Brave New World: The U.S. Is Becomming the World State

When it was first published in 1932, Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World seemed like a man’s unrealistic idea of what the future would hold. Now, over eighty years later, some individuals are beginning to see that Huxley’s views may not have been so improbable. In Brave New World, the citizens have come to despise love and marriage, rely on drugs for everyday life, and have no religion whatsoever. Comparing their ideas to the ideas of Americans in the 1930s, they were radical. Compared to today’s society, they’re eerily possible.
When it comes to love and marriage, the citizens of the New World (the society in which Huxley’s characters live) despise those two words and view them as vulgar. Marriage was a thing of the past, and they considered it an embarrassment in history. And love? Why, what’s that? In the World State, love doesn’t exist. No feelings exist; if people have feelings, they go to the doctor or take their pills. People don’t have feelings for one another. Instead, they just have sex with anyone they chose. Children are taught that from the beginning, as seen in chapter three when the scene of children playing is described as the following: “silently in twos and threes among the flowering shrubs” (Huxley, 30). Then, when a little boy doesn’t want to participate in the erotic activities, he is scolded and viewed as odd (Huxley, 31-32). They even have special “orgy-porgy” gatherings for this purpose. When Huxley’s novel published, these ideas about sex were outrageous. Sex was hushed up, and it was very rare for anyone to have sexual relations before marriage. For example, in a survey of 772 college girls, only 23.5% said to have had some type of sexual activity (Life). Now, in the 2010s, times have changed drastically. I...

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