Brave New World by Aldous Huxley

Brave New World by Aldous Huxley has as its main theme not science but how science can be used to control society. In this futuristic novel social stability has occurred at the loss of personal freedom turning the society essentially into slaves. What is described is a scientific caste-system controlled by the drug, soma which results in a chemically induced happiness. Huxley gives a science-fiction account of how society has permitted science to dominate all aspects of their automaton lives. From test-tube births the lives of individuals are predetermined by their initial biological processes. How close are we to this point now with genetic engineering, gene splicing, human cloning, etc.? Today this science seems even more possible than in 1931 when this book was written. Control of society and stability via science are paramount to the point that even science must be treated as subversive and the enemy of society. Huxley writes, “Science is dangerous, we have to keep it most carefully chained and muzzled” (page 203). These are but two science fiction classics (and Frankenstein) of hundreds of examples that put a derogatory lens of literature on science. It’s difficult to state empirically how these classics have influenced society’s decisions to utilize the discoveries of science in the past, present, or future.