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Bernard is criticized by the Director for not acting “infantile” enough. Discuss how and why the World State infantilizes its citizens.
The World State infantilizes its citizens by allowing them instant gratification and denying them responsibility. It assigns every citizen to a caste and a particular social function before birth, it encourages its citizens to use soma regularly and to seek instant sexual gratification, and it conditions its citizens to have no identity independent of the World State. John compares the dependence of Delta workers on soma to a prolonged childhood. Their reaction to John’s call to revolution resembles a childhood temper tantrum. The lifelong process of conditioning socializes the citizens into infantile dependence on the State through the lures of pleasure, security, and happiness. Like children, they are never allowed to make independent moral choices. Instead, these choices are made for them through conditioned, blind obedience to the World State’s moral laws. All of this occurs in the name of stability. Infantilization is implemented through scientific discoveries in human psychology, such as Pavlovian theory and hypnopaedia.
Discuss the relation between the sexes in the World State. How do men and women interact? Who holds the power in social situations, in the workplace, and in the government?
When the Director gives his new students a tour of the Hatchery at the beginning of
Discuss the parallels between
Many critics interpret
Bernard also parallels different characters from
In what ways does the World State treat people like commodities?
The Predestinators estimate the need for various members of each caste, and the Hatchery produces human beings to match their mathematical figures. This directly follows the economic rules of supply and demand. Through the Podsnap and Bokanovsky Processes, the lower castes are mass-produced on assembly lines to satisfy the needs of a market, just like any other standardized manufactured good. Linda’s doctor and Bernard are content to allow Linda to abuse soma even though they know it will eventually kill her. The doctor explains to John that it is better for her to die as quickly and quietly as possible now that she cannot perform any economically productive work. The doctor voices the World State’s belief that human beings are things meant to be “used up until they wear out.” Just as with manufactured goods, when people get old and worn out, they are thrown away. With respect to sexual pleasure, World State citizens are conditioned to view themselves, and others, as commodities to be consumed like any other manufactured good. As Bernard says, Henry and the Predestinator view Lenina as a “bit of meat,” and Lenina thinks of herself “as meat.”
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