Class+Systems

In Brave New World, Aldous Huxley's message of class systems reveals his disapproval of that type of segregated society while also shedding a positive light on the people's acceptance and reliance on one another. Members of the higher classes such as Alpha and Beta look down on and think of themselves as better than the others. The Deltas, Gammas, and Epsilons are bred to do the low class but necessary jobs. They are engineered as less intelligent, simpler people. The Alphas and Betas command the lower castes to do small jobs for them, and the lower castes do it without complaint. Although the lower classes are looked down upon and forced to do the worst jobs in the society, they are completely happy where they are. They are conditioned from birth to do certain things and to be happy doing just that. Every child in the society is conditioned to believe that each class is necessary and that everyone needs eachother. Despite the discrimination and condescension between the classes, everyone is happy. They know nothing else and they expect nothing else. Huxley shows both a negative and a positive opinion on class systems by showing contempt from the higher classes to the lower classes, but also showing that each caste is happy where they are and that everyone acknowledges their need for another.

Passage One: Page 27 Passage Two: Pages 64-65 Passage Three: Page 74 Passage Four: Page 74 II   Unfortunately, many aspects of //Brave New World// have come true. Laboratories work diligently on genetic engineering. People turn to drugs to silence their emotions and anxiety. Television, movies, and the media promote promiscuity and marriage is becoming a lost gift. In terms of the class system, our society has adopted similar principles. For example, college-prep, honors, and advance placement classes. Students in CP classes are often looked down upon as “not as smart” as the AP kids. The honors students are “better” than CP though not as good as AP. These stereotypes also apply to the Alphas, Betas, Gammas, Deltas and Epsilons. There is also a faintly prominent division between the upper, middle, and lower class. Cliches are formed due to jobs, clothing, and other materialistic aspects. Although our class system is more subtle and less notable than the system of //Brave New World//, there is some discrimination between members of higher or lower "classes". Today, children are not "conditioned" to be happy, they are not taught of the class system and forced to coincide with it through hypnopaedia, but they are strongly influenced from birth by a completely different source. Parents play a key role in developing children's opinions and views on the world. Ideas, theories, opinions, that parents embed in their child's mind stay with that child throughout their life. The world today has a quieter and less obvious form of a class system. In schools and in normal societies there are examples of Huxley's prediciton of a class system that is engrained in children's minds from the moment they are born through parents and not repetitive recordings. 