Propaganda In Brave New World

When dystopias are mentioned, books like Aldous Huxley's A Brave New World come to mind, but no one ever thinks of modern, popular religions. The goal of these books are to warn the modern society of what could go wrong if it keeps behaving like it is by exaggerating the flaws of the modern society. Scientology is a fairly new religion that has gained many followers over the past decade because of its illusion of a utopia, but it is also exactly what Huxley and Orwell are warning about in their books. Like A Brave New World, The church of scientology started off with good intentions, but over time all the rules and beliefs have turned out to be corrupt and unfair. Utopias like in A Brave New World and Scientology often become dystopias because

the government strives for perfection, but it can never be achieved. In order to reach as close to a utopia as possible, many rules and regulations are set in place. In societies like the World State and the Church of Scientology, to keep the community believing they are living in a utopia, the government becomes corrupt by hiding information and creating fear of the outside world.

In Aldous Huxley’s A Brave New World, the citizens of The World State have been given drugs like soma and told that everyone is useful in their society. This makes them believe they are living in an utopia. In order to convince the society that they are living in a utopia, The World State came up with the motto, “Community, Identity, Stability” (Huxley 1), meaning if the community works together and everyone has their own specific job or identity, the society will remain stable. With the motto in mind, everyone is assigned a job depending on a class system, Epsilons being the lowest class. Even though Epsilons are the lowest class, everyone is told from very early on in life that “Everyone works for everyone else. We can’t do without any one. Even Epsilons…” (Huxley_). This creates a feeling of equality throughout The World State because although Epsilons jobs do not use as much intelligence as the higher classes, everyone in the community is thankful for the help and they realize the importance of everyone. When The World state came up with the class system, they knew that even with telling the society that everyone was useful, the lower class would always have a feeling of inferiority and sadness. In order to fix that and many other problems, the government came up with soma; a drug used to boost happiness. While talking to Bernard, the controller states, “The world's stable now. People are happy; they get what they want, and they never want what they can't get” (Huxley 220). He truly believes he has created a perfect society. Whenever Epsilons are feeling inferior or wish they were Alphas, they can always take soma to make them happy again. As long as everyone in The World State keeps taking soma and following the motto, no one will realize their utopian society is actually a dystopia, and they will be stuck forever in an illusion of utopia.

Through conditioning the citizens of The World State to rely on soma with no questions asked, the government has succeeded in dehumanizing its people and convincing them they are living in a utopia.

An important characteristic of a utopia is the use of propaganda to control the citizens. Throughout A Brave New World, the citizens are given tablets of soma from before they have the freedom to deny it, forcing them to rely on the drug. The government uses soma as propaganda by altering the mind and forcing everyone to believe they are happy. Even after they have the power to speak up, they believe the director when he says, “swallow two or three half-gramme tablets, and there you are. Anybody can be virtuous now. You can carry at least half your morality about in a bottle” (Huxley __). Now that everyone is hooked on the drug and the government constantly tells them how great it is, no one wants to speak up, letting the government control them with this drug. Along with the whole community taking soma, citizens are also expected to conform to expectations and not individuals. In The World State, it is very often to see groups of identical twins and think it is completely normal. Although these twins are identical, some will grow up to be Alphas, while others will be Epsilons. In these different classes, each individual is expected to conform, by wearing the same color as their class and having the same job. Alphas are considered the highest, but “Alphas are so conditioned that they do not have to be infantile in their emotional behavior. But that is all the more reason for their making a special effort to conform. It is their duty to be infantile, even against their inclination " (Huxley 98). This situation shows how even Alphas, the highest class are forced to conform to unattainable perfection. Alphas are programmed to be mature, but at the same time it is their job to act childish, and they are punished if they do not meet the expectations of their class. The

World State is able to trick everyone into believing they are living in a utopia because of their mind altering propaganda and citizens who are easily willing to conform.

Much like The World State, The Church of Scientology hides information and flaws of its society so well that its citizens and followers are convinced it is a utopia. The founder of Scientology, Ron Hubbard, gained many followers of his religion by convincing readers that his science fiction books were infact based on real situations (“Ron Hubbard”). He then created Scientology from the information in his books, stating that, “the main goal of Scientology is to achieve true spiritual enlightenment and freedom for all” (“What is Scientology”). In other words, Hubbard told his followers that The Church of Scientology would offer them complete freedom, while helping them reach enlightenment. By telling his followers this, he gained their trust that they would live freely in a utopian-like community. Many ex-scientologists admit that shortly after joining the church, they knew they had made the wrong decision, but were too afraid to speak up. The cult-like church used fear tactics to keep their followers silent about their treatment while being in the church. By not speaking up, many citizens of the church remain ignorant to the fact that they are being ruled unfairly. Even after the people of the church realize they are living in a real-life dystopia, they are too afraid to speak up. This is because the church knows not everyone will conform to their rules, so they have the potential to be exposed as being a dystopia. In order to prevent this, the church keeps files on people who are considered unfriendly (Church of Scientology). When the church does this, it forces the real life dystopian protagonists to remain silent because they are too afraid of the information that will be exposed. If the followers of The Church of Scientology keep being too afraid to speak up about the treatment in the church, there will always be an illusion of utopia blocking the view of the real dystopia.

Scientologists become a member of the church believing they are joining a utopian community, but after a while the dystopian characteristics and flaws in the society start to show. The rules of Scientology are very strict, and when a member wants to leave, they must pay the price of never seeing their family or friends again. This is because of the communities fear and distrust of the outside world. This process of cutting all ties from friends of the church is known as disconnection ( ). The church is afraid that when the friend leaves the church and goes into the real world, he/she will convince other members of how much better off they are without Scientologie rules and eventually expose their dystopian flaws. Along with distrust of the outside world, information is also kept from the community and they are often told false statements by their leaders. Before Scientology was banned in Australia, an Australian Board of Inquiry accused Scientology of being ‘evil, its techniques evil, its practice a serious threat to the community, medically, morally, and socially. … Scientology is a delusional belief system, based on fictions and fallacies and propagated by falsehoods and deception” (“Cults”). This is significant because it shows the dystopian characteristic of information being kept from the peop. The whole concept is also based on a fantasy made up in Ron Hubbard's science fiction book. Like most utopias, Scientology started off with good intentions of helping people reach their highest potential and achieve spiritual enlightenment, but with such high goals came strict rules and lies that ultimately transformed the church into a dystopia.

The concept of utopias have existed long before even A Brave A New World. That being the case, one would think the world has had ages to perfect their society, however each time it is tried, the results are a failure. In order to learn from past mistakes, one must study the efforts of both literature and real life situations of failed utopias. Unfortunately, many members of The Church of Scientology still remain ignorant to the fact that their utopian community has displayed many characteristics of a dystopia and is only getting worse. In order to reach perfection, citizens of a society must be properly informed of their governments choices and remain independent. When a society follows morals and listens to its people, they are able to live in a community and accept that perfection can never be reached, thus creating a nation as close to a utopia as possible.