Misuse of Psychological Conditioning in Today’s Society: Aldous Huxley's Brave New World

Brainwashing… does it exist now? In Aldous Huxleys book, Brave New World, people are grown from tubes, and then psychologically conditioned to behave and act the way the World State, or government per say, wants them to act. Sometimes psychological conditioning can be good, but in this case it is more of a type of brainwashing. The World State misuses its power to make sure people are controlled because they don’t want anyone to be unhappy or to know what is actually happening. This book can be a warning to humanity, telling society that brainwashing can become common and destroy the modern day world. This book makes the people of the modern day world think about what could happen in the near future if society decides to go farther and more into scientific research. Misuses science could contribute to the making of man into an animal, not a smart, adapted, emotional connected human being.

In “Brave New World,” Huxley creates a world that is complete and utterly disturbing to what humanity could become. The people in the World State are controlled through psychological conditioning on a ground breaking scale. They are made to have a low intellectual rating, and one acts more of an animal than as a human. One of the most effective psychological tests that take place during this book is sleep teaching, which is a practice that makes the brain learn things that are being repeated while the body sleeps. This method is very effective because the individual doesn’t realize what is happening, so one wouldn’t be against it and one couldn’t try to stop it.

One of the other ways that psychological conditioning is misused is when the babies are shocked to be made to not like flowers and books. “They’ll grow up with what the psychologists ...

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...en. The society is facing a challenge of whether or not the world should stop mental control or keep it going with the worry that it may take over the world one day. More realistically though, it could turn man into a community of people who is controlled by the government and does not have any emotions and can not figure out anything for themselves.. If the world misuses psychological conditioning enough, it will be a threat to humanity and that is not something that people of this world should think of as something good, because it could potentially ruin all of mankind together.

Works Cited

Biderman, Albert D. "The Image of "Brainwashing"." Oxford Journals (n.d.).

Firchow, Peter. "Science and Conscience in Huxley's "Brave New World" ." University of Wisconsin Press Journals Divisions (n.d.).

Huxley, Aldous. Brave New World. New York, NY: HarperCollins, 1958.