Sunday, November 20, 2011

Brave New World Entry #1

The Ford State has created equality and conformity through misleading equality through social castes. These castes determine what jobs they will hold, their personal preferences, and their influence in society. This, however, is not 100% equal from the outside. Gammas, Deltas, and Epsilons, for example, are considered the lower class in this society. They take all of the factory-like jobs. The Alphas and Betas, on the other hand, take the leadership roles in society. They have the more sophisticated jobs, such as those in the conditioning centre. There is clearly a gap in lifestyles between the Epsilons and Alphas. "But in Epsilons, we don't need intelligence" Mr. Foster says (Huxley 15). The groups are staggered in order to fill all positions needed for the society to thrive. However, these groups are actually conditioned to be content with who they are. "I'm so glad I'm a Beta," says the Director (Huxley 27). In a typical social caste system, one would likely aspire to be of Alpha status. But in this system, the groups are made to have negative reactions to the other castes. For example, the Betas argue that the Alphas "work much harder than we do" ( Huxley 27). This system allows for greater conformity and minimal rebellion from the lower class.

The Ford State has reduced conflict by establishing both a national religion and a lack of exclusivity. First of all, everyone in the society worships "Ford", a godlike being from which the state is named after. In many instances, the phrase Ford has taken the place of where the word God would normally be. For example, phrases like "Our Ford", "Thank Ford", and "Oh, for Ford's sake" are very common in the society (Huxley 90, 92, 94). Worshipping any other religion is highly frowned upon and nearly impossible, since the only people who practice "Chrisianity and totenism and ancestor worship" are savages (Huxley 103).  Secondly, the exclusive nature in which today's monogamous couples live in is completely impossible in Ford society. "Everyone works for everyone else" is the perfect way to describe the lack of privacy in relationships (Huxley 91). There are no marriages and no couples. Anyone can be with anyone at any given time. Faithfulness and love go out the window, thus making the citizens less unfaithful to the government.

The Ford State has created happiness by creating specific points of view for each social caste. Each group has reasons why they are glad to be what they are. For the most part, it's because they have only experienced life in one social caste (their own). Epsilons, for example, "don't know what it's like being anything else" (Huxley 74). Each group has different preferences as identified in their conditioning. Therefore, they don't think any lifestyle is better than the one they are living now.

The Ford society is definitely a utopia because of the lack of government intervention required to keep the society running. In 1984, the government basically had to silence (kill) anyone who tried to talk bad about the government. However, the Ford society hits that problem at the source. Instead of allowing people to generate their own thoughts in their mind, they pre-condition them to think and act the way they want to. Every physical, mental, and social aspect is controlled from the beginning of the creation process. The government is free to do what they want because there isn't any possibility for revolt. Those who are born don't have any objections to what the government does because they don't know any better. For example, the government can say that "Making ninety-six human beings where only one grew before" is "Progress" without taking any heat from the public. There is a lack of wrongdoing in the society. Therefore, the Ford Society must be indentified as a Utopia.

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