Brave New World Technology Criticism

Shweta Jain Period 2 AP English 22 November 2008 “Brave New World” offers a view of the world as it might become if science is no longer ruled by man but man is ruled by science and thus puts at stake his freedom. Nowadays, probably everybody is familiar with the debates concerning the amazing breakthroughs in science, and especially in cloning. Brave New World shows the warnings of the dangers of giving the state control over new and powerful technologies. One illustration of this theme is the control of reproduction through technological and medical intervention, including the surgical removal of ovaries, the Bokanovsky Process, and hypnopaedic conditioning. Another is the creation of complicated entertainment machines that generate both harmless leisure and the high levels of consumption and production that are the basis of the World State's stability. Soma is a third example of the kind of medical, biological, and psychological technologies that Brave New World criticizes the most. There is a difference between science and technology. Whereas the State talks about progress and science, what it really means is the bettering of technology, not increased scientific exploration and experimentation. The state uses science as a means to build technology that can create a seamless, happy, superficial world through things such as the “feelies.” The state censors and limits science, however, since it sees the fundamental basis behind science, the search for truth, as threatening to the State's control. The State's focus on happiness and stability means that it uses the results of scientific research, inasmuch as they contribute to technologies of control, but does not support science itself. This scene sets of the beginning of this book and what it is going to be about. The bokanovskys process is thoroughly explained and is solely used through this whole book. As the Director says social stability is the highest social goal, and through predestination and rigorous conditioning, individuals aceeept their given roles in society without any s question. The caste structure is created and maintained using certain tools, and its is technology that allows the most powerful members of the World State's ruling the highest caste to make soldid unequal distribution of power and status. Conditioning individuals genetically, physically, and psychologically for their inescapable destinies stabilizes the caste system by creating servants who love and fully accept their servility. Moreover, conditioning makes themincapable of performing any other function than that to which they are assigned. Everything about human reproduction is technologically managed to maximize efficiency and profit. Technology has taken over the society and has become the main focus of their lives along with being the center. This first chapter shows that everyone has become head over heels with the production of human beings through all these types of processes. Technology is become an everyday thing in their lives. The fetuses go through all types of treatments accroding to their class. I believe that technology is being overused and not being taken under consideration of to what height they have used this amazing form of science which applies to reproduction and fertilization. I thnk that hey are are not reazliating what they have turned everyone into and their thoughts and feelings are not taken into consideration either. Huxley introduces us to several startling ideas at this point which he will develop in more detail as the story progresses. Scientific knowledge is used extensively in this section. This section focuses on the use of psychological technologies to control the future behaviors. Conditioning, combined with prenatal treatment, creates individuals without having an individuality. Each person is programmed to behave exactly like the next. This system allows for social stability, economic productivity within narrow constraints, and a society dominated by unthinking obedience and infantile behavior. Huxley's pairing of the past, present, and future in this chapter emphasizes the enormous control the World State exercises over the individual and every facet of his existence. The Controller discusses and explains the need for control and the methods of control and at the same time we see the results of this conditioning control in the thoughts, actions, and reactions of the other characters. And not content with simply explaining and illustrating, Huxley keeps referring to the continuing operations at the Hatchery and Conditioning Centre producing tomorrow's citizens of the World State. Soma is the perfect drug. Soma takes everything away and gives the ultimate high, without any bad side effects. Throughout the whole novel everyone takes Soma to get away from their pain and pretend like nothing happened. In chapter five, after a game of Obstacle Golf, Henry and Lenina fly in a helicopter over a crematorium where phosphorous is collected from burning bodies for fertilizer. They drink coffee with soma before heading off to the Westminster Abbey Cabaret. They take another soma dose before they return to Henry's apartment. Although the repeated doses of soma have made them almost completely oblivious to the world around them, Lenina remembers to use her contraceptives. Every other Thursday, Bernard has to take part in Solidarity Service at the Fordson Community Singery. The participants sit twelve to a table, alternating men and women. While a rousing hymn plays, the participants pass a cup of strawberry ice cream soma and take a soma tablet with it. They work themselves into a frenzy of exultation and the ceremony ends in a sex orgy that leaves Bernard feeling more isolated than ever. Technology affects entertainment by being incorporated in every game of play. This, of course, deceives the user into believing that soma is a cure-all remedy. The primary source of entertainment is the “feelies”, a type of movie-theater in which all feelings are artificially created. ” Furthermore, Bokanovsky’s mass production method prevents individuality, since all people are cloned. Children raised without parents in this way will be unaffectionate and unable to have real emotions or truly love. This demonstrates that technology has the ability to change the world. It could be used not only to escape the pressures of life, but also to escape life itself. ” As a result of this genetic breeding, there are, of course, no family structures or relationships. Soma takes the user to a hallucinatory dream world, relieving negativity and allowing permanent happiness. Society is thus conditioned to believe that “one cubic centimeter cures ten gloomy sentiments”. In this way, conditioning cuts man off from making deep experiences and being human. Instead, human beings are raised in conditioning centers. However, for these few advantages society had to pay a terribly high price. And what should always be present at a higher priority than the ongoing quest of scientific discovery is without any doubt ethics and morality. In “Brave New World” everything is completely mechanized, eradicating the need for imagination and creativity.