The relationship between science, religion &technology in Brave New World
The novel “Brave New World”, written in 1931 by Aldous Huxley is about a dystopian world society, set six hundred years in the future, and its developments. Furthermore it describes a future world ruled by hypnopeadia and cloning.
In this novel technology, science and religion are important topics, since in the new world society things are far different than people are used today.
The World State is built up in a caste system, where the most powerful people are 10 born-in controllers that rule the world.
Those most political powerful people are scientists, since the whole world is based on science.
Children are not born, they are produced in a complicated Bukanowsky process and the cells or fetuses fertilized or contaminated, so that the producers can build up different social statuses, where the children are raised in.
The variety of castes goes from Alpha Double Plus to Epsilon (Minus), classifying the human beings in aspects of strength, looks and intelligence. More extensively, one can say that people are controlled down to their very impulses, instincts, emotions and thoughts since science either limits people’s actions, fantasy and abilities (by conditioning) or the national drug SOMA restricts their minds by embanking emotions and feelings.
On the other hand, scientific developments in the World State have allowed the people to live on a very high standart, not in the situation to fear any harm and to enjoy many advantages, just like feelies for example.
But, as not everything can be joyful and good around people, that seek for power, those controllers bastardized science and only use what’s useful for them and abandon things that can be dangerous.
At this point it is necessary to mention, that those “dangerous” things mentioned here are in the World for example books or historical records, as that might awaken thoughts or rebellion in the society through the knowledge of a different world, which once existed.
People are simply distracted from the dissatisfaction in order to prevent them from thinking over their lives and to prevent the uprising wish in their heads to change something about it. Thus the population is content and the controllers do not have to fear rebellion.
Furthermore it is important to distinguish between science on the one hand and thechnology on the other hand.
Whilst technology is used for the good of the whole nation, science is abused in different ways. Progress in science is actually nothing more but an improvement of already existing technologies. It leaves aside the aspect of examining unknown matters and experimenting.
The World State does not want people to have interests in exploring new things as this would mean a dissatisfaction with the way life is.
Science is used to create technology, that can do no harm to the people and thus to the politicians or the state, just like the mentioned “feelies” that provide a seamless, superficial world.
Religion has been replaced by reverence for technology, as Henry Ford, the developer of the assembly line,
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