In this, Huxley creates a social hurdle for the ôclassesö that can never be leaped: biology prevents it. Of course, in the BNW, this assessment would be regarded as precisely backward. In the BNW, the point is not merely that individuals have been genetically predestined to occupy certain fixed social castes, but rather that these individuals have been conditionedùpsychologically as well as biologicallyùto enjoy as well as thrive in the caste that they occupy.
This is the essence of HuxleyÆs futuristic vision and the reason why criminal behavior in the BNW is so unlikely. As HuxleyÆs Director of Hatcheries and Conditioning attests, ôthe secret of happiness and virtueö is liking oneÆs station in life; thus, ôAll conditioning aims at that: making people like their inescapable social destiny (11).ö So, where individuals have been designed to covet nothing but what is within their grasp, there is little reason to anticipate social discord.
In the BNW, it is commonly understood (through hypnopaedic programming) that ôevery one works for every one else (57)ö, and that everyone is glad for what they are. When the vapid, beautiful Lenina Crowne remarks that she is glad sheÆs not an Epsilon (the lowest caste in the BNW), her knowing date Henry Foster reminds her that if she were an Epsilon, her ôconditioning would have made [her] no less thankfulö that she was not ôa Beta or an Alpha (58)ö. The origins of criminal behavior, of deviance, of social discord in general that is so central to criminology is simply not present in the BNW. Put simply, there is no way for the individual to usurp the system. It is not merely that rebellion is undesirable: it is well nigh inconceivable.
In the BNW, the challenges of autonomy, of liberty, of individuality have all been mooted in favor of order and stability. ôStability,ö insists Controller Mustapha Mond, is the ôprimal and ultimate need (31)ö; therefore, it i...