The True Brave New World

Dayar Alattar ENG-401 “The Real Brave New World” Ms.Perito April 24th, 2013

Aldoux Huxley lived most of his life in the early 1900s. during this time, he was able to predict our future with frightening accuracy. Huxley’s master piece Brave New World shows us a glimpse of our future, and while many people may disregard this as a piece of fiction, the evidence that Huxley was accurate with his predictions overwhelming. Despite being written in the 1930s, Brave New World is still relevant today because it predicted our current economic norms, teaches us about the meaning of true freedom, and it shows humanities need for acceptance, all of which are still relevant today. Consumerism is one of the largest driving forces in the world as we know it today. In Brave New World people are split and put into different classes and groups. These groups dictate the type of consumer you will be. However, regardless of your class, you are always expected to be constantly buying new things and throwing away old things. Sounds awfully familiar? In our world today, people are obsessed with brand names and the constant spending of ridiculous amounts of money for nothing other than a logo. While in Brave New World people are put into classes to know what things to buy, in our world, we buy things to identify ourselves within a certain class. While the conditioning methods in Brave New World are subtle and hidden out of sight, ours and hidden in plain sight. They are everywhere, any picture of a perfect girl, any commercial you see, they are in our streets, in our malls, our bus stations, our subways, they are in our homes, in our bedrooms, in our bathrooms, they are in ourselves. We have been conditions since birth by colourfull pictures, to our teens with hip, trendy things, all the way to our adulthood with classy things. We are no more hopelessly conditioned than the citizens of the World State. We end more than they do, and we mend less than they do. This is exactly what Huxley tried to warn us about. “None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free” this was said by a modern philosopher regarding the current workforce system. People trade their time and ability for money so they can buy the object they are being paid to make. You have the option to deny this system, if you do however, you will not be able to survive in this world. Therefor the idea of denying work is simply an illusion as it is simply not possible to sustain yourself this way. This is similar to the illusion of Brave New World. Mustapha Mond states “ we don’t need freedom, it does not fit in our society” however, the world controllers provide the people with false freedom by giving them many options such as soma, orgy porgy, mini golf and so on. If the people of the World State don’t need freedom then why provide them with the illusion of freedom? Simple, because they do need freedom, as it is a basic human right. Bernard explains the search for freedom by saying “the freedom to suffer”. This states that while Mustapha Mond s right in saying no one wants to suffer, but people still need the choice and the option to choose. Outcasts in our world today are created from the act of bulling and bring socially unaccepted. However, in our world, outcasts have solitude to escape from the torment of their everyday lives. In Brave New World, people do not have this luxury. Despite having everything he would possibly want, Bernard still feels that the world he lives in is not perfect, he feels certain discomfort whenever he is in the World State, a discomfort which he cannot put his finger on, like a splinter in his mind. Yet surprisingly, he feels welcomed when he returns with John, as if all the discomfort had disappeared from the World State and was replaced with pride, love, and acceptance. This happens because Bernard is finally being accepted by the very people who shunned him daily for all of his life. Aldus Huxley uses the idea of acceptance to show how the World State and our world are extremely similar. Acceptance is a simple need that should be provided by the society for everyone, however, when accepted is the only goal in one’s life, one can lose sight of themselves and their identity. The only true solution to the problem of acceptance is isolation. Aldus Huxley makes isolation one of the many themes of this book because it is the key to stopping the world from progressing into a dystopia. In the World State, one of the main goals of World Controllers is to keep everyone distracted. This is done so no one can become a free thinker and threaten the world state. This novel is simple a warning, it depicts what will occur if we allow ourselves to become slaves to a corrupt, broken system. Bernard chooses to isolate himself to simply run away from the lack of acceptance the World State gave him. John however, uses this solitude to his advantage. In his solitude, john states that he discovered time and death and god, alone, always alone. These ideals are what make people individuals. John becomes a free thinker who is not persuaded easily by lies. Imagine if everyone in the world state was as free thinking as john, the World State would crumble in minutes, this is the exact reason why Brave New World is still relevant today, it gives us the key to find our own individuality. The world today is very much a conditioned world, there are those who wish to control us as Brave New World does. The only weapon we possess is ourselves. Our individuality is the key to stop the world from falling into the hands of a few. Brave New World is still relevant because it provides us with our own individuality, and it shows us the dystrophic future that awaits us if we are to be conditioned.