Brave New World Background and Connection

Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley, was published in 1932 but it anticipates what the future will be like.  Huxley describes the future in London in 632 AF (after Ford) as a society totally based on control.  The novel is based on the ideas of futurism, and in this fictional society nothing is how we know it in our world today.  In this society there is no natural birth, and people are conditioned into social status classes.  In this world, to escape their day-to-day lives the characters take a drug called soma.  Soma is a dream-inducing drug that puts the taker into a state of relaxation.  The characters in the novel take soma in many different situations.  Some times to relax themselves, sometimes to increase their concentration, and other times to give themselves confidence.  In the novel, when John Savage causes a riot to break out, the crowd is sprayed with a soma spray to cause them all to become relaxed and to stop feelings animosity.  Also the drug can also produce happiness, and when taken in extreme dosages like how Lenina uses the drug, can incapacitates the user.  The drug is available to everyone, and the Government uses it to control the people living in the world Huxley created.  By taking the soma, the people are put in a drugged out state that makes them not question where there feelings come from.  The drug soma is not like a drug we have available today, but instead mixes the effects of many of today’s drugs.  Drugs that soma is similar to in today’s society are marijuana, ADHD medications like Adderall, and Phencyclidine (PCP).  These drugs, when taken give some of the effects the soma produces.  Unlike in Huxley’s world however, our society has still not accepted drug use and it is not acceptable to take drugs.  Even ADHA medications still have a negative stigma attached to them.  In this world these drugs are accepted and used is forced by the government, but this is a far cry from the War on Drugs our government has created.