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.
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