The Presence of Conditioning in America
By April Gray
In the dystopian novel “Brave New World” Huxley blames conditioning for locking its citizens into an unquestioning, juvenile state; however, even without such stringent methods, such control is reflected by society in our modern world, deciding our beliefs for us. The harsh conditioning in the novel cements the ideas presented to the populace as absolute facts, making any critical thinking about the world around them nearly impossible. Even though the harsh behavioral conditioning seen Huxley’s novel does not happen in the real-world, this kind of subconscious behavior manipulation still affects our modern society.
The “Brave New World” presented in Huxley’s novel is a futuristic society in which humans are no longer born, family ties are disgusting and conditioning rules the world. Instead of controlling the populace by setting strict limitations and regulations the government makes the masses content with their lives; happiness is everything. The three main characters, Lenina, Bernard, and John the Savage challenge various aspects of the system but their limited thinking stops them from ever overcoming it.
The conditioning methods in the novel are very methodical and precise, described with meticulousness on the author’s part. The trap had to be perfectly constructed to keep the workers not only unable to fight back against the society that kept them chained in place, but also unwilling to fight against that system, as they were ingrained to believe that “everybody’s happy nowadays”(Huxley 61). This perceived satisfaction with their lives gave them no reason to even want to imagine the possibility that another kind of life could exist, much less have the capability to change it.
To live in such a place seems inconceivable to the reader, where one is without choice and yet still completely believes that one has freedom. Lenina expresses in general the mind set with her own words, “I am free. Free to have the most wonderful time.”(Huxley 61)Lenina is not able to comprehend Bernard’s accusations that their conditioning does not allow them freedom. Of course, living in America, we fully understand freedom, since we unquestionably possess freedom ourselves. Here Lenina happens to equate freedom to being happy; something we know is not always the case. Instead, our American mindsets tell us that having freedom means having choice.
However, we should question ourselves. Why exactly are we so certain that we have this freedom? Lenina is convinced that she is free even though she is very limited and all of her life choices were made for her, before she was even decanted, the process in the novel that replaces birth. Most likely for similar reasons as us, since we were young we have heard it repeated hundreds, maybe thousands of times. “As Americans we live in a free nation,” and even “We live in the best country on earth.” In school we take U.S. History countless times learning about the greatness of our nation, our noble attempts to keep world peace and show other nations the light of freedom. It’s not quite as intense as the statements repeated “a hundred and twenty times three times a week for thirty months,” in the characters sleep but is effective, nevertheless (Huxley 21). With all the reassurance from outside sources it becomes an obvious fact with little need for one to ponder and reach this conclusion on one’s own. Just as in the “Brave New World” the idea is implanted in our minds when we are young and grows and is stabilized by everyone one else believing the same principles. It is our human tendency to “fit in to the crowd”, and it is easy to fall into thinking “if everyone else is doing it, it must be right.” The argument here is not that we do not have any freedom; there are many quite persuasive arguments that say we in fact do, but rather, the fact that as far as the main populace is concerned, this is a solid fact not to be questioned, instead of an idea that is proved to be true through solid reasoning.
The idea of being trained to be locked into a way of thinking can seem surreal but in examining the practices of society, similarities to Huxley’s conditioning begin to surface. The conditioning that occurs in America may not happen to the extent that it does in Huxley’s novel; however, we have been influenced by this conditioning to some degree as we have grown up. One can even argue that it is impossible to avoid it. Our brain is programmed to make associations with objects and even ideas and then apply it to similar situations. Once we make these associations firmly, to undo the process is more difficult than learning it in the first place. For example, in America it is a common tradition for young girls to get their ears pierced because they are told it is “pretty.” We have come to think having our ears punctured and forming a hole that is not suppose to be there and then to stick objects through it to dangle from the ear. Looking at it from foreigner’s point whose culture doesn’t practice that, it would seem a pretty strange to want to do and then even more so think it looks good. Then in return the little girl getting her ears pierced would look at the foreigner with just as much confusion at the thought of it being strange. We are trained to associate things such as earrings are beauty, just as a different culture may take stretched lips and body paint as attractive.
