A Brave New World - Happiness

In the novel, A Brave New World, the author Aldous Huxley creates a world where the people are ignorant of the truth, and are, therefore, in a state of bliss that they mistake as happiness. The people in the World State are in a world where they don’t know what true happiness is. The way they have lived their lives has blocked out real happiness. Through conditioning and drugging the government has kept the people of the World State ignorant to the truth. The people in the World State believe they are happy when really they are in an ignorant bliss.

When people are, “born” in the World State they are put through a process called conditioning. This conditioning changes how they would normally feel about something and makes them do what the world state wants them to do. For example, if the World State wanted the person to like working outside, they would condition that person to like working outside. So now even if the person liked to work inside he would think he likes to work outside and be happy about it, but if he knew better he wouldn’t be happy. The ignorance of that person keeps him in a state of bliss, but not happiness.

As people live their lives in the World State they work the jobs they have been conditioned for, and do what the government tells them to do. The people think that their jobs are the best thing they can do. The government and their society says that they should be promiscuous. Some of the people in the book feel the need to settle down, but most just go on being promiscuous