A Brave New World Argumentative Analysis

Over the past years, technological advancements have been expanding at an exponential rate which means that the world Aldous Huxley had envisioned in Brave New World will soon come. Neil Postman, a social critic, examines Huxley’s vision of the future and gave interesting points about how Huxley’s society is relevant to ours. Postman believed that Huxley feared that there won’t be a reason to ban a book, that the truth will be drowned in irrelevance, and that our desires will ruin us. While some of these assertions are true, opponents may argue that there’s always a reason to banning something. This is untrue because you don't necessarily need a reason to ban something that society doesn't need. One of Neil Postman’s assertions is that Huxley

“... there’s always soma to give you a holiday from the facts. And there’s always soma to calm your anger, to reconcile you to your enemies, to make you patient and long-suffering. In the past you could only accomplish these things by making a great effort and after years of hard moral training. Now, you swallow two or three half-gramme tablets, and there you are”(279). In this quote, Mond emphasizes that soma solves one of humanity’s oldest problems which is inefficiency and conflict. In today’s society, drugs have become more effective and intense than the drugs of the past. Studies have shown that “increased marijuana and heroin usage have contributed to highest reported illicit drug use in more than a decade”. When people use drugs they are ignoring reality. Our society is losing the ability to face life’s problems; instead they use drugs to chase their dilemmas away. This increase in drug usage parallels Huxley’s prediction of a society controlled by the distribution of drugs. Although soma is not a common drug of present time, similar substances run freely in our communities. Huxley’s visions are slowly becoming a reality as members of society continue their dependence on