John the savage, who had never experienced the conditioning of the new world still exhibited strong reactions that conditioning formed. When Lenina made advances toward him, his thoughts of her turned from perfection into describing her as “some intruding and dangerous animal.”He flew into a rage as a result of her promiscuous actions. He had not been trained to see promiscuity as the norm, but instead been conditioned to see the situation is a much different light. In the reserve where he came from promiscuity was seen as a ghastly vice. Since his mother came from the “new world” she thought that promiscuity was natural and didn’t understand the others women’s hatred of her actions. John endured the animosity of the other children and adults of the reserve, and even witnessed his mother being whipped, then getting whipped himself, all as a child. The pain that he experienced because of his mother’s promiscuity made him intolerant of it, conditioning him to feel hatred of it just as the citizens of the new world were conditioned to love it.
Yet the fact that the government is not the only producer of conditioning does not mean we shouldn’t also be weary of governmental operations. One of our most trusted institutions is in fact one of the biggest producers of conditioning. The culprit here is not media or the like, which are frequently recognized as obvious sources of social conditioning, but the educational system. As Allan Bloom writes in The Closing of the American Mind, “Every educational system has a moral goal that it tries to attain and that informs its curriculum. It wants to produce a certain kind of human being” (26).Our school system goes in to more than just teaching students pure educational lessons. It may even be the closest thing to a “Conditioning Centre” that we have when it comes to learning how to be American. The school environment transmits these ideas, which are then confirmed through mutual agreement of peers.
America contains an overwhelming conviction that beliefs are maintained as matters of opinion and that it is a right of everyone to form their own. This “moral postulate, the condition of free society, is again another one of the things ingrained into our minds, even more so in the younger generation (Bloom, 25).On the surface, this would create an environment that cultivates the acceptance of other cultures and ways of life and provides a way to make peace without the forceful changing of others. Taking it in to effect however, it is obscured into making morals subjective and beliefs into objects that have no real truth or value to them. If this is the case, morals are not applicable to logic and it is pointless to provide any critical thinking into the matter (Blackburn 193-232).
If we believe that logic should not govern belief, then only preference would stand to take the stage. Accepting the fact that preference is the most important thing, allowing conditioning to rule our thoughts would not matter. If we find the thoughts agreeable, as would be the purpose of conditioning, then no conflict would incur between true freedom and the conditioned state. We would still retain some choice, as even the characters in the novel do themselves. The characters can choose who to befriend, and what little outlets they spend their free time in. As long as it stays in the bubble of what society and their conditioning finds acceptable, citizens possess all the freedom and choice there is.
We are presented with the same options: as long as we do what we are told society finds acceptable, we maintain the freedom to do whatever we want. However, we would lack the ability to justify our actions, to truly clarify why we are and should do whatever it is we are doing. The more reliant an action is upon conditioning, and less a real reflection of thought, the more we would flounder for an answer when pressed, because simply put we would not know why take that action at all, only that we should. Allowing critical thinking to shrivel under the trains of thought that enforce “going with the flow” means giving up ones control of thought and direction. Huxley voices this lack of control due to desired unanimity at the end of the novel, when a crowd gathers around John to see him whip himself. So “impelled by that habit of cooperation, that desire for unanimity and atonement” the crowd was they broke into a violent riot, mimicking what they saw from John (Huxley 175). They had no idea what was happening at that time, they didn’t put any thought at all into it. They only wanted to fit in to the crowd and thus in turn gave up their own control.
Even in the perfected settings of the condition methods in the novel, there were still flaws to be seen. Even under these conditions human intellect could be seen to prevail, with multiple characters acting contrary to their “programming”. There in fact are, “people who aren’t satisfied with orthodoxy, who’ve got independent ideas of their own” present in the book (Huxley 155). These people who managed to break through their chains to form real critical thoughts were the only real individuals. Of course, in the novel, the government kept them from contaminating the rest of the populace, and so they were sent to live on an island, isolated from the rest of the world. In contrast, we, in the real world, do not have it quite so harshly. The only thing keeping us from truly forming our own real beliefs on matters is denial to treat supposed facts with an attitude open to real thought and analysis on matters.
As long as the populace in the novel stays content and never learns to truly think for themselves about what they want, then progression would be impossible. The arms of conditioning lay open all around us, and if we get persuaded by the sweet lull of easy, carefree thinking, then it is our doom to stay in the same bubbles, never truly being able to claim the most fundamental parts of ourselves, our thoughts and beliefs, as ours. The citizens of the Brave New World truly believe themselves to be of no value and to only exist as part of the machine that is society. No matter if one believes them self to value individuality, if that person is never able to justify an action or thought then he or she can never truly claim it.
The “Brave New World” presented in Huxley’s novel is a futuristic society in which humans are no longer born, family ties are disgusting and conditioning rules the world. Instead of controlling the populace by setting strict limitations and regulations the government makes the masses content with their lives; happiness is everything. The three main characters, Lenina, Bernard, and John the Savage challenge various aspects of the system but their limited thinking stops them from ever overcoming it.
