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What role does genetic engineering and conditioning play in the manipulation of people’s emotions and relationships in Aldous Huxley's Brave New...

The world Huxley describes values stability and conformity above all else. Genetic engineering and conditioning are the crucial elements that ensure stability and conformity will occur. Genetic engineering allows the growth of multiple sets of completely identical humans, which aids conformity. Further, embryos are manipulated in the test tube (all babies are grown in test tubes) to ensure they have the proper attributes of whatever caste to which they have been designated. For example, the brains of low-caste groups, such as Epsilons, are deprived of oxygen at crucial times so they will lack intelligence. This makes them more likely to be satisfied with their manual jobs. Genetic engineering also ensures Epsilons are smaller than the "superior" castes so it seems natural to take orders from the superior groups. Finally, all castes are conditioned from birth to prefer the group to which they were born and happily do what they are expected to do to ensure social harmony. Betas, for example, are constantly conditioned through tapes that play at night to be consumers.

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