The equation “civilization is sterilization” is central to the theme of Aldous Huxley's Brave New World. To the “sterilized” mind, this idea would simply mean that cleanliness is the hallmark of a civilized population; this is exactly what Lenina, a sanitized character in Brave New World, thinks when she sees a filthy Indian reservation and states that “cleanliness is next to ease” (110). However, Huxley intended to make a statement about something much deeper than simple cleanliness: in Brave New World, he was reflecting on the subjugation of a society controlled by an oligarchy whose primary concern is stability. By “civilization is sterilization,” Huxley meant that civilizations, for the purpose of stability and by any means necessary, are capable of stifling intellectual activity and, therefore, of strangling individuality. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay In the utopia/dystopia of Brave New World, Huxley describes a society in which people are conditioned to think in a certain sense the supreme power, the The World State, wants them to think. A class of its factory-produced children are subjected to electroshock to avoid books (the source of heretical opinions in this state) as well as other things the World State finds inappropriate. The effectiveness of these exercises is very evident: by instilling hatred towards books and other objects/concepts in people's minds, people cannot question the norm because "what man has united, nature is not capable of separating it” (22). Lenina and her companions commonly repeat phrases that they have learned subliminally. For example, use of the panacea “soma,” a drug used to send one into a tranquil ecstasy, is encouraged through jingles such as “one gram is always better than one damn” and “one cubic centimeter cures ten dark feelings” (89- 90). People then take the drug whenever it is prescribed, firmly believing that it is good for them, when in reality soma prohibits most people from thinking outside the norm since their thoughts are limited to "everyone belongs to everyone others". " and other thoughts that do not require real thought (40). These people are "sterilized" from knowledge for the sake of stability. The World State fears change because change threatens instability and therefore keeps Shakespeare and other influential books away: "you can"; make tragedies without social instability. The world is now stable; they get what they want and never want what they can't get tolerate reservation; is unable to mentally process such an experience and wonders why Indians are wrinkled and toothless and has to take soma to relieve her of the experience. The World State conditioning is extremely powerful; intellectual, as in the case of Lenina, and its sterilizing effects against knowledge are constantly renewed with soma, just as a child is injected repeatedly during his youth to be immunized against chickenpox. Through conditioning, Huxley shows that opportunities are missed with the system of division across castes in Brave New World. The lower castes, Gamma, Delta and Epsilon, are conditioned to perform low-level jobs, such as being elevator operators. The upper castes, Beta and Alpha, do more complex jobs such as lecturing at universities or vaccinating at conditioning centers. The lower castes are conditioned not to worry about work and to be able to do it regularly without complaining. The StateThe World Cup still does so for reasons of stability, stating: “A man praised in Alfa and conditioned in Alfa would go mad if he had to do a Semi-Imbecile Epsilon job… Only an Epsilon can be expected to make Epsilon sacrifices, for the good reason that for he is not sacrifices; they are the line of minimum resistance” (222). The lower-caste elevator attendant, for example, is awed just by seeing sunlight on the roof floor, and exclaims, "oh roof!", as he spends most of his time in the darkness (59) . His awe reflects his inner soul's desire to experience something outside of his usually defined life, but his lack of intelligence prevents him from understanding and taking that kind of action; in other words, he doesn't have the ability to do what he wants to do. Lower-caste Epsilons are also raised to be semi-moronic because they are "too stupid to be able to read or write", reflecting another aspect of the World State that hinders intellectual activity through sterilization, this time before even a person is born (27).The World State's discouragement of intellectual activity destroys opportunities for Helmholtz Watson, a professor at Brave New World's College of Emotional Engineering. Watson has the need to express his feelings through words; he describes it like this: “Have you ever had the feeling of having something inside you just waiting for you to give it the chance to come out? Some kind of extra power that you're not using…” (69). He knows he has the power to say something but he doesn't like to use his talent in writing just to think of slogans to glorify the products of the World State (i.e. smell organs). When he creates rhymes about loneliness and presents them to his students, trying to make them feel as he did when he wrote the rhymes, he gets in trouble with the authorities for opposing the conditioning of the students. Helmholtz has the mental capacity and resources to make the change he wants in his life, but he lacks the inner emotions and ideas that drive a person to write about a particular topic, which is signified when he laughs at tragedies in a work of Shakespeare; his problem is the opposite of that of the elevator. Refer to this quote: “Not so much as drops of water, though water, it is true, can pierce the hardest granite; rather drops of liquid sealing wax, drops that adhere, encrust, become incorporated into whatever they fall on, until in the end the rock is all a scarlet stain” (28). Helmholtz is a good example of when the rock is covered in a layer of wax so thin that it is only a centimeter from its target but smothered by that layer of wax. His exile in the Falkland Islands actually serves as an advantage for him because the hardships caused by the unhappy climate will stimulate his emotions and give him something to write about with the freedom to do so. The overall message is that the destruction of human potential results in degraded sensibilities that lack the tools to create great art, thus stifling intellectual thought in people. Huxley's interpretation of civilization having a sterilizing effect was also evident in the real world. , since Huxley's novel is partly a reflection of our world. Retail companies do a good job of marketing their products to the consumer society that will buy anything these days. People continually replace their cars after a few years because they are "bored" or fall prey to Apple and buy the "new" iPods that are almost exactly the same as the previous models. The cultural tensions present in society promote this behavior even more because the.