The conditioning methods in the novel are very methodical and precise, described with meticulousness on the author’s part. The trap had to be perfectly constructed to keep the workers not only unable to fight back against the society that kept them chained in place, but also unwilling to fight against that system, as they were ingrained to believe that “everybody’s happy nowadays”(Huxley 61). This perceived satisfaction with their lives gave them no reason to even want to imagine the possibility that another kind of life could exist, much less have the capability to change it.
To live in such a place seems inconceivable to the reader, where one is without choice and yet still completely believes that one has freedom. Lenina expresses in general the mind set with her own words, “I am free. Free to have the most wonderful time.”(Huxley 61)Lenina is not able to comprehend Bernard’s accusations that their conditioning does not allow them freedom. Of course, living in America, we fully understand freedom, since we unquestionably possess freedom ourselves. Here Lenina happens to equate freedom to being happy; something we know is not always the case. Instead, our American mindsets tell us that having freedom means having choice.
However, we should question ourselves. Why exactly are we so certain that we have this freedom? Lenina is convinced that she is free even though she is very limited and all of her life choices were made for her, before she was even decanted, the process in the novel that replaces birth. Most likely for similar reasons as us, since we were young we have heard it repeated hundreds, maybe thousands of times. “As Americans we live in a free nation,” and even “We live in the best country on earth.” In school we take U.S. History countless times learning about the greatness of our nation, our noble attempts to keep world peace and show other nations the light of freedom. It’s not quite as intense as the statements repeated “a hundred and twenty times three times a week for thirty months,” in the characters sleep but is effective, nevertheless (Huxley 21). With all the reassurance from outside sources it becomes an obvious fact with little need for one to ponder and reach this conclusion on one’s own. Just as in the “Brave New World” the idea is implanted in our minds when we are young and grows and is stabilized by everyone one else believing the same principles. It is our human tendency to “fit in to the crowd”, and it is easy to fall into thinking “if everyone else is doing it, it must be right.” The argument here is not that we do not have any freedom; there are many quite persuasive arguments that say we in fact do, but rather, the fact that as far as the main populace is concerned, this is a solid fact not to be questioned, instead of an idea that is proved to be true through solid reasoning.
The idea of being trained to be locked into a way of thinking can seem surreal but in examining the practices of society, similarities to Huxley’s conditioning begin to surface. The conditioning that occurs in America may not happen to the extent that it does in Huxley’s novel; however, we have been influenced by this conditioning to some degree as we have grown up. One can even argue that it is impossible to avoid it. Our brain is programmed to make associations with objects and even ideas and then apply it to similar situations. Once we make these associations firmly, to undo the process is more difficult than learning it in the first place. For example, in America it is a common tradition for young girls to get their ears pierced because they are told it is “pretty.” We have come to think having our ears punctured and forming a hole that is not suppose to be there and then to stick objects through it to dangle from the ear. Looking at it from foreigner’s point whose culture doesn’t practice that, it would seem a pretty strange to want to do and then even more so think it looks good. Then in return the little girl getting her ears pierced would look at the foreigner with just as much confusion at the thought of it being strange. We are trained to associate things such as earrings are beauty, just as a different culture may take stretched lips and body paint as attractive.
John the savage, who had never experienced the conditioning of the new world still exhibited strong reactions that conditioning formed. When Lenina made advances toward him, his thoughts of her turned from perfection into describing her as “some intruding and dangerous animal.”He flew into a rage as a result of her promiscuous actions. He had not been trained to see promiscuity as the norm, but instead been conditioned to see the situation is a much different light. In the reserve where he came from promiscuity was seen as a ghastly vice. Since his mother came from the “new world” she thought that promiscuity was natural and didn’t understand the others women’s hatred of her actions. John endured the animosity of the other children and adults of the reserve, and even witnessed his mother being whipped, then getting whipped himself, all as a child. The pain that he experienced because of his mother’s promiscuity made him intolerant of it, conditioning him to feel hatred of it just as the citizens of the new world were conditioned to love it.
