In a society predicated upon sameness, this is undesirable. Bernard Marx is an Alpha-Minus who has somehow developed a little too much individuality. Huxley then proceeds to show some of the cracks in the otherwise perfect society. While the World State is not the overtly totalitarian presence made manifest in Nineteen Eighty-Four, it is still a covertly authoritarian government in which people are happy only because they have been manufactured that way. Tragedy and suffering have been sacrificed in the name of stability, and what few passions are allowed to citizens are carefully monitored and controlled through very specific outlets. Such weighty endeavours are too emotionally complex for these new humans. You will consume the basest forms of arts and entertainment-high art having gone the way of history. You will be trained, in your sleep and while you are awake, for a single job. It’s that inexorable predestination of one’s life and potential: you are a Beta, and that will never change. This is the nightmare of Huxley’s utopia, at least for me. Everyone has his or her place, a cog in the great machine of civilization as it grinds onward in stability for all eternity. Huxley makes it very clear that this vision of the future is one based on the mass production, mass consumption ideals of twentieth century America and, in particular, Henry Ford. More still will make up the bottom of the social pyramid, the Deltas and Epsilons with their restricted worldviews and even more restricted intellects. More will be Betas or Gammas, who provide the specialized labour that keeps places like the Hatchery in operation. Some are destined to be Alphas, the intellectual elite. Even before birth, each potential person’s life has been mapped out and determined by gene sequences and other processes. Instead, babies are grown and then decanted, an ultimate triumph of genetic engineering. Top-heavy in exposition, the novel begins with a walking tour through the Central London Hatchery.

Aldous Huxley leaves us with a potent question: what kind of society do we want to make?īrave New World is deceptively simplistic in its structure. Brave New World is rightfully a classic work of science fiction that demonstrates the potential for technology to help us reshape society. Innovation begets change, and change is often disruptive-our future mirrors the past in this respect. In this sense, the distinction between soft and hard science fiction disappears-all science fiction is inherently social, for no matter how much detail goes into describing the technological advances that populate possible futures, the meat of the story is always the effect these technologies have on the people using them.

One of science fiction’s most enduring traits is its ability to ruminate upon the ways in which science and technology allow us to manipulate and re-engineer society.

Brave new world book review