Brave New World by Aldous Huxley as a Dystopia Accountable for John's Disappointments

Brave New World by Aldous Huxley is a dystopia that depicts a future in which people are conditioned to live a life designed by the capitalist system, prompting people to consumerism and the fake happiness that results from it, just as modern societies do with advertising, and this is what disillusions John the Savage when he meets the World State. Dystopia is a world in which the government is controlling and oppressive, everything has a dark side more than a bright side, and there is propaganda put forth by the government. Brave New World stands as one of the best examples of dystopia, with an alternative future consisting of the government’s control over people through propaganda that conditions them into supporting and sustaining the system, which feeds on consumerism and destroys individuals for the sake of the community and stability, starting from infancy. It is not hard to relate the world in this novel to the modern society we live in today when the way people are accustomed to consuming is taken into consideration. In the World State, no one lives or thinks as an individual except for Bernard, who is "the other" in the society because of his differences from others; Helmholtz, who is a writer wanting to create more than the system allows him to; and John, who comes from the Reservation and sees the system from the outside. Every person’s identity, excluding them, is designed to serve the system, and to serve the system, they are supposed to spend money and be happy that way because the production and consumption cycle is the backbone of it. People are conditioned to like activities requiring money. In chapter two, while the director is explaining why they use electroshocks on babies, he states, "We condition the masses to hate the country [...] [b]ut simultaneously we condition them to love all country sports. At the same time, we see to it that all country sports shall entail the use of elaborate apparatus. So that they consume manufactured articles as well as transport them. Hence those electric shocks" (Huxley 17). Also, "People are brainwashed to want more, ever newer consumer goods" (Riduchowska 14) in the World State. Anything that is slightly old is thrown away and renewed. In modern societies, it is almost this way as well. Even though people are not conditioned in special centers, advertisements are enough to provide control over consumers. According to Virginia S. Funes’ book Counterpoints:

Consumer goods provide us with quality of life, security, personality, and independence. Advertised objects are flaunted for their added value, giving them a certain supersaturated significance. Objects are not consumed for what they are but as something that distinguishes a person. Objects are acquired not only to be used but to be exhibited as a symbol of belonging to a reference group or lifestyle. As a result, every object not only alludes to its usefulness or practical purpose but also a certain imitation of lifestyles and cultural habits held by hegemonic groups. (161)

Modern people mostly create their identities based on what they are advertised. People are presented with certain patterns, standards, and lifestyles, prompting them to consume everything they can to adapt to them. They buy anything that will help them become part of the majority and throw away anything old to buy a newer version of it because they are told that the more they consume, the happier they will be. Thus, to consume more, they produce more. This way, the cycle goes on without breaking. On the other hand, some people, like Bernard, Helmholtz, and John, manage to see it as an outsider or notice the lacking side of it and understand what feeding the system costs and how fake the happiness it provides is. In the book, the downsides of the system cause disappointment for John. John, as a man who was brought up on the Reservation by a mother who always told him about the World State where everything is stable, comfortable, new, and everyone is happy, expects a dreamy place when he arrives there. However, when he learns about the World State's culture, he contradicts it. For him, everything about the World State is superficial. They do everything using technology; they do not have literary works like Shakespeare’s; and they do not have a passion or real happiness in their lives because instead of facing unpleasant realities of life, they escape from them (Huxley 162), which does not provide the contradictions in life needed for real happiness and passion. Mustapha Mond justifies their actions by continuously stating that it is all for the sake of stability and community; he indicates that they provide perpetual happiness for everyone, but John, as he states, "[would] rather be unhappy than have the sort of false, lying happiness [they] were having [in the World State]" (119). For John, the World State and its people are empty because they lack what gives a human’s life meaning: conflict, struggle, and unhappiness. So, he gets dissatisfied with the methods of the World State which cause him to commit suicide when he cannot escape from there. Briefly, the World State is an extreme version of the modern society we live in, which has advertising to support consumerism and control people instead of conditioning centers, and the fake happiness of the people, which was caused by the system by destroying every negative element that would cause instability and damage the cycle, is the reason why John was disillusioned by the World State like many people of today are by the modern world.