Beware of Sweet Traps - Aldous Huxley's Brave New World

Brave New World depicts a world of "prosperity and stability" – material abundance so much that people believe that "the sewing is getting poorer, it is better to throw it away than to repair it"; technology has advanced so much that humans can produce in large quantities like machines without having to reproduce; culture is so flourishing that people have nearly endless entertainment to enjoy; people are healthy and beautiful and youthful residents and even have arbitrary sexual satisfaction...

The most wonderful thing is that if you feel disturbed, there is a magic drug called abstinence that can make you fall into a deep sleep and get holiday-like satisfaction in your dreams; when you wake up, the troubles are over. What could be more comfortable than living in such a world?

It is indeed good to see the new world in this way, the society is stable, people live happily and happily, and all desires are satisfied.

But know that here, everyone is set conditions: to be resigned, to be addicted to consumption and entertainment, to love what they must do.

In fact, there is even an institution in the book called the Bureau of Destiny; here everyone is unequal: people of the higher castes are happy to dominate the world, people of the lower castes are stupid and short and can only do coolies; here, there are no books and no thinking, and people are just entertained...

But we need this opposition to Brave New World, because people simply cannot determine which class they will be in, and they have no possibility of transcending class.

The size and choice of this solidified class is determined by the ruler, who can completely solidify these class candidates within their control, and the wider population has a high probability of falling into the middle or even the bottom of the pyramid.

Because the novel is dominated by alpha and beta groups, the reader only sees the life between them and tends to ignore the life of the lower classes--in fact, there are very few depictions of this in the novel. The reader only sees the bright and beautiful dogs and horses, but does not see the monotony of the lower class. So it is impossible to understand the internal social logic of this utopia: most people are born destined to be enslaved.

This type of social structure resembles the aristocratic society of the Middle Ages, or the relationship between the Chinese elite and the common people. But brave new world seems more thorough, everything has long been doomed in the time you are still waiting for oxygen and nutrients in the incubator, you can not resist, can not change.

And after you are born, sleep education and implicit education will completely adjust you to slavery, subjectively and objectively cutting off your possibility of changing yourself. The establishment of this society is not based on the equality and approval of all citizens.

Brave New World does not give dissenters a place to live in society, but isolates them from society – i.e., to quarantine zones. Citizens do not have the full right to do what they want to do (being alone, thinking, writing different poetry, resisting promiscuity, learning what they want to know), or not doing what they want to do in society. Once there is an error in genetic control, it is seen as heretical and quickly excluded from society.

Through reproductive control, suggestive education, and other forms, the United States defined the living space and life trajectory of human beings, and defined the caste and class in which they lived. Citizens (from the lower to the higher) are deprived of the right to choose their form of life, the right to education, the right to the advancement of the individual, and the right to choose other possibilities. The possibility of man's own development is completely obliterated. In the final analysis, equality and freedom are not guaranteed and do not reach everyone.

That is the reason for opposing Brave New World. We cannot accept a society with a high probability of becoming a slave. We cannot accept a society in which classes are solidified and distinct, and there is no possibility of transcendence. We cannot accept that we cannot do what we want to do and what we can do as equals in a society.

We cannot accept a society in which our fate is decided by others, where our lives have long been determined, and where our possibilities are erased.

We expect the future to be complete and bright, but it is also possible to degenerate into ugliness and darkness – no matter how beautiful it is wrapped in a beautiful cloak. But the future is still not yet coming, and we can only look for even a few fragments of broken sentences in the prophecies of the wise men of the past that can keep us awake, and then remain vigilant not to let it go astray.