Brave New World and 21st Century

Our present world is very unstable or unified. We are separated by man-made borders and creed. Imagine a world in which there is unity, stability, and identity. These are the principles on which the society depicted in Brave New World is based. Brave New World is a futuristic novel written by Aldous Huxley. In these Utopian society humans are genetically bred and are “conditioned” to serve a ruling order. In this society disease, poverty, and suffering have disappeared from most of the Earth.

The setting is still on planet Earth, although there seems no hope for getting out of Earth. Apparently the society in Brave New World does not want technological progress, and the search for knowledge has apparently ceased. Humans are conditioned to work a certain job, unless they are Alphas. Among those jobs, research opportunities are never mentioned. In the world of Brave New World there is a caste system with five castes. The people in Brave New World are placed into their caste according to the level of chemical manipulation the embryo receives. In this way there are still those who are inferior to others.

Both societies have individuals who govern the people, although the people who govern the state depicted in Brave New World govern in a totalitarian way. It is the “controllers” who rule the Brave New World, without opposition they rule over economic, social, and cultural life. They can read any book but the ones that are not available. The media is censored; approval of books and other media has to be gained from a World Controller. Such a change in our society would be difficult to accomplished, unless the change from today’s system of government to a world state were done gradually so it would be unnoticeable.

In both worlds, humans are still the dominant species; transportation is still the same and rules are applicable. If people break the rules or laws, then they will get punished. As a sentence, offenders are secluded or reconditioned, so they won’t interfere with the others’ conditioning.

Another difference is that they are conditioned so they never want to do anything they shouldn’t. I think today we are conditioned to do what we should, so we aren’t considered weird. The people in Brave New World can do what they want to do, so they have liberty, although this liberty is restricted.

Between our present world and the world depicted in Brave New World there are more differences than similarities. These differences make Brave New World a very thought-provoking and a powerful work of speculative fiction. It is a very good book, and the author does a great job speculating about the future, considering that that genetic engineering was non-existent at the time he wrote it.