Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World (1932) is set in the futuristic World State — a society that is now governed by science. We find ourselves in London in the year 2540 at the Hatchery and Conditioning Centre, a sterile laboratory in a ‘squat grey building’1 whose purpose is to reproduce human life. The hatchery buzzes with the activity of 300 technicians as they artificially fertilise human eggs before bottling them for gestation. Each foetus is eventually born into a predetermined caste.There are still pockets of the past on earth frozen in time, where mothers conceive naturally, giving birth and raising ordinary children. For World State inhabitants such practices are an anathema and these pockets of nature are branded as ‘Savage Reservations’. From one such reservation in New Mexico, our protagonist John travels to London upon the invitation of Bernard Marx, an employee of the World State. Marx is of the Alpha Plus caste (the second highest class), a sleep-learning specialist by profession working on the conditioning of infants.John is seeking to escape from his lonely existence on the reservation where he was an outsider. In London, however, he becomes known as ‘The Savage’ — a novelty to Londoners who look upon the reservations as a culture of ‘repulsive habits’ and ‘monstrous superstitions’, which practices ‘Christianity and totemism’ amongst other things.2 He discovers that in a world where humans can be effortlessly reproduced a failure to conform has serious repercussions. He is told that ‘unorthodoxy’ and individuality ‘strikes at society itself’3 and can result in exile for offenders.Mustapha Mond, the Controller for Western Europe, is curious about John’s impressions of the new world. Uniquely for a World State inhabitant, Mond has an understanding of the concept of God. For John ‘God’s the reason for everything noble and fine and heroic.’4 However, Mond tells him that civilization has ‘absolutely no need of nobility or heroism’ and ignorance of God is for the betterment of society, claiming that nobility and heroism are merely ‘symptoms of political ineffectuality’ and are superfluous in ‘a properly organized society like ours.’5 John counters by declaring ‘I want God, I want poetry, I want real danger, I want freedom, I want goodness. I want sin’6 — all conditions antithetical to the World State.In the real world, in which Huxley was putting pen to paper, the First World War had shaken the very foundations of English society. The war effort had brought about a rapid advancement in military technology, including innovations in aircraft and submarine manufacture, and the development of labour-assisting technology to streamline factory assembly lines.After the war, the 1920s saw the advent of the British Broadcasting Corporation and radio became a constant in British lives. Huxley’s brother, Julian, was involved in the adult-education broadcast ‘The Changing World’. Eight years after Brave New World, Huxley wrote to Julian voicing his concerns of the postwar world: ‘our innovations in technology and organization have created a destiny which is pushing us willy nilly towards tyranny.’7 In Brave New World, the Reservation represents a society where technological progress has halted and where preventable suffering continues to exist. The World State, on the other hand, represents the polar opposite. Here, Huxley imagines a society in which technology has radically altered the fundamental tenets of life. Systemising human reproduction has not only reduced physical suffering, but has also led to a rejection of familial bonds and the freedom to choose one’s own path in life. The Brave New World of the novel is an exploration of where technological advancement could lead to, to a society all but stripped of love, spirituality, and individuality.In our modern world, the clinical future World State is yet to materialise. However, there is constant progress towards better health and ever-better living conditions. Discussions of contemporary life too are incomplete without references to new- found anxieties, triggered by a vast information overload and a move to virtual social interaction with a corresponding loss in physical contact. Against this backdrop, Huxley’s imagined world provides a useful model and warning — lest we lose touch with our own humanity.