The door to Conservation Hall bursts open. 436 heads swivel to stare at the latecomer. Flushed in the face, hair heavy with rain, he squeaks down the aisle to a seat between two strangers. He leans over, whips out a laptop and opens a Word document (or Facebook… or Twitter… or Tumblr), prepared to take notes, or at least to give that impression. A glance left shows an identical screen on every desk. Look to the right: same view. Ahead roughly 200 screens look back at him, reflecting the pastimes of their owners — 437 college students plugged into their technological mini-worlds.
We’ve all heard the dire predictions before: _Rise of the machines, artificial intelligence will take over the world_, etc. etc. Nowadays, fears of a Matrix-esque 21st century seem ridiculous. So far all they’ve led to is Macbooks, smartphones and iPads (oh my!), but it isn’t material technology Aldous Huxley feared when he penned “Brave New World” in 1932.
Huxley worried about medical, biological and physical technologies with which an all-powerful state might strip the human population of its free will entirely.
In his futuristic novel, reproduction is strictly a sterile government operation, old age is a thing of the past and all human discomforts are expunged with a magical drug called soma.
Worse than that, every human begins his or her life as an embryo in a test tube. These “Hatching and Conditioning Centers” produce thousands of nearly identical human beings every day. Each tube is “conditioned” by workers at the hatchery to become a member of one of 5 castes: Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta or Epsilon. Alphas are destined to be society’s leaders while Epsilons are stripped of emotion and programmed to enjoy menial tasks — the rest fall somewhere in between.
Those lucky enough to be born from Alpha to Gamma enjoy a life of consumerism, entertainment and sex. That’s it.
Sound like your dream life? Maybe, until you realize there are _no other options_. Huxley’s supreme World State government has done away with things like art, books and religion. It places a higher value on happiness and maintaining the status quo than on diverse human thought.
Of course, someone comes along to challenge this governmental mindset — what kind of novel would it be otherwise? A man born in a “repulsive” and “outdated” manner (sexual reproduction) strikes a bargain with a disgruntled Beta male and is transported from his home on the “savage reserve” to the metropolis of the World State.
Named “Savage John” by the populace, our dissident fights furiously against technological control, spouting Shakespearian verses all the while.
Things go poorly for him. The brave new soma-obsessed world of nymphomaniacs wants nothing to do with Savage John’s “art” or “culture” or “human emotion.” It’s too much _work_ to break rank, and besides, wouldn’t it be _awfully_ uncomfortable?
Poor John’s grand talk of deities and literature falls on the deaf ears of an over-drugged, over-sexed, over-indulged population. The citizens of the World State are so deeply set in their technologically dependent ways that they’re comfortably oblivious to governmental control.
Yes, this is what Huxley feared for generations beyond his own. Sure, he might have gone a little overboard with the test tube babies, but is he really so off base with the sex, drugs, consumerism and entertainment?
All things considered, we’re not far from Huxley’s worst World State nightmare. Luckily for the future of humanity, it’s a reversible condition.
Sure, keep your Macbooks — no class in Conservation is actually bearable — but train yourself to value free will. The next time you crave a pleasure-driven, thoughtless society (everyone’s daydream at some point or another), ask yourself whether becoming a thoughtless drone is really worth it.
