Chloe Escobar

Chloe Escobar

Mr. Jennings/Ms. Free

Honors English IV

November 28th, 2013

Brave Current World?

Brave New World is a work of science fiction based on a society that is essentially “perfect”, a utopia. Babies are produced artificially and on a much larger scale than by a viviparous method. People are disease free, and worry free because of their conditioning to be happy with their place in society. This new world contains several scientific ideas, many of which partially exist in our world, or could be feasible in the near future. Aldous Huxley wrote a novel of absolute fiction for his life time, but almost one hundred years later this work can be reexamined for its exploration of controversial methods that could possibly be implemented.

The greatest scientific idea in this novel that is truly the basis for the entire society is cloning. In Brave New World, humans are reproduced through a method of cloning called the Bokanovsky’s Process.

“One egg, one embryo, one adult - normality. But a bokanovskified egg will bud, will proliferate, will divide. From eight to ninety-six buds, and every bud will grow into a perfectly formed embryo, and every embryo into a full-sized adult. Making ninety-six human beings grow where only one grew before. Progress (Huxley 6).”

The Bokanovsky process is very similar to in vitro fertilization in our own world, mainly in the sense that the mother’s egg and the father’s sperm are being fertilized outside of the womb (Mayo).While these processes are similar, the novel has taken cloning to an extreme because it creates thousands upon thousands of babies out of just one ovary. At this point, the process becomes both unethical and maybe impossible in our society today. Cloning has long been a debated and controversial issue, so it is unlikely to think that this large scale production would be accepted into our world. We are also not currently capable of the technology it would take to harvest ovaries and keep them surviving outside of the human body. The Bokanovsky process sounds astounding and quite questionable, and as of now would not work in our world. Although this specific process is not currently feasible, it could possibly be in the future. The twenty first century alone has given way to many great strides in technology, and it continues to do so. Scientists have already made successful attempts at cloning, with one of the most notable being Dolly the sheep that was the first mammal to be cloned from a human somatic cell in 1996. In order to create Dolly, Ian Wilmut and Keith Campbell utilized the process of nuclear transfer in which the nucleus of one diploid cell is transferred to an unfertilized egg that has had its nucleus removed. In short, we have some of the technology it would require to adopt the Bokanovsky process but we still would need to make progress in the field of cloning and pay less attention to morals in order for it to be successful (The Roslin Institute).

The next and second most important process to Brave New World is the predetermination of human stature and mental capabilities by oxygen deprivation to the human embryo, and by adding alcohol to their blood surrogate. It is immediately safe to say that both of these practices could never be recreated in our world, because they cross the morals that the majority of us hold dearly. So the question then becomes, are either of these processes possible? Alcohol in an fetus’s surrogate is no stranger to our society, in fact it has its own name; fetal alcohol syndrome. This condition is viewed as a complete misfortune to the baby and its parents. Fetal alcohol syndrome can result in effects that can alter the child mentally and physically for the rest of its life. Although this is looked down upon, women continue to drink and be negligent mothers to their unborn children.“It's estimated that each year in the United States, 1 in every 750 infants is born with a pattern of physical, developmental, and functional problems referred to as fetal alcohol syndrome (FAS), while another 40,000 are born with fetal alcohol effects (FAE)” (Kids Health). As horrendous as this condition is, it is certainly possible that we could replicate it on a larger scale to purposely inhibit the mental or physical growth of our people, as the novel does to create the lower Epsilon class. In the novel it is a sad but accepted truth that embryos are given alcohol, “They say someone made a mistake while he was still in the bottle – thought he was a Gamma and put alcohol into his blood surrogate’” (Huxley 46). In that world, putting alcohol in blood surrogate is the norm just as prenatal checkups would be for us.Yet as said before, this method would be stopped in its tracks with a giant army of morally conscious people and devoted religion followers. Hopefully all of us would fit into this category and not support the intentional inhibiting of a child’s brain.

Oxygen deprivation is the other main method of shaping the human mind and body in Brave New World. In a sense, this exists currently. It is known as cerebral hypoxia, which can be caused by a multitude of things such as: breathing in smoke, strangulation, choking, etc. (Cerebral Hypoxia). Cerebral hypoxia is considered a life threatening condition that should be immediately attended to as it can result in comatose or even death. Could we perform this process on our people as embryos? Perhaps not as embryos unless technologically permitted, but because of the obvious ethical issues there is no work currently being done to make progress for this to be possible. Just like fetal alcohol syndrome, oxygen deprivation is viewed as a serious and grave issue. In no way could either of these be taken up by our society, as they go against every moral and ethical standard we as human beings have.

