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Pierce Livingston

Gidion
ERWC
2-17-15
Brave New World Ch. 1-3 Reading Questions
Chapter 1
1. The hatchery and conditioning center prepares embryos for human life and takes the place of
human pregnancy. Embryos and infants are conditioned through verbal and non-verbal systems
to fit into their social caste assigned during social predestination.
2. When the Director says particulars, as everyone knows, make for virtue and happiness, he
means having specific knowledge of a job allows you to focus and understand what you are
doing, making you happier as you are aware you are contributing to society. When he says
generalities are intellectually necessary evils, he is trying to explain that while it is necessary
to have a general knowledge of things for basic comprehension (allowing for specific
knowledge of your role), those who think too much on generalities (such as philosophers) do
not contribute to the society as they spend so much time thinking they can't spend enough time
working.
3. Bokanovsky's Process is a cloning procedure where an embryos continually divide to create
more identical embryos. This allows the government to control the population and mass
produce humans.
4. Social Predestination is the phenomenon of placing an embryo into a social caste (Alpha, Beta,
Delta, Gamma, or Epsilon) at the beginning of its development and then conditioning it during
the embryo phase and early childhood to fit into the mold of the social caste it has been
assigned.
5. The hatchery purposely keeps some embroys from developing high intelligence so the
developed humans are smart enough to do low-intelligence labor, but not intelligent enough to
question authority or rebel.
6. There was nothing in this chapter that specifically helped me with my research.
7. The D.H.C. Takes students through the Hatchery and Conditioning Center, explaining the
hatching and conditioning process to both the students and the reader.
8. I am somewhat confused when the author brings in specific numbers. For example, when Mr.
Foster speaks of statistics I get confused and am unable to visualize what he is trying to explain.
I am also waiting on an explanation as to why all the students are male, but hopefully this will
be addressed later in the book.
Chapter 2
1. Delta babies are conditioned to be afraid of books and roses so they do not waste time reading
or exploring the countryside, thus becoming more dedicated to their work as they don't have

much else to do.


2. The World State's economy is similar to ours because it depends on the choices of the consumer.
However, because people are conditioned to think a certain way during infancy, they are not
really able to fully make an unbiased decision by themselves, creating a situation similar to a
puppet government but with the economy.
3. Henry Ford seems to be treated as a deity because the assembly line revolutionized production
and manufacturing throughout the world. The World State seems value the ability to massproduce and make everything uniform, and as such it is only natural that Henry Ford is seen as
the holy savior of a mass-producing society.
4. Early attempts at sleep teaching failed because they tried to academically educate through sleep
(for example, teach a child about the Nile river). However, the children could only repeat the
information they heard, but did not actually understand it, making it rather useless. This was
rectified when the World State used sleep teaching for moral education. The D.H.C. Explains
that moral education is not based in any rational reason so it does not need to actually be
understand by the child to have value, so long as they believe it.
5. Elementary Class Consciousness is a course where students sleep and are subtly taught ideas
through small speakers on their pillows. The goal of Elementary Class Consciousness is to
implant a non-rational idea into the mind of the students over the course of two years until they
eventually believe it wholeheartedly. We do not have a similar course in our educational system
(at least I hope not). I do not believe it is a good idea because it could be used to reinforce
prejudices and negative attitudes toward other groups of people.
6. Elementary Class Consciousness is a wonderful example of using propaganda to promote hate
of another group. With race being less important in Brave New World than in our society (and
other religions appearing to be non-existent), much of the prejudice between groups seems to be
between the social castes assigned at Social Predestination. I am eager to see the full effect of
this conditioning later in the book to use as support for my argument against subtly allowing
Islamophobia into the lives of the American people.
7. The D.H.C. Continues touring the students around the Hatchery and Conditioning Center. He
shows the students conditioning of Delta babies and explains some of the reasoning because
specific conditioning choices. The reader is also introduced to the concepts of sleep teaching
and Elementary Class Consciousness.
8. I am confused as to why the Delta babies are conditioned to hate plants but are also conditioned
to enjoy outdoor sports. The D.H.C. Had an explanation in the chapter but it didn't make much
sense to me. However, neo-pavlovian conditioning is just a theoretical part of BNW's universe,
and as such as long as it makes sense to the other characters I do not think it is a problem. I
would like to understand it though as I'm sure it makes sense to some people.

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