Happiness In Brave New World

The Price of Perfection: The Discord Between Individuality, Truth, & Happiness in Brave New World and Modern Society

“Sola dosis facit venenum” (Cole 2022). Everything is poison, and nothing is free of it; only the dose influences whether something is poisonous or not. Aldous Huxley’s 1931 novel Brave New World illustrates a society set in a dystopian future where technology and drugs are used to control its citizens. It delves into themes such as personal freedom, societal conformity, and the impact of technological progress on humanity. The story follows the protagonist, Bernard Marx, as he struggles against the oppressive system and ultimately leads a rebellion in opposition. Huxley’s novel depicts the following dangers also evident in

There is great dependence on technologies that integrate extremities such as ectogenesis, advanced genetic engineering, and hypospadia into normalities. These technologies raise ethical questions about the role of science and technology in society, and how they are used towards controlling and manipulating its citizens, and contradictorily, society as one. In Brave New World, Mustapha Mond is one of the ten World Controllers, the ruling elite who govern the dystopian society. His view on happiness is that it is something that can and should be engineered and controlled through the use of technology. Mond believes that “the world’s stable now” because “people are happy; they get what they want, and they never want what they can’t get” (Huxley 244). Mustapha Mond reflects on his belief that societies happiness and social stability are, in all respects, directly proportional. His approach to societal happiness is achieved through the technological control and manipulation of the population, which leaves the individuals of the society unable to form genuine human connections. He sees the pursuit of individual freedom and individuality as a threat to his adamancy of happiness-through-conformity. This is particularly relevant to modern society given its increasing hand-held technological dependency and its corresponding effect on individuality. In an article on the

The World State is a place where "everybody's happy" (Huxley 78). Where the people that make up the everybody are conditioned to find contentment in the quick buying and usage of things. This results in the World State becoming a society where people are encouraged to constantly seek out new and increasingly more elaborate forms of pleasure. As aforementioned, the government uses advanced technologies to both maintain control and social stability of the society’s population, and the gratification sourced from the effects of consumerism can be interpreted as a means of pacifying the citizens, preventing them from rebellion, and subconscious to that, the restriction of free thought. In a conversation about the end of things with Bernard Marx, Leiana highlights the concept of material possessions being valued highly enough to continuously repurchase but lowly enough to dispose without a second thought: “Ending is better than mending. The more stitches, the less riches; the more stitches…” (Huxley 52) Leiana explains her conditioned economical belief that it is more beneficial to discard something when it is worn out or broken, rather than to spend time and resources fixing it. The constant replacement of items and belongings eliminates any buildup of meaning, attachment, or individuality a person has with