Brave New World is a satirical, dystopian work by Aldous Huxley, written in 1932. The novel is set in a city of the distant future - in the 26th century, 2541. The world society lives in a single state and is a consumer society. Moreover, consumption has been elevated to a cult and, in principle, it can be called the very meaning of human existence.
In the world of Aldous Huxley, people are raised in special hatcheries by the method of biological unification (Bokanovskisation method). In the process of development, embryos are divided into five main castes, of which society consists. Each caste has different mental and physical abilities. For example, for the embryos of the most primitive caste “epsilons” at a certain moment of development reduce the supply of oxygen, as a result, their mental abilities and physical development are qualitatively lower than representatives of other castes. It was created with the aim of forming strata (crowd-elitism) in society. People are physiologically and psychologically “programmed” in advance to perform a certain type of work. To prevent the caste system from collapsing, with the help of hypnopedia (a method of learning during sleep), people form contempt for the lower caste,love - for the highest and pride - in relation to one's own. The vast majority of the emerging psychological problems of society are solved with the help of a narcotic drug, which in the novel is called soma.
There is no family and marriage in such a society. Moreover, the terminology and behavior inherent in these institutions are considered indecent and condemned. For example, the words "mother" and "father" are interpreted as one of the dirtiest curses. The cult of sex prevails in the consumer society, there are no lofty feelings, and the presence of a permanent partner is considered extremely indecent …
We will not touch upon the artistic component of the work. A sane person will have a negative attitude towards the society described by Aldous Huxley. Why? This system ignores the natural component of man. In fact, a herd of ultra-modern slaves is described, moving according to the program and the desire of a shepherd, moreover, who intervened in genetics. From a long-term perspective, such a society has no future, not to mention the prospects for evolutionary development. The accumulation of genetic errors and, as a result, complete degeneration after several generations is more likely. After all, human life has at least one goal - the development of genetically determined potential. And what is the potential of a genetically programmed slave?
Is it possible to draw parallels between the destructive society from the book Brave New World and a real-life society? Certainly! If you carefully study modern manipulative technologies and apply them to real-life systems (cinema, television, media, etc.), you will come to not very rosy conclusions. Society has a directional vector. And where does it come from? The same “entertainment factory” is not neutral. Movies, music, television, information on the Internet, etc. show how society should work, offering the viewer (primarily the younger generation) a model of behavior in it …
Shortly before his death, on March 20, 1962, Aldous Huxley spoke at Berkeley and admitted that his bestseller Brave New World was not based on fiction, but on what the "elite" planned to do in reality:
