MODERN DAY DYSTOPIA
Laura Anderson
The Pennsylvania State University
Modern Day Dystopia
Aldous Huxley's Brave New World was published in 1932 as a commentary on the potential
implications that the progress of science and technology could have on society and the individuals
within it. It could be argued that Huxley's novel was a prophecy of sorts, but it airs more on the side of
satire, in that he is criticizing tendencies he's observed in society by providing an imaginative tale of
the potential course of those inclinations (Posner, p. 8). This paper is an attempt to shine a light on the
ways in which the mass media (e.g. advertising, social networking, the internet, news) and government
shape society and inevitably control what we value. By drawings parallels between the World State of
Huxley's Brave New World and our modern day society, I hope to show how the dangers of societal
conditioning that were once reserved for science fiction novels are now an engrained in our culture and
are changing with it means to be human. “No Big Brother is required to deprive people of their
autonomy, maturity, and history. As he saw it, people will come to love their oppression, to adore the
technologies that undo their capacities to think.” (Postman, p. xix).
A Brave New World depicts a society, the World State, that has based it's goals of Community,
Identity, and Stability around the assembly line production processes of their reigning god, Henry Ford.
“Our Ford himself did a great deal to shift the emphasis from truth and beauty to comfort and
happiness.” (BNW, p. 205). Citizens are created in test tubes and undergo eugenic breeding, yielding
five genetically differentiated castes, ranging from high-IQ Alphas to moronic Epsilons, to enable a
perfect matching of genetic endowment with society’s task needs (Posner, p. 15). They are then
conditioned via various psychological techniques to find their position in life agreeable, thus not
upsetting the social order. There is no need for religion the people have been conditioned to hate
solitude. Everyone needs everyone. There is no history, arts, families, or love because all of these
things would be destructive to the common goal. The citizens of the World State labor, consume, and
indulge in fanciful pleasures like the 'feelies.' All are content, all is stable.
Huxley's vision acts as a sinister metaphor for the possible implications of the technological era.
While modern day society hasn't advanced to the point of a Brave New World's totalitarianistic state,
the basic principles behind both civilizations are shared. The societies are similarly based on the
historic idea of a Utopia: more literally, a stable society that strives to function with minimal conflicts
and great economic prosperity (driven primarily by the latter.) They endorse socially supported
indulgence of hedonistic behaviors, promiscuity, and and the general breakdown of sexual norms. They
are busily engaging in schemes for genetic enhancement (Atwood, 2007), to varying degrees. They use
technological sedation and mental conditioning to control the group. Industrialization and mass
production of goods and information have led to a society of drones. There is a constant flow of
commercial propaganda and the masses worship the deities of consumerism.
In theory, this is all being done in order to create the best environment for society to flourish
and to maximize profits. If there isn't mass consumption, there will be over production, thus a loss in
profits to the elite powers and death to the economy. The goal is to control our minds and to reprogram
our values, to propagate consumption. “Man is inherently pushed by a free spirit to change the world
around him and his own self. Government by its very nature seeks to limit and to control; government
accomplishes this by fostering a sense of, and value in, stability.” (Barr, p. 848). From this perspective,
technology isn't the problem; it is a means to an end. It is simply the instrument with which the
government and the elite enforce the social order. It enables, but it does not dictate. The innate human
desire for power and progress is responsible. We are responsible for degradation of our souls.
In Huxley's World State, humans are conditioned using various forms of psychology including
Pavlovian conditioning, hypnosis, subliminal messaging during sleep, and classical conditioning
through repetition. With the unavoidable presence of technologies in the digital area, these same tactics
are being used and are hidden behind a facade importance, programming us to make association
between consumption and values. It is obvious from the content of a Brave New World, that Huxley
was a keen observer of the world and recognized the dangers of the changes that occurred after the turn
of the 20th century with the swift rise of industry. It was also around this time that new innovations in
the field of psychology were being explored, allowing people to not only better understand human
cognition, but also how to manipulate it.
Sigmund Freud, the father of psychotherapy, developed a theory about human nature in which
hidden inside of each of us, were dangerous instinctual drives, primitive sexual and aggressive forces,
that if not controlled could lead to chaos (Curtis, 2002). Freud's nephew, Edward Bernays, realized that
by controlling the unconscious desires of the masses, it would be possibly to manage and alter the way
the crowds thought (Curtis, 2002). He used this theory to orchestrate propaganda that successfully
elicited public support during World War II (Curtis, 2002). Bernays theorized that if the strategy had
been effective in times of war, it could also be in times of peace. Companies could cash in on the
vulnerabilities of human life. By linking consumer products to these unconscious desires, it would be
possible to make people want things that they didn't need (Curtis, 2002).
He created a Counsel of Public Relations (replacing the combat-tainted term propaganda) and
began his first major campaign for the American Tobacco Company. During that time, it was taboo for
women to smoke cigarettes in public because it was viewed as a symbol of male sexual power (Curtis,
2002), resulting in a substantial loss in potential profits for the tobacco industry. Bernays orchestrated a
scenario in which a group of debutant women would be seen at an extremely publicized event, lighting
up cigarettes, and dubbing them, “Torches of Freedom.” (Curtis, 2002). Cigarette sales rose as a result.
This was the critical turning point in the field of advertising and public relations. It became
possible to persuade people to behave irrationally simply by connecting products to their emotional
feelings and desires (Curtis, 2002). Irrelevant objects could become powerful emotional symbols.
Cigarettes didn't make women any freer than they were before in the contexts of society and their own
lives, but it made them feel freer (Curtis, 2002). Consumers were no longer just buying for the need,
but in order to somehow express some inner sense of self to the rest of the world (Curtis, 2002). New
products were purchased before the old ones were entirely used. “Ending is better than mending.”
(BNW, p.49). It was at this time that America shifted from a need to a want based society, from
individuals with varying functional needs, to a single mass of docile consumers. This was the
foundation for what we call advertising, but could more appropriately be regarded as consumer
conditioning. They are not selling products they are selling hope (Huxley, 1958). “It was the
metamorphosis of our civilization into one increasingly driven by images and sentiment rather than
words and thoughts and being.” (Wofson, p. 20).
The manipulative potential of advertising lies not just in the obvious techniques used, but in the
fact that we are not even conscious of its actions. The existence of various technological mediums for
the dispersal of information aided in this agenda. Posner (p. 1) refers to this as, “...technocratic
modernism, the kind of outlook that fosters and is fostered by technological progress.” Through
technical devices like the radio and loudspeaker, Adolf Hitler utilized the same techniques Bernays had
used to deprive eighty million people of independent thought (Huxley, 1958). “Propaganda relies on
repetition, suppression and rationalization- the repetition of catchwords which they wish to be accepted
as true, the suppression of facts which they wish to be ignored, the arousal and rationalization of
passions which may be used in the interests of the Party or the State.” (Huxley, 1958). The radio,
television, and now the internet are ideal platforms for the mass spreading of information. They are not
only available to people of all demographics and socio-economic statuses, but are almost required of all
people. The more efficient the technology is, in terms of how quickly is can reach the most amount of
people, the more powerful the elite become.
“Thanks to the enormous improvements in communication and transport modes, the global
movement of people, as well as material and symbolic goods, is constantly growing. The media are an
essential everyday part of life for many people. They reflect and create social and cultural world of the
living.” (Dujmovic, 2011). “Advertisers want consumers to enjoy their advertisements and to associate
the products with a comfortably reinforcing picture of mainstream cultural values.” (Dujmovic, 2006).
Digital media has created a sense that we are never alone (Gunn, p. 100). “Someone on the other side
of world is for many purposes next door.” (Gunn, p. 100). The citizens of the World State were
conditioned to detest isolation. It could be argued that, via technological devices that keep us
“connected,” we are also being programmed to dislike being alone. The technology encourages a
communal personality (Gunn, p. 102), brought to you by media and cultural industries, promoters of
group identity and state of mind. We are never alone because we are always connected. The
overabundance of information that we are constantly being subjected to alters our definition of what
knowledge is and what kinds of knowledge are relevant. With ever-more efficient means of of mass
communication, how can we preserve the integrity and reassert the value of the human individual?
Through every medium, we are constantly being assaulted with consumeristic suggestions. “It
is leaving the television on at night and being subjected to the humming of advertisements, in turn, the
placement of ideas into your subconscious.” (Postman, p. 140). And the methods of modern
advertising have become increasingly irrational (Dujmovic, 2006). American businessmen discovered,
long before the rest of us, that the quality and usefulness of their goods is less important than the
manner in which they are presented to the public. That it is not the character of the product that is
important, but the character of the consumer (Postman, p. 128). While providing the consumer with a
certain feeling of possibility, they also increase their feelings of anxiety and despair (Dujmovic, 2006).
Advertising appeals to these vulnerabilities by telling us that if we put our faith into technology and the
products it creates, our problems will be swiftly solved.
Let us recall the Pops cereal commercials that aired a little over a decade ago, in which a
teenage boy is skateboarding down the hallway of his school. The bell rings, indicating that he is now
late for class, as he ollies into the cafeteria and plops down in front of a bowl of cereal, exclaiming,
“Gotta have my Pops.” The question is why? They never explain it. What will happen if he doesn't
have his Pops? Does he like Pops because he's a skateboarder and since skateboarding is cool, you will
be too if you eat Pops? Is it playing on adolescent insecurities of the need for peer acceptance? My
interpretation is that Pops is such a good cereal, he would skip class for it. That somehow by eating the
Pops, he will have the strength to deal with the rest of his day. He is making a strong judgement about
the importance of a sugary breakfast product versus his education. This is quite the grandiose approach
to selling cereal to kids and this sort of suggested social commentary has very little to do with breakfast
cereal.
“Consumption and mass media suppress a person's individuality and distract him from his
mental need for meaningful action, the possibility of creative expression or longing for a full and
authentic life. The media suggests that this form of life comes with the products.” (Dujmovic, 2011) . It
is important for the preservation of autonomy to remain conscious of our internal reactions to the
external world and attempt to understand the roots of our behavior, if we want a chance at preserving
some assemblence of our authentic selves. In 1985, Postman (p. 126) reported that at the age of forty,
an average American will have seen well over one million television commercials in his or her lifetime,
allowing us to make a fair assumption that the television commercial has profoundly influenced
American habits of thought. The drones of a Brave New World are not far away. When we stop paying
attention, or in their case and possibly ours, have no idea what to pay attention to or reason to do so, we
risk losing the remaining power we have left. It has changed our concept of who were are and who we
should be. It has redefined what it means to be happy and more so, what one needs in order to be
happy. In our society, “Hope is a marketable commodity.”(Dujmovic, 2006).
In a Brave New World, there exists no real purpose for hope, beyond the scope of the
Controllers. For the citizens, there is no past, no relevant future, just the here and now and the excess
and the soma. Commodities are purchased as functional wares, purchased because the people have been
programmed to do so in order to look attractive and play the sports. Our modern day society still
continues to place our lives in the context of history, despite the fact that commercialism is based on
the idea that we have also been conditioned to spend to satiate our own self interests. It could be
argued that, based on trends, successive generations will possess a digitally induced apathy towards the
past. Or perhaps the history being taught to them will have been censored to the peak of political
correctness, and the content will have little authenticity. Rather, it will just function to support the
Zeitgeist, the social and political agenda of that given time. The third alternative is Huxley’s approach,
in which “History is bunk,” and serves no purpose in maintaining the goals of society.
The concept of a future, in our world, as opposed to Huxley's, is the catalyst for the propaganda
of hope (Dujmovic, 2006). From an early age, we are taught to “plan” for the future, to be prepared. In
drone-like succession we proceed forward through high school, college, career, family, house, children,
dog, and swimming pool. Additionally, it is essential to be conscious the entire time of your next step.
The majority of our personal decisions are based on finances, which doesn’t allow most of us room for
excessive flights of fancy. Even in a culture that is immersed in and obsessed with instant gratification
( i.e. Youtube, shopping malls, Redbox, convenience stores, text messaging, Buy it Now on Ebay, etc.)
the future still functions as a reason to live.
We have become a trivial culture, “preoccupied with some equivalent of the feelies, the orgy
porgy, and the centrifugal bumlepuppy.” (Postman, xix). “…we do not measure a culture by its output
of undisguised trivialities but what it claims as significant. Therein is our problem, for television is at
its most trivial, and, therefore, most dangerous when its aspirations are high, when it presents itself as a
carrier of important cultural conversations.” (Postman, p. 16). The information that we consume most,
and regard as somehow important, is often free of any context or merit and is essentially just a novelty
(Postman, p. 65). “…we all build castles in the air. The problems come when we try to live in them.”
(Postman, p. 77).
Consumerism has become engrained in our nature. Mass media and the influence of modern
technology has the power to design human consciousness and reality (Dujmovic, 2011). “Children are
living, talking records of what we tell them everyday.....You can condition a million or ten million
children...til at last the child's mind is these suggestions and the sum of these suggestions is the child's
mind. The mind that judges and desires and decides-made up of these suggestions.” (Huxley, 1958). We
give up our freedom and the sanctity of individualism, in exchange for the illusions of comfort and
sensory pleasure (Huxley, 1958). In a Brave New World, the media has such an influence on people that
they unconsciously use commercial language advertising in daily speech (Dujmovic, 2011). Like the
test-tube humans of a Brave New World, we too are castes. Our language has become an amalgamation
of internet memes, movie quotes, and slogans. Commercialism has changed the way we use and
understand language, and further, the way in which we relate to other people. These commercially
influenced variations in language have and will result in variations in our overall view of the world
(Postman, 10).
