Utopia In Brave New World

A “Utopia”, in its simplest sense, represents a conceptual society, in which the many restraints of life are non-existent, composing an ideal world. Although abstract, the formation of such societies can be replicated through the deceptive creation of these ideal qualities. This very concept is portrayed throughout Huxley’s Brave New World, in which the World State pushes its political agenda under the guise of "Community, Identity, Stability". Through the enforcement of psychological conditioning, the World State exploits human desire to achieve a sense of self-fulfillment and adequacy. Additionally, by exploiting the citizen’s need for social acceptance, the World State is able to devise a society in which everyone is happy with their status.

Happiness, by our contemporary definition, cannot be achieved through exploitation. In Brave New World, however, citizens are made to experience happiness through ‘manufactured’ means. Such is the case where they are conditioned to be pleased with their place in society and be numb to all of reality through the consumption of soma. In Chapter 15, during John’s attempt to “set the people free” and helping the people “understand what manhood and freedom are” he starts throwing out soma in the hospital, and this attempt to insinuate logic and reason in people is blatantly disregarded and in not well received. This spectacle petrifies them and they consider it to be a crime to even express original thought. The universal use of the drug soma is the most pervasive example of such willful self-delusion. Huxley imagines a society in which the desires are fulfilled by providing small surges of happiness through the consistent usage of soma and constant indulgence in the world. They prefer short surges of induced happiness over a consistent, and more importantly self-induced happiness, that is likely going to last longer. This society is structured such that if any sort of human emotion were slip through the cracks then there is always soma to numb