Brave New World Chapter 2- Conditioning Future Generations

"Not so much like drops of water, though water, it is true, can wear holes in the hardest granite; rather, drops of liquid sealing-wax, drops that adhere, incrust, incorporate themselves with what they fall on, till finally the rock is all one scarlet blob.

"Till at last the child's mind is these suggestions, and the sum of the suggestions is the child's mind. And not the child's mind only. The adult's mind too–all his life long. The mind that judges and desires and decides–made up of these suggestions. But all these suggestions are our suggestions!" The Director almost shouted in his triumph. "Suggestions from the State." He banged the nearest table. "It therefore follows …"" (Huxley 28).

 

Within Chapter 2 of Brave New World, a large part in the engineering of the humans is conditioning. The conditioning called "Hypnopaedia", which is sleep teaching, is taught to the Beta children during their sleep, in order to instill in them pride and happiness regarding the caste system. The director really believes that Hypnopaedia is one of the greatest ways to control and instill messages into the children so that when they become adults they don't think otherwise. Messages that would provoke the children to believe that there caste is better than others, and falsely instilling in them that they are happy in their predestined caste. In reality only they would be able to decide if they are happy in the caste, but with repetitive messaging they are forced to believe they are happy. This type of teaching is hindering the people to be able to think and have their own personal opinions. And ultimately depriving them of being individuals especially when they are all repetitively taught the same messages. Teaching children at a young age all the same information can be a positive thing but only if the messages of information are valid and non-bias.