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  • Essay / Brave New World as a consumer society

    “Money doesn’t buy happiness. » Throughout history, this concept has been heard many times and proven to be true. People can continually purchase material items, but ultimately, those items can never satisfy a person's innate need for love and connection. When people buy such items, they are poorly trying to fill a missing void in their lives. In the 1920s, this ideal began to lose its meaning as society was swept away by consumerism. Shopping became people's favorite pastime, and the ever-increasing consumption of goods began to set the standards of happiness. Aldous Huxley experienced the rise of the vending market and saw the negative influence it had on society as consumerism began to dominate people's lives; therefore, Huxley wrote Brave New World to describe an exaggeration of the world if society continued to participate in mass consumerism. Huxley intended his novel to be a warning to the public about the ramifications of consumerism and to ensure that his imagined dystopia would not become reality. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get an original essay In his novel, Huxley illustrates an assembly line that, rather than producing cars, produces human beings, making “the principle from mass production to applied to biology” (Huxley 5). By performing Bokanovsky's process on assembly lines, a single egg can "become eight to ninety-six embryos" (Huxley 4). In the World State, people are continually produced as. material objects such as Ford's Model-T cars. The use of Ford's technique on human reproduction dehumanizes the creation of life and turns it into a mechanical process rather than a personal, intimate experience as it actually is when humans are created and begin in their life. in an unfeeling way, they continue to live in the same way, making Brave New World society emotionally retarded. The ability to create multiples of a single genetic being through the Ford assembly line vastly diminishes the value of life. People are seen as objects in the World State that society can use as long as they are alive and functioning well; however, when they are no longer used, they are discarded and simply replaced with another technical being. In the 1920s, Henry Ford was the leading manufacturer in the automobile industry. His invention of the assembly line made possible the production of thousands of Model Ts. His ability to continually produce the same exact product, quickly and efficiently, inspired Huxley's own version of an assembly line in The Best worlds. Through his novel, Huxley depicts his idea that as technology and consumerism prosper, the morality of society declines. In the 1920s, people's priority was to purchase new products and contribute to the sales market. As goods were produced frequently, people began to shop incessantly, so much so that it became society's favorite activity. Writer Sharon Beder described the growing desire to shop because “leisure activities” offered an “escape from real life” (45). As consumerism has grown, it has supplanted family obligations and friendships, with people preferring to shop and live in their consumerist paradise rather than spending time with family and friends. Sentimentality has lost its importance incivilization and materialism took over. Society in the 1920s was wrongly obsessed with the assembly line and consumerism, so much so that Huxley illustrated a world where the assembly line is the source of human life and consumerism is the foundation of their civilization, for warn people about the risks of consumerism. In Brave New World, once humans have been manufactured through assembly lines, they then undergo conditioning that transforms them into ideal citizens of the World State. In order to maintain civilization in a structured manner, conditioning is used to keep the public under the command of the World Controllers. The children undergo electric shocks to teach them to "hate the countryside", but also to "love all country sports" requiring "the use of elaborate devices" which force them to consume "manufactured articles as well as means transportation” (Huxley 16). . Conditioning is a form of manipulation aimed at ensuring that people continue to buy goods and only care about consumerism. Conditioning is seen as justifiable in the eyes of the World Controllers, because society would collapse if the cycle of purchasing goods ended. Since consumerism is practically inculcated in citizens since childhood and contributes to the stabilization of society, people do not realize the disadvantages of it. Therefore, the World Controllers use consumerism to distract the public to ensure that people do not become detached from society's norms. Instead of questioning the ethics and fairness of the World State, people are conditioned to focus on consumerism. Companies and producers have made consumerism a never-ending cycle. In the 1920s, businesses encouraged people to purchase goods, even when they did not have sufficient funds, by providing them with credit and installment plans. The notion of “buy now, pay later” allowed people to continually purchase items without fear of not being able to pay the full price of the product (“a consumer economy”). With the ability to purchase many goods using credit and payment plans, people continued to increase the amount of money they owed manufacturers. Eventually, people's carelessness caught up with them, as they could no longer pay for their goods and producers began to demand the amount they were owed. Companies had enabled credit and installment plans to achieve their “goal [of] trapping consumers in the world of consumption” (Spierings and Houtum 902). Companies have deceived people by glorifying credit and payment plans to improve their product sales. With Brave New World, Huxley described the lack of attention that manufacturers of the 1920s had for the true intentions of consumers and businesses behind credit and payment plans. The use of credit and installment plans were forms of manipulation that forced the public to continue purchasing goods. Credit and installment plans were created, not to help shoppers buy more products, but to enable them to owe more money. People unknowingly fell under the thumb of manufacturers, under the false pretense that the companies were providing beneficial opportunities to consumers. Huxley wanted people to stop wasting their money on unnecessary items, believing that credit and payment plans were designed to be useful systems. The use of credit and installment plans created a parasitic cycle, as businesses benefited from fueling purchasesconsumers and consumers were suffering as they ultimately found themselves facing financial problems. Another important