Nitinan Yotsakulsate

5861311 12-09
12 December 2017

Whats better than violence?

Is it possible to control the world? In Aldous Huxleys Brave New World, there are 10 world

controllers who take control of the whole world and take all the powers. There is no protest or any

comment due to the government as well as everything in the world. People are happy with their quality

of life because governments brain washing techniques. In Brave New World, Huxley shows how

governments use soma, propaganda, and hypnopedia to control their populations.

Soma is a tool to make people think less. Soma is a medicine commonly used in Brave New

World. It plays an essential role in the book as a medicine which numbs negative feelings and also one of

ways to control people. Drugs using for control people also used in Jonestown, 1978 as the San Francisco

Examiner reveal through Dale Parks, a temple defector who was a nursing supervisor at Jonestown. "If a

person wanted to leave Jonestown or if there was a breach of rules, one was taken to the extended-care

unit," he explained. "It was a rehabilitation place, where one would be re-integrated back into the

community. The people were given drugs to keep them under control." After a few days or weeks, Parks

said, the patients lost their desire to leave the commune and no further behavioral problems were

anticipated. Jonestown and Brave New World society share the common rule in the way that the extended-

care unit in Jonestown can infer as Iceland in Brave New World. The Director of Hatcheries and

Conditioning explains the reason of sending Bernard Marx to Iceland he has proved himself an enemy of

Society, .., For this reason I propose to dismiss him, to dismiss him with ignominy from the post he has

held in this Centre; I propose forthwith to apply for his transference to a Subcentre of the lowest order

and, that his punishment may serve the best interest of Society,... In Iceland he will have small

opportunity to lead others astray by his unfordly example.(Huxley, p. 101 IDPH) Bernard who breaks

the rule of the society is commanded to move to Iceland as people in Jonestown taken to extended-care

unit. Also, soma represents drugs that Jones use to keep people under his control. In Jonestown drugs is

given to people to terminate problems while in Brave New World, soma use for reduce any negative
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feeling people feels as the quote: Now-such is progress-the old men work, the old men copulate, the old

men have no time, no leisure from pleasure, not a moment to sit down and think or if ever by some

unlucky chance such a crevice of time should yawn in the solid substance of their distractions, there is

always soma, delicious soma, half a gramme for a half-holiday, a gramme for a week-end (Huxley,

P.38 IDPH). The suggestion of soma using propaganda makes people use it commonly in their daily life.

Propaganda recaptures and sticks the content inside people until it becomes their attitude.

Propaganda is best known during World War II in Germany. Purpose of the propaganda is to influence on

peoples mind and chance their points of view to idea that propaganda represent. Hitler used this

advantage to brainwashing German in many kinds of idea such as antisemitism. Nazi successfully uses

propaganda to decrease the population of Jewish in Germany and also in Europe. In 1939, there were 17

million Jews in the world, and by 1945 only 11 million. While in the 13 years following the Holocaust

the Jewish population grew by one million, it took another 38 years for it to grow another million. These

sobering figures reflect how severely Jewish population growth has slowed down over the past 40 years.

(Ner L., n.d.) This information shows that Nazi complete their goal of wipe out Jewish which propaganda

is one of their tools. Also according from BBC Professor Welch D. explained: By the late 1930s, the

increasingly fanatical tone of Nazi propaganda reflected the growing radicalisation of the regime's anti-

Semitic policies. The Jewish stereotypes shown in such propaganda served to reinforce anxieties about

modern developments in political and economic life, without bothering to question the reality of the

Jewish role in German society. This proves that propaganda effects on human minds and made German

despise Jewish so much during that time. Huxley use propaganda in Brave New World such as And if

ever, by some unlucky chance, anything unpleasant should somehow happen, why, theres always soma

to give you a holiday from the facts. And theres always soma to calm your anger, to reconcile you to

your enemies, to make you patient and long-suffering. In the past you could only accomplish these things

by making a great effort and after years of had moral training. Now, you swallow two or three half-
Nitinan Yotsakulsate
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12 December 2017

gramme tablets, and there you are. Anybody can be virtuous no. You can carry at least half your morality

about in a bottle. Christianity without tears- thats what soma is. (Huxley, p.162 IDPH) The quote

represents the idea of using soma in daily life. Government try to make people use soma normally so that

they would not think about anything. Although, people has been known about this idea before from

hypnopedia in conditioning center which propaganda helps recapture those idea and stick it into peoples

minds.

Hypnopedia affects childrens subconscious mind until they act to certain situations

instantaneously, becoming the social norm. Hypnopedia as known as sleep-learning is used in the story as

method to educate morally to children in conditioning center. Children will carry the ideas and thoughts

they got to their life. As the quote: Till at last the childs mind is these suggestions, and the sum of the

suggestions is the childs mind. And not the childs mind only. The adults mind too-all his life long. The

mind that judges and desires and decides- made up of these suggestions. But all these suggestions are our

suggestions! The Director almost shouted in his triumph. (Huxley, P.21 IDPH) The ideas given in

hypnopedia came from the world controllers. They can decide what children would hear and make them

think in the way that the controllers want. The Shedding a Bad Habit experiment by LeShan L. proves

that recorded messages played during sleep incite mental activity. He tested on a group of nail-biting boys

attending summer camp. The experimental group consisted of 20 nail-biting subjects, aged 8 to 12 years.

There were two control groups: the first consisted of 8 nail-biters, aged 8 to 10 years, the second consisted

of 12 nail biters, aged 11 to 14 years. The experimental group was administered a recording while they

slept that said, My finger-nails taste terribly bitter, repeated 300 times for 54 successive nights. The

control group was not administered a recorded message. The researcher found that 40% of the boys in the

experimental group stopped biting their nails, confirming Leshans initial suspicion that people can be

influenced by recorded messages during sleep. (Leshan L., 1942) This research confirms that the

government can use this method to control people. Additionally, the controllers realize that violence is not
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the best way to control people while hypnopedia is the better way of it as the quote: In the end, said

Mustapha Mond, the Controllers realized that force was no good. The slower but infinitely surer

methods of ectogenesis, neo- Pavlovian conditioning and hypnopedia. (Huxley, P.36 IDPH)

There are many ways which the world controllers use to control their population such as soma,

propaganda, and hypnopedia. The conditioning starts since children born and take to hypnopedia that

gives certain habit to them. These habits recapture through their life by using propaganda. However, if

there are any addition problem, soma can be used to stop feeling and thinking that different from others.
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12 December 2017

Bibliography

King, P. (1978, December 28). How Jones used drug. Retrieved December 07, 2017, from

http://www.maebrussell.com/Jonestown/How%20Jones%20Used%20Drugs.html

LeShan, L. (1942). "The Breaking of a Habit by Suggestion during Sleep." Journal of Abnormal and

Social Psychology. 37: 406-8.

Ner, L. (n.d.). World Jewish Population. Retrieved December 12, 2017, from

https://www.simpletoremember.com/vitals/world-jewish-population.htm

Welch, D. (2011, February 17). History - World Wars: Nazi Propaganda. Retrieved December 12, 2017,

from http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/worldwars/wwtwo/nazi_propaganda_gallery_05.shtml