A Brave New World Comparative Essay

In the last decade, there have been intriguing conversations and debates about today's society and if it's shifting, or if it is A Brave New World. The answers vary a lot. The term Brave New World comes from Aldous Huxley’s novel written in 1931. In The Brave New World, civilians live in a totalitarian, utopian-dystopian society where they are rigidly taught from birth to believe in the values of their society. Following the main characters, Bernard Max and Lenia Crowne go on a retreat to a reservation and encounter John, the “savage”. They bring him back to London where they experiment having him there, resulting in a disruption of the planetary motto, Community, Identity, Stability. Particularly, there is an earlier work that resembles Huxley's

Several facets and functions of Huxley’s and Plato's Society are similar as they both allude to the concept of an ideal society. There are four main thematic parallels, the division of classes, the erasure of family, the collective and the use of cultural conditioning. Firstly, in Brave New World, the state is divided into five caste classes, Alphas, Betas, Gamma’s, Deltas, and Epsilons. Plato also designed a class system for his Kallipolis. He divides individuals into the three parts of the soul, the head, heart, and the appetites. They are not directly aligned, but both of their systems blueprints are identical as they have specialized roles in keeping their city-state’s functioning. For example, Alphas are the highest class. They are the leaders and the thinkers where they hold positions in administration and government. They are in charge of maintaining social order for all. The second class is Beta. Betas are also intelligent, but have a little more prerogatives. These two classes correspond to the head part of the

They are the compliant workers. Deltas are conditioned to dislike books and flowers as “a love of nature keeps no factories busy.” Epsilon’s can write or read and are preordained to perform labor-focused work to provide the economic foundation of temperance and justice. The director of Hatcheries and conditioning states “Not Philosophers, but fret-sawyers and stamp collectors compose the backbone of society.” Plato's organic theory of the state and Huxley's caste system provide a constitution for critiquing different prospects of society. This is seen when Bernard and Lenia visit the reservation and are shocked to learn “All men are physico-chemically equal.” It contradicts their “Everyone works for everyone else”. Each class is conditioned to be content with their role. Plato states “that there are three distinct classes, any meddling of one with another, or the change of one into another, is the greatest harm to the state.” Secondly, another device Plato and Huxely use is the elimination of all traditional family ties for the good of society. Plato relies on a program of