Brave New World

“Standard men and women; in uniform batches. The whole of a small factory staffed with the products of a single bokanovskified egg. [...] The principle of mass production at last applied to biology.” 

This passage boils down the underlying conceit of the novel: what sets this dystopian world apart from the real world (and apart from other dystopian novels) is this method of mass-producing uniform human beings, made for specific jobs. Throughout this chapter, Huxley elaborates on this idea, but if the World State of this novel were to have a concise thesis statement, this might be it.

“‘And that,’ put in the Director sententiously, ‘that is the secret of happiness and virtue—liking what you’ve got to do. All conditioning aims at that: making people like their un-escapable social destiny.’”

Here, Huxley expands the thesis of the World State to include the conditioning of the mass-produced humans the chapter details. What is noteworthy in this idea is that it does not seem inherently evil or wrong-headed. The goal of the society seems to be to make people happy. However, the methodology is where Huxley would like to turn the reader’s attention, seemingly saying that, no, the ends do not justify the means in this case.

“Till at last the child’s mind is these suggestions, and the sum of the suggestions is the child’s mind. And not the child’s mind only. The adult’s mind too—all his lifelong. The mind that judges and desires and decides—made up of these suggestions. But all these suggestions are our suggestions! [...] Suggestions from the State.”

This quote, summarizing the end goal of all the conditioning being performed at the Hatchery, both prior to and after “decanting,” speaks to the theme of control at the center of the dystopian aspects of this World State society. It is through this overwhelming control that the stability the society values over all else is able to be achieved.