Today's Featured Dystopia: Brave New World, Aldous Huxley

Brave New World is Aldous Huxley's fifth novel. Published in 1932.

Setting: Future England, 532 AF - AD 2540. The world is united under The World State, which maintains strict controls over the Earth's population, fixing it as two billion.

Origin of Title: Shakespeare, The Tempest, specifically Miranda's speech:-

O wonder!

How many goodly creatures are there here! How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world! That has such people in it!
-- The Tempest, Act V, Scene I

Social controls:

Casting - Natural birth forbidden. Children created in Hatcheries, decanted and raised in Conditioning Centres. Casting determines status for life. Castes: Alphas, Betas, Gammas, Deltas and Epsilons. Genetic manipulation of castes to cause arrested development in intelligence, physical growth, according to caste. Alphas are leader caste. Lesser castes physically, mentally inferior.

Consumerism - "Spending Better Than Mending." Hypnopaedic conditioning subliminally programs appropriate mindset into each caste member. Consumerism drives the Command Economy of the World State.

Soma - Entheogenic drugs to fill the need for meditation, religion, philosophy and the quest for hiher meaning and purpose.

Recreational Sex - Breeding is forbidden, but sex for pleasure is encouraged. Sexuality is encouraged from a very disturbingly young age. "Everyone Belongs To Everyone Else" as a mantra. The idea of "family" is pornographic; obscene.

Peer Pressure - Seeking solitude is frowned upon. The idea of wanting to be an individual is considered sickening.

Attitude to Death - Typical lifespan, about 60. Death is not feared: a dying person believes that he or she has fulfilled her role in society, and done her bit, and society will now carry on. Society more important than the individual. No family ties to mourn.

Punishments - People deemed anti-social are brought before a Resident World Controller, who offers them a choice of island for their exile. Possible destinations include the Falklands. Exile is benevolent, because it is not a threat to force freethinkers to conform to rejoin society, but rather granting such freethinkers their wish to be free, and isolated from greater society. It's win-win for the World State: nobody has to die, but since death is not to be feared neither is life. The freethinkers get to enjoy their lives and fulfil themselves to the best extent they can, and society remains intact for those who wish to stay and continue to do their bit.

The Inevitable Loose Cannons: Bernard and Lenina, both Alphas. Bernard may have accidentally been programmed to be an Epsilon in stature during incubation with a little alcohol to keep him physically shorter than Alphas. Lenina is chided by her peers for not being promiscuous enough.

John, a Savage - an outsider, born naturally to Linda, Bernard's boss, and living among the Savages.

Escape: Unable to get away, unable to stay away, a loose cannon and disruptive influence, in the end John hangs himself. Escape, in this case, is death.