How do different characters deal with social justice in their societies?

     In the book I recently finished, Brave New World by Aldous Huxley, the characters face a lot of different kinds of social justice issues in their society including some they don't even realize to be issues. In the book, the government has completely dominated every aspect of human life throughout the country. The Ten World Controllers have conditioned people from birth to believe in certain ideals and be disgusted by any old, traditional ways of the people before the Nine Years War when the government seized control of everyone's lives. Many of the people in the society are afraid to act out against things they think are unjust because they have been raised and programmed to believe that certain things are okay or natural, such as people being born in test tubes and raised in schools instead of having parents or families. Lenina, an average Beta society member thinks that something is wrong with the flaky relationships people have instead of actually dating or getting married, but is too afraid to let that thought grow because no one else thinks the same way. When she meets John who's a Native American living by the old traditional life style, nothing seems the same anymore. Overall, the different characters in Brave New World find different ways to deal with social justice issues in their society by either trying to voice their beliefs or silence them.
     To begin, in the book, John copes with social justice issues in the mainstream society by facing them head on. For example, in the text, visiting people at the hospital when they are very ill or an a terminal condition is unheard of in society because kids are "death-conditioned" so they have no feelings about death. So when John visits his dying mother Linda in the hospital, the nurses and medical students act like it's an obscene and completely outrageous thing to do. But to John, who grew up in a society like our modern one, it was a completely justified action to want to visit the woman who raised him for the last time in life. To deal with this social justice issue of children being programmed to resist emotion about death, John tries to express his ideas about family to the nurses and students in the hospital. His mother dying was a turning point in John's life that inspired him to fight social injustice in society. Throughout the rest of the book, John tries as hard as he can to voice his beliefs to anyone who will listen in order to let people know that emotion is okay and that they can't let the government leech onto their lives. In contrast to John's great efforts to protest social injustice, Lenina's response to social justice issues are too simply ignore them. Rather than go with her beliefs of what's wrong, she choses to see the world in the picture perfect way the government wants her to. For instance, in the text, John tries to explain the concept of family and marriage to Lenina to make her understand that he wants to have a serious relationship with her. But Lenina just tosses all his ideas aside and parrots the sayings the government conditions children to believe. There are different times in the book where Lenina can tell that something is not right with her gut instinct, but unlike John, she chooses not to act on it.
     Furthermore, the character Bernard has a mixed response to social justice and struggles throughout the book to decide whether to silence his thoughts or try to share them. In the beginning of the book when Bernard is first introduced to the reader, it is made clear that Bernard is an oddball in the society. He disagrees with almost every single thing the government does and is always mumbling to himself instead of socializing like all the other society members. Most people ignore Bernard or don't think much of him because he doesn't only care about playing golf or going on dates like everyone else does. But when he discovers John in the New Mexico reservation, he becomes famous and highly respected throughout all of the society. The most  important government leaders want to meet him and everyone wants to be his best friend. This fame and success get to Bernard's head and cause him to ignore all the ideas he was passionate about before and just try to fit in with the rest of society. Instead of facing the apparent social justice issues he notices, Bernard decided to ignore them because his sudden popularity overrode his need to share his ideas with others. Additionally, Bernard's best friend Helmholtz tries to convince Bernard not to let the fame of discovering a "Savage" get to his head. Helmholtz is an Alpha lecturer and a manager at the College of Emotional Engineering. He writes many instructional books to inform different groups of people of the government's expectations and guidelines for how to do their jobs. But even though his whole career is based on society's excessive government control, Helmholtz has very different personal ideals. He believes that people should be independent of the government and make lives for themselves instead of being conditioned. Also, he strongly believes in people having the ability to think for themselves instead of being taught in school how to parrot the government. But unlike Bernard, who established himself as a strange person to others in society, Helmholtz keeps his beliefs between Bernard and himself in order to live peacefully under the government's rule and not raise suspicions about himself. Helmholtz dealt with social justice issues in society by hiding his thoughts behind a high level, respectable government job instead of making his beliefs public.
     In conclusion, different characters in Brave New World deal with social justice issues in society differently depending on what their life intentions are. John intended to change society and encourage new morales so he decided to voice his beliefs. Alternatively, Lenina, who intended to live by government rule and focus on having fun instead of risking getting in trouble, decided to keep her disagreement with government ideals secret. Bernard at first ignored society's rules but after becoming popular, decided to silence his thoughts so he could fit into society and be celebrated by his peers instead of teased by them. Helmholtz also kept his ideas secret in order to be accepted and respected by society and not raise government suspicions about himself. Since the government in the Brave New World controlled most aspects of the people's lives and the rules in society, the Ten World Controllers acted quickly to eliminate people who are seen as government threats from society and sent them to live far away. Independent people who have their own thoughts and ideas such as Bernard, Helmholtz, and John are all people that the government feared because they could tell others of their different ideas and thoughts which could cause a rebellion. The fear of being banished causes the characters such as Lenina and Helmholtz to silence their beliefs. But since John was raised in a different kind of community, he wasn't afraid to be banished and tried to voice his beliefs as much as he could. Overall, the different characters in the book dealt with social justice issues differently because they all had different needs and wants in their lives.

