Brave new world I find somewhat interesting. The concept as a whole I’m not to found of. A society that is decanted and raised and conditioned by the “state” separated by a caste system. I think the conditioning part, which I think is based on Pavlov’s classical conditioning I find t be the most disturbing. To think the world is controlled by just a few individuals and what every hey think or believe is to be right is that is law, that’s the way it should be! “Till at last the child’s mind is these suggestions, and the sum of the suggestions is the child’s mind……. But al these suggestions are our suggestions!….. The suggestions from the state!” ( Huxley page 36). This I find to be troubling. What I find troubling and also in a way disturbing is the processes of decanting humans and treating humans as machines! The whole process to me, seems so sterile “Pilkington, at Mombasa, had produced individuals who were sexually mature at four and full grown at six and a half. A scientific triumph. But socially useless. Six year old men and women were too stupid to do even Epsilon work” ( Huxley page 25). They are talking about humans as if they were machines, robots, just a piece of flesh to do work. Besides My social and moral outrage and disgust about the concept of this story what I find really interesting in the later chapters, is the introduction of the characters, two in particular Lenina Crowne and Bernard Marx. I find them intriguing because they appear to have some difficulty accepting the status quo, Bernard more so than Lenina. Bernard is a character I would love to find out more about. He should be one of the happiest people in the world. He’s an Alpha Plus male, which is the highest ranking caste and he is a psychologist. Through some defect ( I don’t know if that is the right word) he is “created” shorter than what an Alpha Plus male should be. Eight centimeters shorter! Which makes him feel like an outcast among is alpha cast, which I believe makes him question the whole process! ” One hundred repetitions three nights a week for four years, thought Bernard Marx who was a specialist on hypnopaedia. Sixty two thousand four hundred repetitions make on truth. Idiots!” ( Huxley page 52). That paragraphs intrigued me about his character. He is by profession a psychologist and I believe a expert on hypnopaedia, and for him to have a thought like this! It appears to me the author is setting us up for some big event involving him. I’m not quite sure what it is. The obvious thought would be a rebellion against the state, but as I read on and discover more about his character I doubt that would be the case. Another line that struck out to me “What the two men shared was the knowledge that they were individuals” ( Huxley page 71). For a society as this one, to me, I would think this would be an horrible thought! To be an individual? It’s like having leprosy! This has to be the worst imaginable thing that can happen to a person! I’m curious to know what is going to happen with these characters!
I was thinking the same thing! When I read the part about the babies with the flowers and books, it reminded me of something that I learned from psychology. I just didn’t remember what it was called.