Brave New World is stunningly accurate in its predictions about our modern society. Huxley's society was a stable cycle of happiness, soma, and rampant promiscuity, yet the people give up everything for the sake of escaping emotions, pain, and problems. They lose their religions to worship a man who revolutionizes industry instead of the figures who rejuvenated their souls. They lose their true independence in a civilization built upon predestination of the people into specific castes, where they are conditioned to love and hate what the government wanted them to. Worst of all, the people lose themselves for who they are individually and no longer see themselves as unique and distinct from one another. They view themselves solely as either an Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta, or Epsilon. In modern society, individualism is praised, supported, honored even, and we flaunt our personal identities. Whether it's our race, ethnicity, or gender, we defend and value ourselves for who we are as a human being. The lost of individualism is visible in Huxley's society and is evident in "the two thousand million inhabitants of the planet had only ten thousand names between them" (36). This reveals that the citizens of the society are too occupied with maintaining their own contentment through soma and endless entertainment. Their disposal of the significance of names in their culture represents their loss for care for an identity beyond their castes. Names are a staple of personal identity and its insignificance represents the insignificance of people. What drives a person to lose care for who they are? Will society shift in such a way that identification lies solely with social status?
Aside from losing their identity, Huxley's people also lose meaning in life. Everyone varies in their interpretation in the meaning of life but becoming a slave to the government's full control over our daily lives is definitely not it. In the novel, everyone shares the same goal in life: to complete their caste duties, have apathetic relationships, and content themselves in soma and worship of Ford. Their goal of life remains the same as for those in real life though. The pursuit of happiness is present in every being in modern society, yet stable happiness had already been achieved in Huxley's civilization. How long will it be until we give up everything for the sake of happiness? Like soma, many have already given up their minds and will to drugs for artificial happiness. Numbers are declining for church attendance in the US as people increasingly become discontent with religion. Our society is slowly mirroring that of Huxley's. How long will it be until we lose ourselves as well?
--- Hamilton Nguyen
You see I only see artificial happiness as a pill (like antidepressants). I know these next sentence will be loaded but I think people are dropping church attendance because Christianity adapts to culture, it's a a non-forceful religion (now) and that means people don't HAVE to attend church. I grew up in a religious house an I'd say the internet does a good job at throwing out religious beliefs because it's a great place to throw away superstitions and paranoia. I'd say religion is such a great thing because it teaches discipline but do you know how many people have killed in the name of religion and felt it just? Take early Christianity for instance and Islam. Christianity changes to many rules to seem truly real and Islam has too many rules which makes you feel like a prisoner more then anything else. Religion becomes more of a reason for ignorance and stubbornness more then anything else. I do value some of the ideas and morals it has set for society though. In a sense don't humans give up everything for happiness anyway? What normal human being doesn't pursue happiness at every turn? I think humans couldn't live without unstable happiness because how would you know the meaning of happiness is if you've never experience sadness and what makes you a great person are the things that break you. I don't think humans would ever give that up not even for war, death, or famine.
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