Huxley depicts human life seven centuries hence, living under the gentle hand of humanitarianism rendered fully competent by genetic manipulation, psychoactive drugs,
hypnopaedia, and high-tech amusements.
Eupaedia means emotional-engineering (
hypnopaedia) and (subliminal) conditioning.
Social stability in this environment of organized exploitation is maintained through a process of ideological indoctrination, "
hypnopaedia," (Huxley, Brave New World, 42)--highly reminiscent of Althusser's critique of the educational system as the dominant institution in the maintenance and reproduction of capitalist ideology in (what he refers to as "the socio-technical division of labour.") Louis Althusser, "Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses." marxists.org, 21, 5.
We analyze how technological inventions, such as bioengineering, conditioning,
hypnopaedia, the feelies and soma, enslave humans and turn them into docile bodies in Brave New World.