Consumption In Brave New World

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In Science Fiction, various forms of literature and media tend to predict the path society will take. The novel, Brave New World by Aldous Huxley and written in the 1930s, depicts a world where normal reproduction has become obsolete and people have become little more than products off an assembly line. In Huxley’s world, consumption is the ultimate goal. Society’s purpose is to produce and consume at an ever-increasing rate. Almost 80 years after the book was written, it is disturbing to note that American society is heading down the same path taken by the World State in Huxley’s novel. In the 21st century, the American economy and government mirror the World State’s dependency on high rates of consumption. While the American economy uses…show more content…
The novel shows how the government influences the thoughts and beliefs of its people by having certain phrases on a loop while the children sleep. For example, with phrases like “I’m so glad I’m a Beta,” the World State conditions the children to be content and happy with their class and station in life (Huxley 27). The purpose of the hypnopaedic slogans are to instill the World State’s social mores. Therefore, it is no coincidence that many of the hypnopaedic slogans are focused on consumption and consumerism as one of the top goals their society wants implemented in their young. “Ending is better than mending,” or rather buying is better than reusing, quickly becomes the everlasting chant of the entire World State’s frame of mind. It comes to the point that the World State’s economy is wholly and absolutely dependant on the hypnopaedic slogans to create a balanced supply and demand in the market. In comparison, these hypnopaedic sayings heavily mirror the ad slogans in early 21st century modern society. These ad slogans are repeated in a seemingly never-ending…show more content…
These phrases are repeated on the Internet, on the radio, on the television, in subways, at local merchants, and at nearly every other imaginable place that society may possibly frequent. They are repeated so often that if someone were to say “America runs,” someone else might automatically and without much thought reply, “on Dunkin.” These slogans that come automatically always pop up with a certain cue. If someone says the word “moderate,” some people’s minds jump automatically to the TV slogan for health videos- “moderate to severe [insert disease name].” In the same way, hypnopaedic phrases pop up throughout the book whenever a character recognizes a cue in their environment. For example, whenever a World State citizen sees gloominess he or she always starts to say “one cubic centimetre [of soma] cures ten
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