The equation “civilization is sterilization” is at the heart of the theme of Aldous Huxley's Brave New World. To the “sterilized” mind, this idea would simply mean that cleanliness is the mark of a civilized population; This is exactly what Lenina, a sterilized character from Brave New World, thinks when she sees a filthy Indian reservation and declares that “cleanliness is next to fording” (110). However, Huxley intended to assert something much deeper than simple cleanliness: in Brave New World, he reflected on the subjugation of a society controlled by an oligarchy whose primary concern is stability. By “civilization is sterilization,” Huxley meant that civilizations, for the sake of stability and by any means necessary, are capable of stifling intellectual activity and thus strangling individuality. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”?Get the original essayIn the utopia/dystopia of Brave New World, Huxley describes a society in which people are conditioned to think a certain way way to the supreme power, to the The World State wants them to think. A class of factory-produced infants are electrocuted to avoid books (the source of heretical opinions in this State) as well as other things the World State deems inappropriate. The effectiveness of these exercises is very obvious: by instilling in people's minds a hatred of books and other objects/concepts, people cannot question the norm because "what man has united, nature is powerless to separate it” (22). Lenina and her comrades usually repeat phrases that they have learned subliminally. For example, the use of the panacea "soma", a drug used to send one into tranquil ecstasy, is encouraged via jingles such as "a gram is always better than a damn" and "a cubic centimeter cures ten dark feelings” (89-90). People then take the drug each time it is prescribed, firmly believing that it is good for them, when in fact the soma prohibits the majority of people from thinking outside the norm because their thoughts are limited to “Everyone belongs to everyone.” » and other thoughts that require no real thought (40). These people are “sterilized” from knowledge for the sake of stability; the World State fears change because change threatens instability and thus alienates Shakespeare and other influential books – “you can”. We cannot have tragedies without social instability. The world is now stable. People are happy; they get what they want, and they never want what they cannot get” (220). cleanliness is next to cleanliness” prevents him from tolerating reserve; she is not able to mentally handle such an experience and wonders why Indians are wrinkled and toothless and has to take soma to relieve her from the experience. World State conditioning is extremely powerful; it does not allow intellectual thought, as is the case with Lenina and its sterilizing effects against knowledge are constantly renewed with soma, just as a child is injected repeatedly throughout its youth to be immunized against chickenpox. Through conditioning, Huxley shows that opportunities are lost with the caste division system in Brave New World. The lower castes, Gammas, Deltas and Epsilons, are conditioned to do low-level jobs, such as elevator operators. The upper caste, Betas and Alphas, do more complex work, such as lecturing at universities or vaccinating at health centers.packaging. Lower castes are conditioned to not care about work and to be able to do it regularly without complaining. The World State is doing this again for stability, stating: "An alpha-decanted and Alpha-conditioned man would go insane if he had to do the work of Epsilon Semi-Moron...Only an Epsilon can be expected to do Epsilon's sacrifices, for the right reason. that for him these are not sacrifices; they are the lineage of the least resistant” (222). The lower caste elevatorman, for example, is impressed by the mere sight of sunlight on the roof and exclaims “oh roof!” ", because he spends most of his time in the dark (59). His fear reflects a desire of his inner soul to experience something outside of his usually defined life, but his lack of intelligence prevents him from understanding and undertaking this kind of action; in other words, he doesn't have the ability to do what he wants. Lower caste Epsilons are also raised to be semi-morons because they are "too stupid to be able to read or write", reflecting another aspect of the World State that hinders intellectual activity through sterilization, this time even before a person is born (27). The World State's discouragement of intellectual activity is crushing opportunities for Helmholtz Watson, a lecturer at Brave New World's College of Emotional Engineering. Watson wants to express his feelings in words; he describes it this way: “Have you ever felt like there was something inside you that was just waiting for you to give it a chance to come out? A kind of extra power that you don’t use…” (69). He knows he has the power to say something but he doesn't like to use his writing skills just to think of slogans glorifying the products of the World State (i.e. perfume organs ). When he creates nursery rhymes about loneliness and presents them to his students, trying to make them feel what he felt when he wrote the nursery rhymes, he gets in trouble with the authorities for going against the conditioning students. Helmholtz has the mental capacity and resources to make the change he desires in his life, but he lacks the inner emotions and ideas that drive a person to write about a particular topic, which is signified when he laughs tragedies from a work of Shakespeare; his problem is the opposite of that of the elevator operator. Refer to this quote: “Not so much like drops of water, although water, it is true, can pierce holes in the hardest granite; rather drops of liquid sealing wax, drops which adhere, become encrusted, become incorporated into whatever they fall on, until finally the rock is only a single scarlet drop” (28). Helmholtz is a good example of where the rock is covered in a layer of wax so thin that it is only an inch from its goal but smothered by this layer of wax. His exile in the Falkland Islands was in fact a godsend for him, as the difficulties caused by the unfavorable climate would give him emotion and give him something to write with the freedom to do so. The overarching message is that the destruction of human potential results in a degradation of sensibilities that lack the tools necessary to create great art, thereby stifling intellectual thought in people. Huxley's interpretation that civilization has a sterilizing effect is also evident in the real world. , because Huxley's novel is in part a reflection of our world. Retail companies are doing a good job marketing their products to the consumer society, which is willing to buy everything these days. People are continually replacing their cars after.