"And that, that is the secret of happiness and virtue - liking what you've got to do. All conditioning aims at that: making people like their inescapable social destiny." (Huxley, Chapter 1)
In Brave New World, the controllers use a form of conditioning called “hypnopaedia” or “sleep-teaching” to produce a happy and stable new world. B.F. Skinner's theories of operate and classic conditioning can be applied to this novel by examining the citizens' reinforce behaviors. Classic conditioning is the process of using conditioned stimuli to create a condition response from an unconditioned (neutral) subject. Operant conditioning is a method of learning that occurs through rewards (positive reinforcement) and punishments (negative reinforcement) for behavior.
Every human being in the World State is conditioned to fit society’s need – to enjoy what he or she will have and to dislike what people in other classes have. This way, no one can become jealous or greedy towards anyone else’s life. In theory, the world should run smoothly and unresentfully.
All five castes in the book (Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta and Epsilon) are condition to react to various stimuli, live in specific environment, and prefer various situations based on how the World State wanted them to live.
This dystopia demonstrates that the method a society uses to raise its children is how it can predict the fate of its future.
In Huxley's novel, human embryos don't grow inside their mothers' wombs but in bottles. Biological and physiological conditioning consists of adding chemicals in correspondence with the levels of strength, intelligence, and aptitude required for given jobs. After they are "decanted" from the bottles, children are psychologically conditioned, mainly by hypnopaedia or sleep-teaching. At every stage the society brainwashes its citizens so that the established generation can ensure what they want to keep in their culture is instilled in the minds of the rising generation.
For example, in chapter 2, the Director takes the students to the Infant Nurseries. Here, the group watches how delta infants are beginning to be conditioned to not like flowers and books. As the children crawls towards the objects, an electric shock is sent through the strip of the floor they are on, electrocuting them. The delta children are taught to fear and dislike nature and the outside as most delta caste humans work in factories. The delta will prefer being inside and working in colder, darker places as opposed to being outside in nature, thus being more efficient and useful to society.
An interesting and creative picture illustrating the caste system in Brave New World.
In Brave New World, the controllers use a form of conditioning called “hypnopaedia” or “sleep-teaching” to produce a happy and stable new world. B.F. Skinner's theories of operate and classic conditioning can be applied to this novel by examining the citizens' reinforce behaviors. Classic conditioning is the process of using conditioned stimuli to create a condition response from an unconditioned (neutral) subject. Operant conditioning is a method of learning that occurs through rewards (positive reinforcement) and punishments (negative reinforcement) for behavior.
Every human being in the World State is conditioned to fit society’s need – to enjoy what he or she will have and to dislike what people in other classes have. This way, no one can become jealous or greedy towards anyone else’s life. In theory, the world should run smoothly and unresentfully.
All five castes in the book (Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta and Epsilon) are condition to react to various stimuli, live in specific environment, and prefer various situations based on how the World State wanted them to live.
This dystopia demonstrates that the method a society uses to raise its children is how it can predict the fate of its future.
In Huxley's novel, human embryos don't grow inside their mothers' wombs but in bottles. Biological and physiological conditioning consists of adding chemicals in correspondence with the levels of strength, intelligence, and aptitude required for given jobs. After they are "decanted" from the bottles, children are psychologically conditioned, mainly by hypnopaedia or sleep-teaching. At every stage the society brainwashes its citizens so that the established generation can ensure what they want to keep in their culture is instilled in the minds of the rising generation.
For example, in chapter 2, the Director takes the students to the Infant Nurseries. Here, the group watches how delta infants are beginning to be conditioned to not like flowers and books. As the children crawls towards the objects, an electric shock is sent through the strip of the floor they are on, electrocuting them. The delta children are taught to fear and dislike nature and the outside as most delta caste humans work in factories. The delta will prefer being inside and working in colder, darker places as opposed to being outside in nature, thus being more efficient and useful to society.
An interesting and creative picture illustrating the caste system in Brave New World.