In the novel, Brave New World, written by Aldous Huxley, John discovers that life in the new world was not what he was hoping for. The new world is a place where technology aids society’s goal of putting people in different classes based on their intelligence, and everyone is conditioned to be content with their place in the world with the use of drugs, sensations of pleasure, and specific ideas and beliefs. This society creates a place of stability and peace, but it comes with some sacrifices in morals according to John. His moral standards differed greatly from the values of the new world, and this removed his capability to connect and relate with the people of the society.
The new world’s moral standards and values vary from John’s because he holds importance to independence from various comforts and pleasures in the new world whereas the new world encourages the use of these pleasures, he believes strongly in God and religion from the past while the new world have mostly abandoned it in favor of a drug-induced ritual, and lastly he appreciates the depth of art in the form of meaningful texts such as poems, plays, books, while on the contrary, the new world’s society has removed all but a trace of these significant and meaningful texts in favor of simplistic, instantaneously pleasurable dramas/activities that the people easily understand.
First, John’s principles/values differ from people in the new world because he values independence from all the comforts in the new world whereas the majority of the new world’s happiness and satisfaction comes from the numerous comforts in the new world. However, this only becomes apparent nearing the end of the novel because most of his life he thinks that the new world is a paradise because of his mother: “The happiest times were when she told him about the Other Place” (Huxley 127). But the supposed love for the “Other Place,” or the new world quickly vanished after John realizes the emptiness in these comforts. This is in comparison with the overcompensations for misery” (Huxley 221).
127 our experts are availableright now
The Controller’s response world to embrace actual happiness. The Controller, even after fully understanding that he is essentially taking peoples’ freedom, non-hesitantly sacrifices this in exchange for stability. This contrasts John’s and the Controller’s moral standards, and even though John praised the new world before he came, his opinion quickly changed after seeing the hidden darkness of empty comforts in the new world. Hence, John values the freedom from the comforts that yield easy, quick, and reliable “happiness” whereas a part of the new world’s foundation for stability is that fabricated sense of happiness that keeps the people under control.
Secondly, John’s moral standards contrast the new world’s moral standards because he believes strongly in God and true religion whereas the only “religion” the new world believes in is a drug-induced hallucination. John shows his belief in God and religion when he says, “But if you know about God, why don’t you tell them?’ … ‘Why don’t you give them these books about God?” (Huxley 231). The Controller’s reason for keeping God and religion from the new world is summarized when he says, “God isn’t compatible with machinery and scientific medicine and universal happiness. You must make your choice. Our civilization has chosen machinery and medicine and happiness…’ ‘But isn’t it natural to feel there’s a God?” (Huxley 234). John disagrees with the Controller’s choice to keep God away from the new world for their fabricated happiness, machines, and scientific medicine to be uninterrupted by religion. Throughout his childhood, God and religion were found throughout his environment and shaped his values and moral standards, so even though the new world’s absence of God seems logical he cannot ignore his moral codes. Thus, John believing strongly in God and religion differs him from the rest for the population in the new world.
Third, the new world’s values differ from John’s because he appreciates meaningful art in the form of poetry, plays, dramas, books, etc whilst the new world uses meaningless sensations to entrap the society in a maze of consumerism, stability and falsified contentedness. John illustrates his love for the deep meaning in the arts such as Shakespeare at a young age when Huxley writes, “He picked it up, looked at the title-page: the book was called The Complete Works of William Shakespeare… The strange words rolled through his mind; rumbled, like the drums at the summer dances, if the drums could have spoken; like the men singing the Corn Song, beautiful, beautiful, so that you cried” (Huxley 131). By comparing Shakesphere’s works to a beautiful Corn Song that he heard, John depicts his newly found but predictably growing love for the arts.
However, John could never share his love of these arts with the people around him in the new world because of the way the Controller and those among him ruled over society: “Othello’s good, Othello’s better than those feelies’ ‘Of course it is,’ the Controller agreed. ‘But that’s the price we have to pay for stability. You’ve got to choose between happiness and what people used to call high art” (Huxley 220). The Controller clearly states that even if Othello, an old book with beautiful meaning and considered high art, has more meaning than any of the empty comforts such as the feelies in the new world it would have to sacrifice for stability and falsified happiness. Hence, the society itself has no value for “high art” as said by the controller for stability. However, John, raised outside the new world for the majority of his life, highly values and appreciates this kind of meaningful, and he wants the new world society to experience the deep meaning of these arts rather than be content with the shallow sensations they live for.
In conclusion, Huxley contrasts the values and beliefs of John to the new world by illustrating John’s love for high art while the new world can never dream to understand it, his belief in God and religion while on the contrary, the new world has an absence of God and real religion replacing it with drug rituals, and finally John’s independence from meaning pleasures, comforts, sensations, etc whereas the new world embraces these comforts and cannot live without them. Huxley cleverly satirizes the future of modern technology while also developing, comparing and contrasting multiple personalities in the novel which relate to specific ideologies and ways of thinking. Huxley mocks the modern world’s many moral flaws, but he also fears of a future similar to the one in Brave New World.
Work Cited
- Huxley, Aldous. Brave New World. New York: Harper Brothers, 1932. Print
