Conformity in Brave New World

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Conformity in Brave New World

The novel, Brave New World by Aldous Huxley first published in 1932, presents a very bleak out look of what future society will be like. The novel presents a future of where almost total conformity is a carefully guarded aspect of society. Even before one is "decanted" they are conditioned to fill a specific roll and to act a certain way.

Everyone, while still in their jar, is conditioned to fit into a specific caste. The castes range from Alpha Double Plus down to Epsilon Semi-Moron. Once one is "decanted" they are put through various types of conditioning, depending on caste, and are raised solely by World State officials. There is no such thing as a family anymore, that would only interfere with conformity.

Those who do not fit into the norms of the new society are either re-conditioned, if young enough, or they are sent away. Never can the interference of those who conditioning has failed on be tolerated by society. Anyone who even acts slightly abnormal will first start to get flack from their peers and may eventually be pushed out of work, as almost happens to one of the major characters of the book, Bernard Marx.

Marx just will not discuss sex with a woman, named Lenina, unless it is in private. Society pretty much says go ahead and talk about it all the time. It is appropriate to talk about all you r matters everywhere. Bernard just didn't fit this, he also was not used to the situation considering he was not in the position to discuss the topics of his sex life that often with interested women. Marx was an outcast in every way, he was scoffed at for not looking like your typical Alpha Plus, most Alpha Pluses are tall well built people, but he was sho...

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...poor Lenina to death, although these events are not clearly stated in the end.

Conformity ended these two lives, and completely changed the lives of those who did oppose it, even Mustapha's life was changed by the universal conformity, he became the one control's what those standards of society were, but due to his conditioning, he did not ever change anything. This book is not so much about science or religion as many state, but about conformity stalling society. Huxley meant this as a warning as to what may happen. The worship of Ford finally makes sense if this book is looked at by the conformity issue. Ford invented the assembly and popularized to use of standardized parts, and society is all people made for specific tasks, easy to replace, and created on an assembly line.

Works Cited

Huxley, Aldous. Brave New World. New York: Harper & Row. 1946

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