How “Brave New World”, A Novel From 1932 Predicted Today’s World

By Mayukh Saha / Truth Theory

The book, Brave New World, warns the readers about the dangers of passivity, mass media, and how intelligent people can be manipulated to choose dictatorship over freedom.

When people think about dystopia, they think about The Handmaid’s Tale or the Hunger Games. A lesser-known novel has done a way better job of predicting the “what is to come” than these books. 

Brave New World: The Prediction Of Today’s World

“Brave New World” was written by Aldous Huxley in 1931. Aldous was a psychonaut, author, and also philosopher. 

Brave New World gives a description of a scary society where the inhabitants are eternally happy. This has been established by destroying the freedom of the people through conditioning and genetic engineering and offering “Soma” in massive amounts. This drug helps people stay happy all the time.

The dictatorship in this novel is maintained by 10 oligarchs who have high regard for bureaucracy as they believe that it can keep the world running. The citizens are conditioned to love them and be proud of what they do. They are made to believe that they do not have to worry about the problems of others.

Huxley Talks About The Stability In The “Brave New World” Novel

The stability is brought about through the Fordist religion. It is based on the works of Henry Ford and Sigmund Freud and encourages people to worship them. It also encourages you to support sexual promiscuity, attain mass consumerism and avoid being sad at any cost. The assembly line is divine to their understanding. 

The most terrible fact in Brave New World is the fact that the people love being enslaved. The people who are smart are also content with the things happening around them. There is no hope to bring about a change in that world.

In today’s society, people are enslaved to some extent. Most people work for pennies and they don’t question any of it. The very few have more wealth than anyone else and most people work their whole lives like slaves and can’t afford to buy a property. People today just think it is normal and in a way, they accept their “slavery”.

In Brave New World, people make choices where they influence the genetic makeup of their offspring. Pre-natal screening helps them choose if they want the fetus to survive or not. In our world, Iceland has almost eradicated Down’s Syndrome in their country through regular screenings.

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Testing the sex of a child is also done, which widens the gender gap in several countries. Sperm sorting is also done in various places, where the couple can choose the gender of their baby.

Imagine a world where the parents could determine the child’s potential personality before its birth. Such technology has not arrived yet but we should reflect on such. It seems that Huxley’s visions about the “perfect upper caste” will soon become reality.

The Choice Is Yours

Brave New World was just a prediction of a nightmare that Aldous thought would not happen for at least a century. By 1958, he realized that he was very optimistic. We are not doomed as of yet but the rate of progress continues to supply us with equipment that can bring about this “pleasant slavery”. 

The choice is yours: Will you avoid the advancements or will you cry out willingly to be saved from freedom?