Society’s advances don’t necessarily bring happiness and self fulfilment to an individual. Brave New World presents the potential issues that come with dependence on technology, praised consumerism, the problems of modifying behaviourism (the thought process, social interaction, spiritual connections and general behaviour) and ignorance to negative issues and identity.
Stability is managed in every possible way, including economy. In order to keep a stable economy, consumerism is promoted and re-using/re-cycling is behaviour to be ashamed of. The characters are led to believe that supplying themselves with as much as they like will make them “happy” however, it builds up a selfish attitude and has a detrimental impact on the natural environment (or what may be left) and the weather.
Religion in Utopia is the idolization of technology; their faith is “Ford”. As the car, Ford is a man-made creation rather than a superior being, their worship has no spiritual connection. Their “Ford” does not give them any guidance or give them any teachings to centre their lives and actions around. For most people, spiritual connections are an essential aspect of overall happiness.
Utopia’s solution to happiness is to turn a blind eye to negative emotions, and bad situations. They do this by using the drug soma which suppresses feelings. Although they believe that they are experiencing freedom, with happiness, they are all in fact suffering, they have not felt a true sense of joy, their idea of happiness is a delusion influenced by the drug soma, and if they were to feel any sense of happiness, they could not possibly appreciate it as they have had no proper experience with misery.
In order to maintain “happiness” there are minimal types of relationships an individual is permitted to have. There is no such thing as commitment to the other people as The Controller sees commitment as a threat their careers and to Utopia. They can not juggle the responsibilities of a personal relationship as well a job. Instead, people of the opposite gender freely sleep with each other, and must prove unfaithful by the number of people they spend time with. This solution appears reasonable to the majority of the characters as they know no better, but it also leaves a few characters left unsatisfied. Characters such as Helmholtz and Bernard set out in the search of passion, joy and love. Even Lenina who abided by utopias brainwashing and laws could not help feeling a particular way (which she could not identify as being sexual attraction) towards another male character.
Technology in Utopia is advanced in knowledge but again limited by The Controller who fears for Utopia’s stability. Unless the technology will somehow help Utopia as a whole, it is disregarded. Babies are all made in test-tube factories; embryos of a social lower class are even cloned up to eight-thousand times. Their social classes are arranged before birth and it is written on their test tube as an indicator as to what the embryo receives for development. After birth, intense hypnopaedia is undertaken (an audio with subliminal messages or repetition of phrases that appeal to the subconscious mind) which tells them all about how they will behave, interact and think eg; “the more stitches, the less riches” (the encouragement of consumerism.) Although the technologies in reproduction and behaviourism are supposed to be efficient and organised, the people have lost a sense of identity, they are all the same mentally and some physically, to the point where one generally cannot identify as different. This is a problem because personalities are not rightfully developed; as the expression goes “it takes all kinds of people to make a world”. A series of clones and brainwashed people creates a very unnatural environment which does not particularly move society forward or give an individual a sense of fulfilment.
It can easily be said that the novel is an example of good intentions having a bad outcome. The novel brave new world presents a supposedly ideal world and turns much perfection upside down to show that the advances in technology don’t necessarily bring happiness to an individual even if they are a convenience. It also shows that the world's issues have lasted as long as time itself and these issues will always remain in one shape or form.
