. the key is to make people complacent to never get any better. this constant sameness is pervasive throughout the story, the citizens are perfectly happy to hold a job they were destined to have, never have the possibility of getting rich, never have the possibility of love, but also are totally protected from pain. as world controller Mustapha Mond states, "actual happiness always seems pretty squalid in comparison to the over-compensations for misery." there is no excitement in life, no obstacles to overcome, everything is just sameness.

There are many methods at work in Brave New World used to control the population, completely removing family ties, true relationships, and normalizing death caused everyone to feel less connected even while feeling like they should be more connected. all of the citizens are so preoccupied with what everyone else is thinking that they do no thinking themselves. There is also extensive conditioning at work on children to fit them into society perfectly. All of these concepts seem far-fetched but when you think about it they aren't all that far fetched at all. There is more and more pressure to conform to social norms and to have normalized goals, such as earning lots of money, owning a house, or any other arbitrary measurement of success. homogenization of society is already happening on a large scale, due in part to the otherwise amazing communications technologies that have been developed recently. television and video games are all too often substituted for parenthood in this day and age, if harnessed such technologies could act as a conditioning tool of unprecedented power. 26 years after Brave New World was published Aldous Huxley stated that the world had only gotten closer to the ideas portrayed in BNW. The normalization of sex that is seen in Brave New World is also becoming more and more prominent, "everyone belongs to everyone else" as they say in the book. people aren't as encouraged to have lasting relationships as they are to have quick flings that mean nothing and in the end have no positive effect on your life.

Brave New World is often compared to 1984 because of their respective dystopias. in 1984 everyone was forced to comply to the government, and in Brave New World the government designed the people to never want to rebel against the government. Social Critic Niel Postman stated, "What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one. Orwell feared those who would deprive us of information. Huxley feared those who would give us so much that we would be reduced to passivity and egoism. Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from us. Huxley feared the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance. Orwell feared we would become a captive culture. Huxley feared we would become a trivial culture, preoccupied with some equivalent of the feelies, the orgy porgy, and the centrifugal bumblepuppy. As Huxley remarked in Brave New World Revisited, the civil libertarians and rationalists who are ever on the alert to oppose tyranny "failed to take into account man's almost infinite appetite for distractions." In 1984, Orwell added, people are controlled by inflicting pain. In Brave New World, they are controlled by inflicting pleasure. In short, Orwell feared that what we hate will ruin us. Huxley feared that what we love will ruin us." this goes very far to describe the type of "utopia" that could actually arise because society will be so worried about society we will have no time to worry about the everstrengthening government.

Because of it's surprisingly accurate outlook in some senses, Brave New World should be regarded as having high literary importance in the same way 1984 is important, to serve as a warning of a possible future when not only will people not be allowed to learn, they will be unwilling to. The unwillingness to learn is one of the most dangerous things we face as a society, many people regard knowledge as unimportant and trivial, but having knowledge is the best way to make change in the world. The danger comes in complacency, what makes humans great, and greatly destructive, is our insatiable appetite for expansion and prosperity. we must constantly adapt to the changing world around us by learning and making informed decisions, once we begin to we complacent in our relative happiness is the moment that humanity fails. if we do not seek to improve and change our circumstances what makes any different than a rock or wisp or wisp of air. Life is a chemical reaction and reactions can never sit idle, they must be consuming and distributing energy until there is no more energy to distribute.