Brave New World Blog 1

There are several aspects of Brave New World’s society that seem relevant today. First off, Huxely separates the citizens into a five class system with the alphas and betas on top, gammas in the middle, and deltas and epsilons at the bottom. This is like today except today’s society is divided into three classes based on wealth, which are the upper-class, middle-class, and lower-class. Next, Huxely makes all the characters look young, beautiful, and healthy. Today, the population is putting an emphasis on looking young and beautiful as well as staying healthy. In some cases this means getting plastic surgery, being on strict diets, or wearing certain clothes. Third, Huxely shows how his society avoids problems and stress by taking “soma”. By doing this, they never had to worry about anything. This is like today’s society except people take drugs or use alcohol to forget about their problems. Fourth, Huxely has all the people’s DNA altered for desired results. This is sort of like today except people are genetically modifying crops, not humans. They do this to have a better result to give the greatest crop yield.

I think Huxely’s vision of there being a utopia is the most far fetched aspect of the book. I don’t think there will ever be a state of total happiness even though people want it. The only way to do it is by not letting people be knowledgeable (which is the case in the book). In addition, I think the class system is far fetched. In today’s society, people would always want to get ahead and become part of the high society. They would not be satisfied in being in the lowest class.