Brave New World: First Reading Response

The world of Brave New World is based around a strict conformity system with the Alphas, Betas, Gammas, etc, and each person is not only born into their caste, but conditioned to want to be whatever caste they are. They are made to want to be their caste, and to not want to talk to those of other castes. The system is color coded, as well, so that everyone of the same level wears the same color all the time, which is one way to make sure everyone is conforming. While the entire system is inherently not equal, it is evened out by the fact that none of them appear to want to be a different caste system.

There are essentially no individuals in this society, pretty much the perfect collectivist society in itself. While in words, there is no such thing as religion, there definitely is, even though they may not want to refer to it as a religion. They worship Ford as a god, and even have meetings reminiscent of going to church in which they "become one" in waiting for the great coming. This, however, helps them become more united, as this "church" is state enforced, and anyone who shows difference would likely get into more trouble than they'd want. The entire act of becoming one helps to reinforce that idea. Another way in which this society rids itself of conflict is by making "everyone belong to everyone else." This means that, essentially, everyone is polygamous and will have relations with pretty much anything of the opposite gender, and are looked down upon as dirty if they do not "date" or "belong" to multiple people at once. Feelings are looked upon as dirty as well ("When the individual feels, the community reels" (103)) as that could cause conflict, and instead commitment and feelings for another are discouraged.

Personally, I feel like this is a dystopia, though I can see how the majority within the book can be happy (hypnopaeda tells them they are, at least.) The fact that everyone is made, at birth, to fit a certain job, and conditioning people so that they fit into a certain role all their life in not looked upon as bad. Babies are electrocuted in a conditioning system to make sure that they will not like books or flowers. And, important for me at least, is the fact that feelings are discouraged, and signs of distress equals someone pushing soma into your face. This makes me feel as though this is a dystopia, a place where one cannot feel for someone or be in a loving relationship with someone else. When things get tough in this society, the tough take soma and have fun in happy rainbow land.