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José Alejandro Barreto

Mr. Linton

English 11-F

October 3, 2017

Knowledge, our power and our freedom

North Korea the most censored country world-wide, is also the were its people it’s most

oppressed. Kim Jung-Un, North Korea’s dictator, censors and manages the information inside

the country and the information coming from the outside. Nor Facebook, Instagram, or any

social media are allowed even many internet sites that may have information that decondition

their people is restricted. Kim Jung-Un even created many myths like his supernatural birth, he

invented the burger, he has never used a toilet, the world loved Kim Jong, that the Japanese stole

time, he was a fashion model, internet doesn’t exist and he was a master golfer. All of these lies

are so that the people love and admire Kim Jung blindly but if they had knowledge of who he

really is, and would realize they are being oppressed. In ​Brave New World by Aldous Huxley,

Huxley proposes that knowledge is and gives you power by comparing the high and the low

class, gives you the power to rebel and sets you free from oppression.

Huxley shows in ​Brave New World ​how can knowledge give you power by comparing

the erudite (Alpha) class with the ignorant working (Epsilon) class. Alphas are the top erudite

class while Epsilons don’t receive the same education therefore they don’t have the knowledge

that Alpha’s do. When the director is giving the tour, he shows how the Betas are conditioned to

hate all the other classes and they repeat a recording which said: “They’re too stupid to be able to

read or write” (27). This shows how Epsilons are the most uneducated of all social class,

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therefore their jobs are mainly workforce and have less benefits and social discrimination. The

recording also says: “Alpha children wear grey. They work much harder than we do, because

they’re so frightfully clever” (27). Alphas standing at the top class of the social structure, have

that position mainly because they possess knowledge, which gives them the power of making

decisions. Alphas and Epsilons both form part of the social structure in this world, they are

opposite poles in the social structure but mainly variate on the knowledge they both have. This

shows the social approach to this two classes, and how while some are praised others are

discriminated. This is the power of the Alphas, because they have that knowledge then they can

control the system and they are the decision makers so the rest of the classes like the Epsilons

have less power on those decisions which benefits Alphas. As a general rule, the person in

charge of making decisions have power over the others. Finally, ​Brave New World ​by Huxley

portraits this social inequity based on knowledge.

Huxley portraits in ​Brave New World ​how knowledge leads to power and that’s

detrimental for the society system. It’s exposed at the beginning of the book were the narrator

says: “One of the students held up his hand; and thought he could see quite well why you

couldn’t have lower- caste people wasting the Community’s time over books, and that are always

the risk of their reading something which might undesirably decondition one of their reflexes…”

(22) this manifest the importance of conditioning the babies to reject books so that they don’t

have a life based on seeking knowledge. If they get deconditioned they will pursue knowledge

and this will give them power which threatens the political system. Another approach to this

ideology is evidenced on the society’s conditioned discrimination to knowledge. When they were

molesting John because of his cloth he thought “But I can read,’ he said to himself,’ and they

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can’t. They don’t even know what reading is.’ It was fairly easy, if he thought hard enough about

the reading, to pretend that he didn’t mind when they made fun of him. He asked Linda to give

him the book again. The more the boys pointed and sang, the harder he read” (131). Books, by

far, the most common way of transmitting knowledge in human history. People in this society of

the lower casts are conditioned to discriminate books because they possess knowledge. This

repugnance for books shows how Alphas (erudite class) fear that power goes to other hands and

the only way to get power is by possessing knowledge. So, we may conclude knowledge leads to

power based on ​Brave New World​ by Huxley.

Lastly ​Brave New World by Aldous Huxley shows the power of knowledge by showing

the power of decision that John has by not taking soma because it takes out his freedom. John

says “Don’t you want to be free and men? Don’t you even understand what manhood and

freedom are? Rage was making him fluent; the words came easily in a rush. “Don’t you?” he

repeated, but got no answer to his question. “Very well then,” he went grimly. “I’ll teach you;

I’ll ​make ​you free whether you want it or not,” (218-219)- John said this to the Deltas when they

were waiting to take their soma reason. John criticizes the fact that everyone is a submissive of

the drug. Like Hobbes said, humans distinct from creatures because we’re able to think and

reason. In this society, they present to us people that don’t think, don’t care about what they do,

or the way they feel. They’re slaves of this fake feeling of security, without actively feeling it.

Therefore, John knows what’s life without soma and sees how it controls us therefore he has the

power of making the decision of being free and not ingest it. In a conversation of John and

Mustapha Mond about how the world used to work. Mustapha Mond says: “knowledge was the

highest good, truth the supreme value; all else was subordinate. True, ideas were beginning to

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change even then. Our Ford himself did a great deal to shift the emphasis from truth and beauty

to truth and happiness. Mass production demanded shift. Universal happiness keeps the wheels

steadily turning; truth and beauty can’t,” (234). Mustapha compares ​Brave New World ​with what

it used to be and because of this shows the chasm that could destroy the society caste system they

are living nowadays. This chasm is the idealized, supreme value of knowledge.

Knowledge our power and our freedom. These past comparisons of high and low classes,

people with knowledge and people without it and their freedom restates knowledge importance.

Now as a universal fact knowledge is one of the most precious and dangerous possessions as we

may see Huxley demonstrating it in his book. Remember to stay alert and never belief one point

of view because the lack of knowledge of the other point of view is what shows you the truth.

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Works Cited

Huxley, Aldous. ​Brave New World. ​New York: Harper Collins, 1992.

Bureau, The Citizen. “10.” ​The Citizen, 23 Oct. 2017,

www.thecitizen.in/index.php/OldNewsPage/?Id=5195.