Obviously in today’s society, we don’t electrocute babies to train them what to avoid like the plague, and we don’t attempt to teach moral and societal beliefs while people sleep, but our culture does almost the same thing, only much more subtly. TV, the internet, movies, celebrities, and many more things/people that are in our everyday lives can subconsciously influence what we do, what is cool, what we buy, what we wear, sometimes even what we feel. Other influences in our life, like our parents, schools, and churches teach us what to know, and how to act, and how to live. The society in Brave New World does the same thing, just on a much larger and more uniform scale. Therefore when the characters in Brave New World say they are happy, it could be nothing more than just regurgitating what they have been taught since children.

Someone mentioned the difference between conditioning and creation [or creating]. I think that A Brave New World blurs the line between creation and conditioning. The children [the entire Ford population] are manufactured. And they are conditioned. The Ford population is ‘conditioned’ from their ‘infancy.’ As infants, they haven’t anything but human curiosity…

Yet what is interesting is the evidence, that regardless of their conditioning, as adults the Ford ‘residents’ show brief signs of that ‘human nature.’ The characters showed a curiosity that they attempted to squelch, and questioned internally the rituals in which they participated. And the dissatisfaction when they didn’t achieve the results they perceived others to.

Each character possesses a humanity, they merely attempt to squash it to retain their place in the Ford society. They are no less human. Merely socialized not to question social class, life purpose, etc.

To think of this in terms of the state of the US currently, we are fairly similar to the conditioned folks of Huxley’s BNW. While we still have the option to think for ourselves and form our own opinions and experience the full range of human emotion, most people seem content to do as they’re told. Buy this. Watch this. We’re very much consumers ourselves. I mean, obviously people consume. That’s what we do. Period. But it seems more and more that people are becoming the same. Instead of being done in a lab though, we learn what we know from TV and believe what WGN news tells us.

For creation, I would question the definition of what qualifies as creation… I don’t think that self awareness is a requirement for creation of intelligence.

With conditioning, the idea that we can just gloss over the concept of societal conditioning as a separate depate is incorrect and illogical i believe. We seem to constantly allow ourselves to be trapped into a heirarchial concept of thinking, we need someone behind the scenes pulling the strings. But there is no requirement that conditioning is done by A conditioner. in BNW they have taken conditioning beyond any conceptualization of a single person. Instead to be conditioned IS to be human. I would argue that within the construct of BNW that the character Bernard who doesn’t fit into the mold properly is NOT in fact human. Just as frankenstein was not human because he failed to fit into that concept of humanity. Both the monster in frankenstein and bernard in BNW were both created (and from a basic scientific level they were created in the same manner/way), but neither of them are Human.

I also disagree with the seemingly popular concept that BNW is a dystopic society. I would actually consider it to be closer to utopic. It is not important that we the reader on the outside think that a world within is utopic/dystopic to us , but weather it is within the context of the book. And I believe that in BNW that there is a small minority of the characters in the book that consider there to be something wrong within their world, the majority are deleriously happy… which is by definition utopic. As to weather or not we would consider it utopic is irrelevant.

Happy in Brave New World actually means devoid of emotion. Soma is used as an emotional crutch by the citizens of London. Anytime anyone begins to feel a twinge of regret they reach for their bottles of soma. Soma reliance is so conditioned into the consciousness of the denizens of the civilized world that Linda bemoans her Soma liberation once thrust out into Malpais and that “the return to civilization was the return to soma.” (Ch 11)

The experience of happiness in Brave New World is comparable is to that of the misery that both Dr. Frankenstein and the monster feel in that they are the sole motivators in their lives. Dr. Frankenstein was miserable due to his inability to conquer death which drove him to restore life to the long dead tissue that made up his monster just as the monster was miserable that he had been cursed with life by his creator. Throwing himself into his work was an instinctual reaction for Dr. Frankenstein just as reaching for a dose of soma had been conditioned into Leinda and Linda. Dr. Frankenstein’s reaction was just as conditioned via the scientific method as the conditioning that took place in the Neo-Pavlovian conditioning rooms, granted it was fostered in a less electrifying manner.

What social caste would Dr. Frankenstein fall into in the civilized world? He strikes me as an Alpha if only because restoring life to the dead seems “frightfully clever,” a quality key in Alphas according to the Elementary Class Consciousness from chapter two.

With the conditioning of a being, the ‘conditioner’ begins with a set of known values; for instance beginning with humans, she knows that humans have emotions, have certain physical limitations, respond to certain sensations in predictable ways, etc. Beginning with a set of known values, the conditioner can manipulate subjects in order to conform to a predetermined set of values, which is what we see in Brave New World.

The creation of a ‘being’ has an element of unpredictability not present with conditioning (although perhaps an individual could break out of the conditioning cycle, unpredictably…hopefully that’s where Brave New World was headed). A creator can hypothesize about the way the creation will behave, but until the creation is sentient, there is no concrete way to predict how it will behave and respond to the world. The creation of a ‘being’ involves a lot of questioning by the being itself: ‘Why was I created? Why am I here? How do I exist in relation to my surroundings?’ In Frankenstein, the monster felt it had no purpose and was confused and frightened, with no one to teach it about the world it was born into. And in relation to society, the being will have to adapt, learn, and grow much like a child in order to understand the world around it. One could argue that that in itself is conditioning—that we are all conditioned by society, but that opens another debate (we are to some degree).

Conditioning is about conforming to a set of rules determined by the conditioner. The impact it has on the being or the ‘conditioned’ is that, well, the conditioned will act in accordance with the rules without necessarily knowing their motivation for doing so. The impact it has on society (if everyone is conditioned the same way, as in Brave New World) is that people will act uniformly, resulting in a more orderly society. In Brave New World, people do not question their existence…they embrace their conditioning, and seem to refute the existence of the soul. Although, interestingly enough, they need doses of soma to stay ‘level.’ This is a way to keep their humanity in check, the only ‘release’ from their arranged and methodical way of life.

Both creation and conditioning introduce questions of ethics that were brought up in both texts: Frankenstein—Is it right to bring a being into the world where it has no ‘place’—where it will feel excluded and alone? Brave New World—Is it right to create a society where there is no real individual choice—where people’s values and lifestyles are determined from, and even before, birth?

I really find the concept of conditioning interesting in relation to our own times. Aside from all popular news media, one example that really grinds my gears (that’s from Family Guy) is the movie industry. Good films are virtually nonexistent in, and I daresay kept out, of theatres. The Assassination of Jesse James was running in some insanely small amount of theatres (think like, 95) nationwide this past weekend, and yet, movies like Transformers get wide releases make gazillions (seriously—I was insulted by that movie and yes I got my money back). This is just one way intellectual content is ‘controlled’ in our society. Too many polished turds on our cinema screens these days. I’m sick of it.

–Mindy