Consumerism In Aldous Huxley's Brave New World

Possessions or People “To live fully, we must learn to use things and love people, and not love things and use people” (John Powell). This simple but profound quote perfectly explains the satire of consumerism in Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World (BNW). Not only is the World State too preoccupied with buying possessions and using people, but we, as a society, are as well, and it is this fact that Huxley satirizes. Many of our priorities are in the wrong places, and BNW shows us our flaws. We need to have the people in our lives come first and the possessions to be secondary; only then we can “live fully,” as John Powell said. As mass production and the assembly line evolved in the early 1900s, consumerism developed and changed our society forever. Consumerism is the preoccupation with buying goods and services all the time, even if they are not needed. This practice is extremely prevalent in the BNW and is

The consumeristic society of Brave New World, not so different from our own culture, began with mass production and caused a shift in where people sought meaning in their lives; this consumerism allowed for stability but took away

He does this because since the BNW was so heavily based on consumerism, the assembly line played a huge part in everything from making products to children. By using “Ford” in the place of “Lord,” he also shows how aspects of religion were still around but not used in the same context as they were. Examples of this included, “In Our Ford’s day,” (23) “His fordship, Mustapha Mond,” (25) and “Thank Ford!” (53) In addition, the typical A.D. in dates was also changed to A.F. for “after Ford.” A.F. 1 was in 1908 when the first Model T rolled off the assembly line. Huxley used this satire to show readers that buying was not everything, and that family and religion were more important in the World State and our