The Responsibility Of Aldous Huxley's Brave New World

Raised in a family of scientist, writer and teacher in Surrey, England, Aldous Huxley was well-educated. His father, Leonard Huxley’s father is a scientist who is known for supporting Charles Darwin’s idea of evolution. His mother, Julia Arnold, was related to the poet and essayist Matthew Arnold. Because of his background, Huxley had a wide range of knowledge from literature to science. In his writing, he was able to integrate scientific elements into his novels and essays.

He originally pursued a doctor career, however, he was almost blind because of an eye disease as a teenage. After graduating from Oxford in 1916, he became a writer and started to write satirical pieces about the British upper class. Relying on his skill of writing he had some audience and a literary name. Much of his work deals with the conflict between the interests of the individual and society, often focusing on the problem of self-realization within the context of social responsibility. This finally reached down to his book Brave New World.

After publishing Brave New World, he continued to live in England. He then moved to California in 1937. In the late 40’s, he started to experiment with hallucinogenic drugs, and this led him to write several books that had profound influence in late 60’s. He died in Los Angles, November 22, 1963. (SparkNotes Editors).

Brave New World begins in the Central London Hatching and Conditioning Center, the Director of the Hatchery is introducing giving a lecture to a group of boys along with his assistant Henry Forster. They are talking about the process of produce a thousand identical embryo in bottles and conditioning them in to different social classes which are Alpha, Beta, Gamma, De...

... middle of paper ...

...-American approaches to the perceived problem of “mental deficiency” and the future of democracy. Eugenicists such as Huxley saw themselves as the “intellectual aristocracy” of Alphas (Woiak 128). They were a separate caste from the masses of Epsilons, yet ultimately responsible for both keeping them contented and judging their fitness for citizenship.

“Science cannot reveal the ultimate reality.” Emerging from Huxley’s keen awareness of the socio-political dimensions of science, his story rings a warning bell about knowledge as power that is especially relevant now that the predicted genetic revolution has arrived. Even though genetics may not be in the hands of despots, the “monks of science” still ought to set down their test tubes once in a while and make it their business to engage in public dialogue about how their research will be put to use in society.