Brave New World: Quote Analysis

One Scene in the Novel that was fascinating to me was when The Director and the group of students were observing a Hypnotherapy Conditioning session with young children. The Hypnotherapy is meant to indoctrinate the children into their selected castes. It is important to analyze what these sessions told the children, and how those messages apply to the children's rolls in society when they get older.

"The More Stitches, the Less Riches..." BNW P.51
This phrase that is told to the children relates to their societies need for consumption. Their economy is an essential part in keeping their scientific achievements up to date, and also provide all castes a way to achieve happiness. The higher castes (Alpha, Beta) achieve happiness through purchasing, while the lower castes achieve happiness by working to produce these consumer goods. It may appear unfair that the Epsilons and so on are treated like slaves in factory work, but one has to remember that factory work and menial labor is all they've ever known, and have been conditioned to enjoy this treatment.

“A really efficient totalitarian state would be one in which the all-powerful executive of political bosses and their army of managers control a population of slaves who do not have to be coerced, because they love their servitude.” Mustapha Mond, BNW
Mond brings up a key point regarding the theme of Totalitarianism. We look back at the two largest totalitarian societies known to man, Hitler's Nazi Germany and Stalin's Soviet Union; and from this we see two individuals gaining their control over the government using fear and misinformation. They gained their public support fair and square, but once in power used their authority to control their citizens using propaganda, secret police, and fear over what would happen if they disagreed with the ideals of their society. The World State is like no other Totalitarian society. They are not keeping their citizens on a leash using fear. In a way they aren't even taking away one's individuality because they weren't really an individual to begin with. The citizens are born, and bread to have one specific role in society. Because of the conditioning they were put through since birth, they not only comply with this order, but prefer it over anything else. This is slavery by definition, because they have no other choice, but is it really immoral if one prefers their enslavement over freedom? The citizens didn't know the answer to this because none of them were presented a choice. None, that is, until John the Savage entered society as a model of freedom. He inspired those like Watson to embrace individuality over freedom. This is why Watson and Helmholtz were forced to leave society, because they posed a threat to the World State's Moral Reasoning for having the caste system in place.

"So They're Having Children all the time - like dogs. It's too revolting...And yet John was a great comfort to me." Linda, BNW p.122

Linda expresses to Bernard and Lenina the unthinkable, that motherhood was a beneficial thing to her. In the Wold State, there is no such thing as motherhood or fatherhood. Children are grown and Raised in Conditioning Centers instead of by parents. Just the words Mother and Father were considered insults in society. Linda, who had grown up in the World state has had this mentality ingrained in her literally since birth, yet, having John had given her a sense of purpose. John had brought out the maternal instinct in her, arguably one of the strongest instincts on the planet. It brings up the question of just how much these conditioning centers could really suppress one's natural instinct. It appears so to be 100 percent effective in the beginning of the novel, but a collapsible system if introduced to an alternative. Linda being introduced to motherhood produced the same reaction that Watson had being introduced to John, they both had experienced freedom from their societal standards.