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.
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