Once the embryos have been tampered with to determine their mental and physical capabilities, they are then taken to the process in which they are conditioned to like the lifestyle that Brave New World’s government sees fit. “And that, …that is the secret of happiness and virtue-liking what you’ve got to do. All conditioning aims at that: making people like their unescapable social destiny”, (Huxley 16). Literally every person in the novel was placed into their social class and place in society by predetermination. For example, embryos who are predestined to become miners in the tropics are conditioned to hate the cold by accompanying cold environments with harsh x-rays. In another example, children of the Delta class are conditioned to hate flowers and nature by shocking them each time they were presented with either. Essentially, this kept the Deltas free of distraction and focused on their factory work. Undoubtedly, conditioning exists in our world in the field of psychology. A well-known example of this is with behavioral psychologist B.F Skinner. Skinner developed a box in which he placed animal subjects and trained them to perform a desired behavior by rewarding them with a positive reinforcement each time they did the behavior. On a smaller scale, conditioning takes place in regular households every day such as in potty training a child. The parent shapes the child to perform a desired behavior (using the toilet), by giving the child positive or negative reinforcement. We are also conditioned in school; when the bell rings it is a universal sign that class is over and the expected response is to get up and go about your day. Conditioning exists in our world and is widely used to shape people of different societies. The main difference between our world and Brave New World is that we do not use it to predetermine our children’s place in society, at least most of us do not. Some parents definitely use conditioning to help “steer” their child in the right direction, or at least what they think is the right direction. Children are conditioned to think that working at Mcdonald’s equates with being a complete and total failure in life. This is not to say that working at Mcdonald’s should be a top choice job, but parents definitely help out with determining where their offspring are going in life. The conditioning that takes place in this novel would most likely never occur in our world because more and more kids are told to be themselves and strive for what they want in life. Introducing conditioning on this scale would cause uproar especially in the United States, the land of the free.

Probably the strangest aspect of this novel, is the principle that everyone belongs to everyone and relationships are strongly discouraged as they would distract from the overall goal of efficiency. For example, one character, Bernard, is looked down upon because he refuses to engage in multiple relations with women. Children are encouraged to play sexual games with each other so that they can begin to feel more comfortable with the care free relationships. “For a very long period before the time of Our Ford, and even for some generations afterwards, erotic play between children had been regarded as abnormal…actually immoral and had therefore been rigorously suppressed” (Huxley 32). The people of this novel consider it an acceptable practice to sleep with multiple people, because they have been conditioned to think so. Some people in our own society would think this idea is amazing, perhaps they polygamists. But, what makes this aspect improbable for us to do is that it aims to take away love and relationships and ultimately starting a family, which is what most humans naturally want to do.

All of the strange practices and ideas in Brave New World are what make it a utopia. People are predetermined for intelligence and social ranking, and they are conditioned to be happy with their place in society so that no job goes unfulfilled. The new world’s goal is to be efficient, and in reality, those things are what are fit for their goal. The majority of the processes in this novel are considered unethical, and therefore could not be transferred into our society. Simultaneously, we as humans are making astounding technological strides, some of which have made parts of these processes possible. One could venture to say that if morals and ethics were not in the way, what could stop an eventual take over such as in this novel.

Works Cited

"Cerebral hypoxia: MedlinePlus Medical Encyclopedia." i>U.S National Library of Medicine</i>.U.S. National Library of Medicine, n.d. Web. 2 Dec. 2013. &lt;

Huxley, Aldous.Brave New World. New York: Harper Perennial Modern Classics, 2006. Print.

"KidsHealth."i>Fetal Alcohol Syndrome</i>.N.p., n.d. Web. 30 Nov. 2013. lt;

Mayo."Definition."i>Mayo Clinic</i>. Mayo Foundation for Medical Education and Research, 27 June 2013. Web. 30 Nov. 2013. &lt;

"The Cloning Controversy."The Cloning Controversy.N.p., n.d. Web. 29 Nov. 2013. <

"The Roslin Institute."i>(University of Edinburgh)</i>. N.p., n.d. Web. 1 Dec. 2013. &lt;