Brave New World

Fahrenheit 451 presented a dystopian society in which books were banned. Compared to the society in the new book I am reading, Brave New World by Aldous Huxley, Fahrenheit 451 seems like a utopia. To put it into perspective, this novel was published in 1932- that's years before other dystopian literature such as 1984 and Fahrenheit 451. Huxley's world is startlingly similar to the place that our society is headed toward. It is a society where the universal government keeps its people slaves- but not through violence, intimidation, or laws. Instead, they condition children from birth to think in certain ways. They physiologically manipulate people in the factories where children are produced. Children are sorted into groups- from the smartest Alphas to the lowest Epsilons.  These messages include consumerist propaganda, and ideas about each person's place in society. In fact, this future world worships Henry Ford and encourages activities that would be considered horrific in our own world. As the Director of Hatcheries states in the novel, "...at last the child's mind is these suggestions and the sum of the suggestions is the child's mind. The adult's mind too- all his life long" (Huxley 29).

 I believe that this book is supposed to serve as a warning for what society could become if we do not stop greedy governments and corporations from controlling us and taking away are individuality. Huxley did not actually believe any of the things in the book would come true, but wanted us to know what could happen if taken to the extreme. I'm still just at the beginning of this book, but it is already intriguing and entertaining.