Yet the fact that the government is not the only producer of conditioning does not mean we shouldn’t also be weary of governmental operations. One of our most trusted institutions is in fact one of the biggest producers of conditioning. The culprit here is not media or the like, which are frequently recognized as obvious sources of social conditioning, but the educational system. As Allan Bloom writes in The Closing of the American Mind, “Every educational system has a moral goal that it tries to attain and that informs its curriculum. It wants to produce a certain kind of human being” (26).Our school system goes in to more than just teaching students pure educational lessons. It may even be the closest thing to a “Conditioning Centre” that we have when it comes to learning how to be American. The school environment transmits these ideas, which are then confirmed through mutual agreement of peers.
America contains an overwhelming conviction that beliefs are maintained as matters of opinion and that it is a right of everyone to form their own. This “moral postulate, the condition of free society, is again another one of the things ingrained into our minds, even more so in the younger generation (Bloom, 25).On the surface, this would create an environment that cultivates the acceptance of other cultures and ways of life and provides a way to make peace without the forceful changing of others. Taking it in to effect however, it is obscured into making morals subjective and beliefs into objects that have no real truth or value to them. If this is the case, morals are not applicable to logic and it is pointless to provide any critical thinking into the matter (Blackburn 193-232).
If we believe that logic should not govern belief, then only preference would stand to take the stage. Accepting the fact that preference is the most important thing, allowing conditioning to rule our thoughts would not matter. If we find the thoughts agreeable, as would be the purpose of conditioning, then no conflict would incur between true freedom and the conditioned state. We would still retain some choice, as even the characters in the novel do themselves. The characters can choose who to befriend, and what little outlets they spend their free time in. As long as it stays in the bubble of what society and their conditioning finds acceptable, citizens possess all the freedom and choice there is.
We are presented with the same options: as long as we do what we are told society finds acceptable, we maintain the freedom to do whatever we want. However, we would lack the ability to justify our actions, to truly clarify why we are and should do whatever it is we are doing. The more reliant an action is upon conditioning, and less a real reflection of thought, the more we would flounder for an answer when pressed, because simply put we would not know why take that action at all, only that we should. Allowing critical thinking to shrivel under the trains of thought that enforce “going with the flow” means giving up ones control of thought and direction. Huxley voices this lack of control due to desired unanimity at the end of the novel, when a crowd gathers around John to see him whip himself. So “impelled by that habit of cooperation, that desire for unanimity and atonement” the crowd was they broke into a violent riot, mimicking what they saw from John (Huxley 175). They had no idea what was happening at that time, they didn’t put any thought at all into it. They only wanted to fit in to the crowd and thus in turn gave up their own control.
Even in the perfected settings of the condition methods in the novel, there were still flaws to be seen. Even under these conditions human intellect could be seen to prevail, with multiple characters acting contrary to their “programming”. There in fact are, “people who aren’t satisfied with orthodoxy, who’ve got independent ideas of their own” present in the book (Huxley 155). These people who managed to break through their chains to form real critical thoughts were the only real individuals. Of course, in the novel, the government kept them from contaminating the rest of the populace, and so they were sent to live on an island, isolated from the rest of the world. In contrast, we, in the real world, do not have it quite so harshly. The only thing keeping us from truly forming our own real beliefs on matters is denial to treat supposed facts with an attitude open to real thought and analysis on matters.
As long as the populace in the novel stays content and never learns to truly think for themselves about what they want, then progression would be impossible. The arms of conditioning lay open all around us, and if we get persuaded by the sweet lull of easy, carefree thinking, then it is our doom to stay in the same bubbles, never truly being able to claim the most fundamental parts of ourselves, our thoughts and beliefs, as ours. The citizens of the Brave New World truly believe themselves to be of no value and to only exist as part of the machine that is society. No matter if one believes them self to value individuality, if that person is never able to justify an action or thought then he or she can never truly claim it.
Works Cited
Davidson, William L. Political Thought in England: The Utilitarians. Westport, Connecticut: Hyperion Press, INC., 1979.
Driver, Julia. The History of Utilitarianism. Ed. Edward N. Zalta. Summer 2009. 31 march 2014 <http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2009/entries/utilitarianism-history>.
West, Henry R. "Utilitarianism." Encyclopedia Britannica . 2013.
Whale, John. Imagination Under Pressure, 1787-1832: Aesthetics, Poltics and Utility. . Cambridge University Press, 2000.
Driver, Julia. The History of Utilitarianism. Ed. Edward N. Zalta. Summer 2009. 31 march 2014 <http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2009/entries/utilitarianism-history>.
West, Henry R. "Utilitarianism." Encyclopedia Britannica . 2013.
Whale, John. Imagination Under Pressure, 1787-1832: Aesthetics, Poltics and Utility. . Cambridge University Press, 2000.