“....what with the prohibitions and the lonely remorses, what with all the diseases and the
endless isolating pain, what with the uncertainties and poverty-they were forced to feel strongly...how
could they be stable?” (BNW, p. 48) While there is certainly some truth to this sentiment, I feel as
though the root of our turmoil is apathy, the choice to not feel strongly. Or feeling a sense of displaced
emotion, knowing not where it is rooted or why? The problem is that we aren't paying attention. We
submerge ourselves in technology and commerce but we don't fully understand the function or the
motive behind either. Our society as a whole, at least in regard to it citizens, are no better than the
varying classes of people in a Brave New World. The difference is that they aren't aware of how to be
anything else whereas we have the opportunity to be whoever we want.
Perhaps we've responded to conditioning in similar ways, but the concept of self-interest still
exists today, as evident in the diversity of choices that people make for his or her existence. There are
still critical questions to be asked and unlike the majority of Huxley's characters, somewhere in the
depths of our unconscious, we are aware of that right. Skepticism is part of the human condition. In a
Brave New World, Bernard and Helmholtz are aware of that feeling of discontent, the strange desire to
expand as a person, if only they knew how. Helmholtz (BNW, p. 73) explains, “I am thinking of a queer
feeling I sometimes get, a feeling that I've got something important to say and the power to say it- only
I don't know what it is, and I can't make any use of the power.” It is still our duty to do whatever we
can to resist the forces that threaten our freedom.
The citizens of the World State are living an existence based on delusion, in much of the same
ways that we do. They experience discomfort and take soma to suppress it, to escape. We have a wide
range of pharmaceutical drugs and technological distractions available to us that allow us to achieve the
same effect. We can buy an endless number of goods to cope with any sort of emotional distress that we
may experience. But the effect is only temporary. We even drug our children in order to align them with
the status quo. Is this what happiness is? And if it is, is happiness what we really want? A life of
ignorant bliss, of sedation and repetition, of insignificant gadgets and belongings that give us a false
sense of security? In the case of Huxley's World State, would its inhabitants even know what pleasure
felt like if never having experienced pain? Perhaps this is a gap in Huxley's logic. Could the citizens of
his world truly comprehend their state of utopia, of smiles and contentment, if they had been
programmed to posses a stunted range of emotions? It leads us to question what it is that we value
about the human experience? Can happiness simply be reduced to the absence of pain?
From our perspective, their reality is a dystopia because we recognize the negatives and that
there is life beyond hedonism. However, those living within the system may regard it as a utopia,
because as far as they are concerned, their life is filled with happiness and any qualms can be squashed
with soma. There is no real cause for complaint and therefore could be regarded as a utopian existence.
If a different civilized species were to look in on our modern day society, they could say the same thing
about us. “Impersonal forces over which we have almost no control seem to be pushing us all in the
direction of the Brave new worldian nightmare; and this impersonal pushing is being consciously
accelerated.” (Huxley, 1958). We are being subjected to that which is reminiscent of Plato's noble lie, a
mythical and dishonest state created by the elite in order to maintain societal stability. Our thoughts,
feelings, and values will continue to be shifted towards that which benefits the bureaucrats.
“The loss of the sense of the strange is a sign of adjustment, and the extent to which we have
adjusted is a measure of the extent to which we have been changed.” (Postman, p. 80). Unlike the
tragically predestined characters in a Brave New World, it is not too late for us. All is not lost. Huxley
created a brilliant metaphor for the future of humanity, but we've yet to reach the desperate summit of
his speculation. 600 A.F. is still just a speck in the distant future. So the choice is ours: those of us who
have maintained some assemblence of individual thought and consciousness, despite the silent
pressures that surround us. “The power to respond to reason and truth exists in all of us. But so,
unfortunately, does the tendency to respond to unreason and falsehood.” (Huxley, 1958). Will we
choose to go blindly into the light (the glowing orb radiating from the light-emitting diodes in your
television set) or will we unplug, disconnect, and make a conscious effort to reroute our potentially
sinister fate?
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