Brave New World, written by Aldous Huxley, illustrates a futuristic world full of scientific advances. However, this novel does not focus on science itself, but on “science as it affects human individuals” (Huxley, 1946). He describes a failed utopia, or dystopia, that reflects the mentality of everyday people and society. He wrote about the dangers that could arise from attempting to achieve identity, community, and stability through the use of psychological conditioning and biology. During my reading, I was able to identify several psychological aspects that caught my attention, one being the obvious mental conditioning that occurred to allow the World State to gain complete control over the inhabitants of this brave new world. There were …show more content…
As one continues to read, it is learned that nearly everyone in the story is created this way in order to design individuals acceptable for their society. From birth to death, the citizens of World State are conditioned to conform to the society they live in, a society ruled by the elites. “’Till at last the child’s mind is these suggestions and the sum of the suggestions is the child’s mind…But all these suggestions are our suggestions…Suggestions from the State!” This quote, taken directly from the book, illustrates the views of the World State and how they believe citizens should live. It reminds me of the experiment conducted by Ivan Pavlov as he conditioned dogs to salivate when he rang a tuning fork. The citizens of World State are conditioned from the time of their birth to live in such a way that the State would have them to live. It could be argued that this is a reflection of people today and that we have been conditioned in a similar manner to live a certain way. If this is the case, Huxley’s warning to his readers may be that individuality is of more importance than we