![]() All people are conditioned to love their work and their place in society from an early age. The conditioning processes used include hypnopædic training so the World State can impose its propagandist messages to it’s creations. In addition to seeing the physical and mental deformation, the boys are taken to the Nursery where a group of Delta caste infants are being conditioned to dislike flowers and books. One of the factory workers, Lenina Crowne, explains to the touring young men how she vaccinates embryos that will be destined for tropical climates to ensure their ultimate survival. The lower castes are artificially impaired through oxygen deprivation and chemical exposure to ensure they lack the mental and physical capacities to support higher functions. The higher castes are destined to be the new World State’s leadership and the lower castes are used for less mentally and physically demanding occupations. In this new society no one is “born” rather, embryos are “decanted” from the line. The embryos travel through the Hatchery’s factory floor during its period of gestation along a conveyor belt (likely thanks to Henry Ford’s invention of the movable assembly line) during which time the embryos are conditioned to fit into five possible castes ranging from the most sophisticated, Alphas, to the most Neanderthal-like Epsilons. As the novel commences in the year of Our Ford 632 (2540 AD) the Director of the Central London Hatching and Conditioning Centre is giving a tour to a group of boys along with an assistant, Henry Foster, where they discuss the Hatchery’s usage of the Bokanovsky and Podsnap Processes which enable the production of thousands of essentially identical human embryos. In this world, Henry Ford has been raised to godlike status and the world revolves around the cult of personality he created. We can then compare your notes and mine just below the summary that follows.Īt its core, Brave New World is a story about a future that may be considered utopian or dystopian depending on one’s perspective. Before sharing my concern it would be helpful to share a summary of Brave New World but better yet, stop reading here and go read it yourself. This book sparked concern both for myself and for others concerns which I believe those who are members at Online Great Books are helping to stem. ![]() Recently, I was reading Brave New World by Aldous Huxley. Joining Online Great Books has been one step along that journey. ![]() Although that helps me to exercise the left hemisphere of my brain, there has for years been something lacking in my education so I have spent much of the last two years trying to exercise the right hemisphere by reading literature. In my professional life I am an engineer, providing technical support to customers globally, helping to integrate my company’s products into our customer’s solutions. I realize there is just so much I still don’t know and so much about which I am curious. ![]() Even to this day I am a voracious reader reading four to five books concurrently is not unusual. I read far more than my contemporaries, likely overcompensating for my relative immaturity and attempting to keep up with the other kids my age. As I grew older, reading became synonymous with my persona. Fortunately, our reading specialist was my godmother who helped me to overcome my deficiencies and consequently to develop a strong love for reading. Reading and schoolwork was a struggle for me. My birthday being at the end of December meant I had started kindergarten at 4 and consequently was a bit immature compared to my fellow classmates. Every week I was taken aside from our normal class session to work with a reading specialist to bring my capabilities up to the level expected of a young boy of 5. When I was in first grade, I struggled as a reader. ![]()
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