aspect of the World State that contributes to the maintenance of social order is the soma. Since consumerism is essential to the functioning of the World State, the World Controllers use soma to push the public to continually purchase goods, ensuring that civilization does not collapse. Soma induces pleasure in its users and ensures that the audience's minds do not wander away from their fictional, happy world. With soma, the World Controllers are able to “render [the] population docile” and ensure the obedience of the people to their conditioning and the norms of society (Hickman 145). While soma makes people more flexible and instills them “into [a] world of comfort and pleasure,” they mindlessly fulfill the obligation to shop because “nothing else matters” (Sawyer 82). People have no doubt about why they are shopping or whether they need to shop, but their soma-induced minds make them likely to believe that shopping is what they should do and that it's the only activity they should do, other than having sex. The World Controllers manipulate the public through soma, because the drug makes people believe that buying goods is their purpose in life, but in reality, soma is what allows the World Controllers to control their lives. In the 1920s, advertisements, like soma in the World State, stimulated consumerism. The reliance on advertising forced people to continue their consumerist lifestyles as they were constantly exposed to promotions that persuaded them to make purchases. Advertisements beautify products to encourage people to buy them. Thanks to product promotions, “advertisers were no longer just responding to demand; they created demand” (“A Consumer Economy”). Companies used advertising to convince people to continue purchasing unnecessary items. Huxley used soma in Brave New World to describe the effect of advertisements on audiences in the 1920s, as people continued to purchase products based on the exaggerated benefits of the products shown in advertisements. Manufacturers glamorized their products to persuade people to buy them, and once people bought their products, they rarely lived up to their advertised expectations. Manufacturers cared less about the price of their products and whether the product met the advertised claims because they were primarily concerned with selling their products. The advertising process in the 1920s was just a form of stimulus that Huxley reproduced through the soma in Brave New World to show the audience that producers were using advertising to manipulate the audience. Thanks to advertising, producers were able to earn a lot of money and contribute to the development of the sales market. He wanted people to see the truth behind the embellished claims made in advertisements and used the influence of soma in Brave New World to do so. Soma is not the only factor that incentivizes the purchase of goods in the World State, as the mantra “ending is better than fixing” contributes significantly to the growth of consumerism (Huxley 37). Citizens of Brave New World are constantly buying new items because they are conditioned to “like having new clothes” (Huxley 37). They throw away any item deemed old or even slightly "used" and rather than try to repair the item, they think the best choice is to replace it with a new version. People choose to buyeasily repairable products, simply because they believe that a slightly damaged item can no longer function properly and has lost any significant value. Purchasing new products diminishes any chance of creativity and innovation that could possibly arise from repairing an object and also ensures that people do not form emotional attachments to their objects. As old and broken items are continually thrown away, society remains dull and emotionally detached. The principle that “it is better to finish than to repair” also leads to the consumption of products within the World State, as well as the suppression of creativity and deep emotions. Like the World State, the 1920s saw endless production of goods. New products were constantly being created and launched. People would buy the "brand new", "just released" radio with the "best speakers for the clearest sound" in an effort to have the latest and greatest item; however, they will never be able to achieve their goal, because another "brand new" and "better" radio station will come out the next day. The public's desire for the newest products reinforced consumerism as people continued to purchase item after item "for it was the constant production of new desires that defined and drove" consumerism (Spierings and Houtum 902). Companies continued to create products that they claimed were better than before – when in reality there were only minor improvements – in an attempt to increase sales and make more money. Huxley illustrates how wasteful spending on unnecessary items contributed to the cycle of consumerism and encouraged companies to continue their deceptive marketing of products. With the concept that "it is better to complete than to repair", Huxley shows how to waste money on constantly buying new items does not cause harm to anyone, but to the consumers themselves. Therefore, Huxley wanted to convey the message to the people of the 1920s that instead of continuing to buy slightly improved products and falling into the manipulation of advertisements, people should be content with the items they currently own. , conditioning and soma are used to ensure the lack of identity and individuality within the population. With conditioning, people's mindset is sculpted into that of an ideal citizen of a world state, and with soma, people reject anything that negates their indoctrinated beliefs; therefore, the public is forced to have no thoughts other than those of the World Controllers. When John, an outsider who grew up on the Savage Reservation, arrives in the World State, he rebels against the World State's social order. He aspires to maintain and develop his identity and chooses not to "want comfort", but rather "desire God", "poetry", "danger", "freedom", "goodness" and "sin" (Huxley 182). He wants to discover more of what the world has to offer and cultivate his mind with ideas outside of those conceived by the World Controllers; however, according to the societal norms of the World State, in pursuing its aspirations, it “claims the right to be unhappy” (Huxley 182). The loss of fundamental traits that develop the identity of individuals is seen as an imperative aspect of maintaining happiness in the World State. The World Controllers' idea of ​​happiness is only achievable if people lose their opinions, their morality and, essentially, their identity. With the growth of consumerism in the 1920s, people lost their individuality and the characteristics that made them unique and began to,)