An Analysis of the Caste System

As mentioned earlier, the World State is separated into castes based on intelligence from Alpha to Epsilon in the Greek alphabet, from most to least intelligence. Each caste is assigned a color for immediate identification, with Alphas wearing gray, Betas mulberry, Deltas green, Gamma khaki, and Epsilons black. Each caste is sub-divided into pluses and minuses, although all wear the same color regardless of being an Alpha-plus or Alpha-minus. To reinforce the lower caste’s feeling that the upper castes are superior and to keep the lower castes in their place, the higher the caste the taller the person is. All castes are subjected to hypnopaedia, the process of listening to phrases repeatedly during sleep, throughout their childhood. All are given some of the same sentences, such as “cleanliness is next to fordliness”, but are also given certain different phrases. The Director of Hatcheries and Conditioning explains the separate hypnopaedia for each caste “And that… is the secret of happiness and virtue- liking what you’ve got to do. All conditioning aims at that: making people like their inescapable social destiny”. Children are conditioned to accept their caste from the day they are born. Alphas have the high-intelligence jobs, like designing research experiments and being college professors. Betas have the high intelligence jobs that require little thought and creativity, like being lab technicians. Deltas have jobs like being nurses, which requires some but not a great deal of intelligence. Deltas have jobs like piloting helicopters or being the doorman at a hotel, jobs that require no intelligence but do require the person to be visible. Epsilons take jobs such as being janitors, which require no intelligence or for the person to be visible.

Like Huxley’s society as a whole, readers may have different opinions about whether the merits of the caste system. The caste system brings a form of happiness, as the people are trained to enjoy the job they have to perform, and also brings efficiency and prosperity to society, as each individual part operating at maximum efficiency, which is a result of training, can produce large amounts of goods and services to meet the needs and wants of all members of society. However, especially in America where equality of opportunity is considered sacrosanct, at least in theory, the complete and total lack of social mobility can be a major downside for many people. Also, should a person be misplaced in the social order, he can be discontented and spread dissent among his peers. As I lean towards the World State over current society, I also lean towards the caste system. What differentiates this caste system to feudalism or other forms of the caste system we’ve had in the past is that the caste system of the World State is not drawn arbitrarily, and does not discriminate. Regardless of how intelligent a peasant was, he was still a peasant, and regardless of how stupid and foolish a lord was, he would retain his nobility. However, in the World State, caste level is based solely on intelligence, which, while determined by genetics, does not put someone into a caste he does not fit in. Also, all castes from Alpha-double plus to Epsilon-minus are granted the same rights to happiness; the desires of a higher caste will never supersede the desires of a lower caste. Because the caste system is fair both in its distribution of members and its treatment of them once they are placed within the system, and its great benefit to society through increased productivity, the caste system of the World State is superior to current systems of social ranking.