New vs Old Society

The final few Chapters of Brave New World are a flurry of action and the thought behind the morality of the society, which begs the question of who can tell what is right for a person or a society. After Linda’s death, John, in a fit of rage, tries to liberate the society, and is captured by the police. He is brought to the Controller of Europe and gets in a discussion over literature, God, and rights. The controller argues that God may exist, but that he isn’t conducive to their society of production and as such they have removed God in the favor to seek perpetual happiness. John says that God is necessary, and should be given to the people, because he tells people their morals of chastity and the like. He also argues that God and the old way are necessary, because it teaches people to live through the their troubles, not to give up or find the way of least resistance John rather have the hardships and misery that goes with life than take the route of civilization and purge emotion and use scientific unnatural means to be unnaturally happy. This discussion of morals and the roles of God made me think of who can call what is right and wrong to do. Both of these people thought their way was best and thought everyone else should follow it as the best course of action, but who can make that decision. Because as an outsider in the 21^st century, who is agnostic, I agreed more with the scientific controller who rely on God and thought scientific advances were good for society, but I also thought it wasn’t perfect. I also felt that it didn’t have the right to control everyone and make the decision for them. The old society wasn’t much better with its pain, violence, and unhappiness, as John willingly takes pain as well as doles out violence. I thought this turn of events was interesting for the novel. In most dystopian novels, while they admit the mistakes of the old society, they tend to romanticize them and want to go back to the old ways. This book however is different. Brave New World makes both societies out as terrible, one is controlled using psychology and the other is full of violence and misery. Neither one is preferable, but each thinks theirs is better, telling the audience that no society is perfect and no one can accurately make a choice for everyone else. All dystopian novels do this to a degree, but I think this novel does the best at demonstrating this to the audience, through the ending discussion and events.