Drugs and
your Mind
| Huxley doesn't
just stop his genetic engineering with artificial human mass development.
He also applies concepts and ideas of behavioral scientists such as B.F.
Skinner and Ivan
Pavlov to explain how the inhabitants of his dystopic world state,
once hatched and developed, are conditioned and programmed with the
prescribed ideals of their social caste. Infants undergo hypnopaedia
(sleep teaching), from which they gain their moral education through
repeated suggestion. Also, depending upon their caste, they are subjected
to the repeated adverse conditioning techniques of electric shocks and
loud, jarring noises paired with items, like books and flowers, they are
consequently taught to hate. |
Pavlov's
dog?
|
|
|
Despite being
manufactured, the people of Huxley's dystopia are still humans, and
therefore susceptible to human infirmities such as the emotions of anger,
sadness, and love. This cannot be! Just like God, love, anger, and sadness
all get in the way of happiness, and if the people aren't happy, then the
people won't work, and then no one will buy new things, and then society
will fall apart. ...And we can't have that. What can we do to keep this
from happening? Give the people drugs! That's right. Huxley, in order to
have his people maintain their happiness at all times, has the government
issue soma to the people. Soma is the wonderdrug; "one cubic centemetre cures
ten gloomy sentiments." Soma was a real drug, a hallucinogen used
during religious ritual by the Indo-Iranians of Central Asia about 4,000 years ago, that is now lost to us. Despite the
loss of soma today, for several reasons, there are now many types of hallucinogens that people use to alter their sense of reality...sometimes permanently. |
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