Social Justice in Society

         Have you ever imagined what Earth would be like six hundred years into the future? The book Brave New World by Aldous Huxley is about new society hundreds of years from now. In this new, future society, science and technology has taken over every simple aspect of life. The first few pages of the book begin the whole story by showing how birth is now a scientific procedure done with test tubes and freezing and tons of babies being made in the Fertilizing Room every day in the Central London Hatchery and Conditioning Centre. Brave New World presents an entirely different view on society where everyone is under specific instructions and technology dominates life. Along with this new society is the uprising of many social justice issues that relate to the current time now. The biggest social justice issue is one that is very big today as well. This issue is government interference and control in everyday life. In the future society, the government has taken complete control over the human population and has too much interference in daily life.
         To Begin, in the book, the government controls birth and human genetic structure. Instead of mothers and father having children like in today, the government scientifically makes children with Fertilizing Rooms and by chemically altering human DNA to make the exact kind of people they want. In the text, the people created are made specifically to fit into certain social groups such Alpha Plus, Beta, Gamma, and others. Some groups are made very smart to go on to be powerful rulers including being one of the 10 World Controllers. Alternatively, some groups such as Gamma are made with less intelligence to serve different purposes in the world. The government also alters DNA to make children grow to their full heights and become fully developed faster so they can go on to work earlier in life. In this society, the government really sees no need for childhood. They believe that while people are in a physically childhood state, they should simply be formerly educated according to the government's ideas and then go on to become an adult in society immediately afterwards. This shows how the government has already interfered with people being able to be who they really are inside and have put people into groups so they are limited to the government's forced ideals and won't have their own goals and personal ideas. And without a real childhood, they never learn how to form their own opinions. Overall, the government doesn't want people to have childhoods because they don't want them to be creative and think outside the government's regulations, rules, and methods.
          Secondly, the government controls what children are brought up to believe. Children are raised without families, which don't exist in this society, and are instead raised with nurses who act as teachers. Three times a week for several hours, while the children are sleeping, the nurses use hypnotic technique to repeat certain sayings hundreds of times to imprint them into the children's minds. Then, after the children are forced to do this for their entire elementary school lives, they have certain ideals stuck in their heads forever. These ideas are things that the government wants the children to believe in order to better control them and make sure they don't have any political or social ideas of their own. Furthermore, the government also controls how much people know about the past, or the current ways of Earth's society today. In the text, the Director explains to science students how people had mothers and fathers and lived with their families. The students think this is outrageous and inconvenient. Everything the students hear about the old society disgusts them because they have already been brought up by certain government ideas. This way, people won't understand how life was before the government was so involved in it. Overall, the government controls the what children are brought up to believe and how much people hear about the past in order to make people only believe in the society the government has created.
          In conclusion, in the book, the government interferes in humans' daily lives in this future society to make sure they have complete control and that no one disagrees with their ideals. In the future society, the government  has even used hypnosis on people to make sure they don't rebel or disagree with the government. Today, government interference in daily life is a big social justice issue that I not only see popping into my book, but popping into my life. Many people are very opinionated on how much the government should be involved in and where the limit of government interference really is. For example, government surveillance is a big issue in the US. Some people are very supportive of the government videotaping and checking emails and keeping tabs on people in order to protect the country. But others strongly disagree and believe that the government is already too involved in daily life and should be respecting peoples' privacy. Also, government control in big business transactions is a very controversial issue because peoples' opinions differ on whether or not the government has the right to interfere in the world of big business. Last month, I read an article on the issue of government control and surveillance that presented both sides of an argument. On one hand, I think that the government is already involved too much in daily life with excessive security and surveillance, but I also understand that they want to make sure that there are no security risks. For me, it's hard to see where the privacy of the people starts and the responsibility of the government ends. Overall, government control and interference is a big social justice issue that I see in my book and in my life that can determine the freedom and privacy of the people.