In the novel Brave New World John tries to incite a rebellion in the hospital where his mother has died. He takes the soma allocation for the hospital workers and hectors them to embrace freedom. In the end, the workers threatened to attack John for depriving them of the soma as the police arrived to restore calm.
What does this failed, farcical attempt at rebellion tells us about what makes a stable and prosperous society? How does it connect to the concepts of coercion, freedom and/pr happiness? Can you make someone free whether they want to or not?
This failed attempt at a rebellion tells us that if a society is happy with where they are in its place, it will not try to rebel.
ReplyDeleteWhen John throws away the soma, the people present are mad that he threw it away, “He picked up the cash-box and showed them its black emptiness. “You’re free!” Howling, the Deltas charged with a redoubled fury,” (193) This quotation highlights the fact that they are content with where they are. Even though they are deltas and are on the lower end spectrum of society, they still are happy. When John throws it away, he is basically taking away their happiness even though he is trying to start a rebellion. With the conditioning they do on embryos, there is no reason for them to protest. They don't have to use coercion to threaten them because they are fine with their place in society. Truly, they don’t have freedom. However, they do not know that and are fine with the “freedom” that they have. With the alphas who have less conditioning, they have a chance to break away just like Bernard did. However, if you are a delta and lower, you are conditioned to like your place in society. The soma truly helps their happiness and combined that with the conditioning, there is no way they would rebel in this society. For a great society, and for it to truly be a utopia, everyone has to be happy. When conditioning them to be satisfied works, it begs the question of if they truly are people.
This attempt at rebellion fails because the people don't know what they are being freed from. The people are heavily conditioned to pretty much every aspect of their life. They are conditioned to like their jobs and dislike other aspects of life that, in turn, make their job more enjoyable. They have dislikings towards things that would shift social stability. There are no books provided or even accessible to the public, but even if they find them, they are conditioned not to like them. They are also conditioned to be happy with the social class that they are in. People are created in the image of their social class, limiting their capabilities from birth. Not only that but they are conditioned to want to stay content with the class that they are in. They are conditioned to be content with their status quo and remove critical thinking. Not only that, but they do not know any other way of life other than the one that they already have. So from the people's perspective, this is a prosperous society because the world state completely controls their idea of being content and being freed. Outside of the book, people are educated on all the different job opportunities and ways of life. Being able to determine your route of education that paves the way for your career path is a part of the freedom of life. However, this aspect of freedom towards choosing what to do in life is completely eliminated due to how the world state is ran.
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ReplyDeleteThis scene from the novel tells us that society in Brave New World is so well structured and works so well, that those under the thumb of the controller do not want any other life than the one they have. The only ones who try to revolt are John, who is from a whole another world, that being the reservation. Bernard Marx, who is an outcast for having been given an alcohol blood surrogate which makes him different from everybody else. Helmoltz is the last to revolt and he had been expelled from academia and teaching because of his poems that emphasized the good in being alone sometimes. These 3 have all been cast out by the society in some way or another and this provokes them to want to escape, because they see how their life is a lie given that it was constructed for them to be happy, but when they attemp to ‘save’ the rest of society, they turn on them. The ones they attempt to liberate do not want to be liberated because society has conditioned them to not want to escape and they love the carefree happiness they experience in their manufactured reality. You can attempt to make somebody free even if they don’t want it, but if somebody doesn’t want to be free then their, ‘liberation’ will not make them happy and will actually result in them being against their own liberation and their ‘liberators’. The book demonstrates this, as the people that John attempts to free fight back against him in order to preserve their lives the way they are.
ReplyDeleteIn the novel "Brave New World" we see that rebellion fails to change society, because the way society controls and conditions neutralizes any individual hope of authenticity and freedom. We see an attempted rebellion later in the novel at a hospital, however it’s quickly quelled by the police, as well as people in the populace. There can’t be a rebellion if people not only don’t know what type of plight they’re in, but also are happy with their conditions as we know they are. During his rebellion he throws soma packers out a window, “he began to throw the little pill-boxes of soma tables in handfuls out into the area. For a moment the khaki mob was silent, petrified, at the site of this wanton sacrilege, with amazement and horror.” (213) The action quite literally made them start to attack him for throwing out one of their main methods for happiness. The enjoyed taking the drug that made them feel better, and they couldn’t understand that there was other ways. The repeated comments of saying that they’re happy with their place in life, as well they’re position in the society as a whole. Free will doesn’t make them happy, if they even understand the concept at all. They’re life is going well and they get whatever they want, all their needs are provided for and that makes them not want to change. The government control on understanding makes any chance at individuality not worth the infinite happiness that the world can provide.
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ReplyDeleteIn Brave New World, Aldous Huxley presents social conditioning as a way to achieve stability and prosperity in society. An example of social conditioning in the novel is shown through the idea of hypnopedia, in which children are brainwashed in their sleep and assigned their roles in society. “ I’m so glad I’m a Beta …. Alpha children wear gray…I’m really awfully glad I’m a beta because I don’t work so hard.” (27) This quote reveals that the civilians in the society are happy and content with the roles they are assigned. Being a Beta is seen as equal to Alpha, and the idea of hierarchy doesn’t truly exist in society. Next, soma, another form of social conditioning, is a drug to provide pleasure and happiness. As demonstrated in the novel “Punctured, utterly deflated, he dropped into a chair and covering his face with his hands began to weep. A few minutes later, however, he thought better of it and took four tablets of soma.” (176) As John fails to steal the soma from the hospital, he questions society, which causes the people to become visibly agitated, notify the police, and put an end to his attempt at stealing the soma. In doing this John brings to light that soma isn’t a true form of happiness. This is evident since soma is considered to be a good form of happiness in the novel but not to John since he was born outside the reservation. Lastly, John believes that social conditioning can’t lead to a true form of happiness since individual freedom is taken away.
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