Brave New World - Unsung Utopia

Everybody seems to know what a utopia is, but not as many people are aware of it's dysfunctional cousin dystopia.  A dystopia is defined to be "a society characterized by human misery, such as squalor, oppression, disease, and overcrowding." The irony between the two is that while many cultures discuss utopian ideals, you find very few instances of them in literature.  Much more often, you find writers portraying dystopias which have resulted from some groups attempts at creating a utopia and failing.  Aldous Huxley's Brave New World has become a corner stone of dystopian literature because of how it's hyper-industrialized, counter-individualistic contradicts much of Western ideologies.  However, if you take a large step back and look at the book without placing modern society's emphasis on their actions, you'll find that the book actually doesn't fit the definition of being a dystopia.


Lets take each part of the definition of dystopia in turn...


Squalor - While there is quite obviously a stringent and unyielding class system in the World State, each class has certain jobs which it performs for the good of society.  While we, the readers, aren't given much insight into the lifestyle of lowest classes, from what we know of that society, it's logical to deduce that they earn a sufficient wage that they are able to provide for themselves.  Having homeless people would be a burden to the state and would not be tolerated.  While I doubt they would be euthanized, I imagine they would be offered the chance to contribute or leave.


Oppresion - Because of the mental conditioning of the people, there is almost no dissension.  What's more, any dissenters that do crop up are freely allowed to leave.  Better to have them gone than force them to stay where they either cause others to defect or cause more harm than good.  Those people make a life for themselves where they are not bothered by the World State.  


Disease - Because of the advances made in genetics (and eugenics), it seems that disease has been all but bred out of humanity.  Only healthy zygotes are "bokanovskified" and made to reproduce themselves.  What minor ailments exist, there is Soma.  Unlike narcotics of today (and in other works) soma in itself is non-addicting and has no negative side-effects.


Overcrowding - Because the world is under the control of a single government, population control keeps the world population under 2 billion to insure that mankind doesn't outgrow its resources.  I imagine there are many environmental groups who would love it if we could somehow manage the size of the human population (though I doubt many would want to do so the way the characters in the novel has devised).


The world in Huxley's novel is more utopian than dystopian.  While much of the stability is due to the mental programming done while the people are young, it's not too different to how young children are raised now.  Whatever culture the child is raised in, the parents bring the child up to follow the rules, customs, and traditions of that culture.  They teach the child what is or isn't "proper" by their standard.  In Huxley's world, this standard has become uniform.  There is no racism, sexism, etc.  Contraceptives are distributed to everyone and they are encouraged to have as much sex as they want.  Sex is no longer procreative, but that doesn't mean that people don't still want to have it.  People want to have sex without worrying about pregnancy now.  The removal of emotional attachment to sex means that sex no longer "complicates" things.  It is expected that the person you have sex with one night will probably have sex with some one else the next night, and someone else the night after that so people no longer are distracted by it.  Their productivity isn't compromised.


Interestingly, also due to the conditioning, there is no class conflict in the novel either.  The lowest of the classes (Deltas and Epsilons) while designed to be more ape-like and inferior, are still given some level of worth.  The higher classes, while they may find their more inferior brethren repugnant to look at, are told early on that things wouldn't be as they are with the Deltas and Epsilons.  As well, the Deltas and Epsilons are told that they need the Alphas.  This codependency insures that one group doesn't feel completely removed from the other.  All are needed for the continued prosperity of the World State.

Do I think our world should become like the World State?  Not really.  Do I feel that we can take something from it?  Absolutely.


Often, society (and I'm mainly referring to Western society as that's the one I live in) as a whole demeans certain professions.  Waste management, food service (especially fast food), etc.  But these people are performing a service that we ask for.  What's more, society as we know it would collapse if all these people simply disappeared.  I've known people who have said they would never work in fast food.  They consider the job to be beneath them.  As a thought exercise, imagine that every person in the country had a Master's degree.  Someone will still have to pick up the trash every week.  Someone will still have to flip the burgers.  Someone will have to do the job that other people don't want to do to insure that this country can function.


So, try keeping that in mind when you get snippy at the girl in the drive-thru.