Conditioning in Brave New World

Conditioning in Brave New World is one of the key elements that allows the World State to maintain order. Citizens don't have to be coerced or threatened into acting a certain way. They already want to do so from the time they are infants and continue to learn and undergo indoctrination as children. Everyone, including the Alphas who are at the top of the caste system, undergoes training of some sort based on their predetermined jobs. The Beta children in the chapter are being conditioned to enjoy and be happy with not being at the top like Alphas, but still be smarter than others. Deltas, since they lack the cognitive ability to do mental work, are conditioned to hate nature so they will instead be better consumers. If they enjoy nature, they won't buy anything since nature is free.

In essence, children are placed on an assembly line, like societal hero Henry Ford's cars, and made into ideal citizens.

Various quotes in the chapter highlight the effect and result of this conditioning.

•"Books and loud noises, flowers and electric shocks-already in the infant mind these couples were compromisingly linked; and after two hundred repetitions of the same or a similar lesson would be wedded indissolubly. What man has joined, nature is powerless to put asunder." The quote follows the demonstration of conditioning with the infants and ends with an allusion to the Biblical statement that what God has put together, let no man tear asunder. The Biblical quote is typically used in relation to marriage, but the narration uses a modified version to place humans in place of God and nature as the subservient ones. It shows the power of the conditioning to override basic instincts.

•"And 'parent'?" questioned the D.H.C. There was an uneasy silence. Several of the boys blushed. They had not yet learned to draw the significant but often very fine distinction between smut and pure science. One, at last, had the courage to raise a hand." Family is one of the most natural things in the world for most species. Having a parent or having a child are experiences that most people will have in their lifetimes, but the conditioning in the World State is so effective that the mere mention of parenthood is enough to make the students ashamed and blush as though they had heard a dirty joke.