Contents
CHAPTER—II
Overview
The Director demonstrates Neo-Pavlovian conditioning by pairing flowers and books with alarms and electric shocks to instill aversion in Delta infants. He explains the economic rationale for abolishing nature-love while promoting gear-heavy sports. Shifting to hypnopædia, he rejects intellect-training but showcases moral sleep-teaching of caste pride, asserting State control over lifelong suggestions.
Summary
The Director leads students to the Infant Nurseries, where nurses arrange roses and picture books before bringing in identically clad Delta infants. Drawn to the stimuli, the babies are suddenly subjected to deafening alarms and electrified flooring, producing terror and pain.
When the stimuli are reintroduced, the babies recoil, demonstrating conditioned aversion. The Director explains the policy: earlier regimes made lower castes love nature to spur travel, but because nature consumes no manufactured goods, the State abolished nature-love while conditioning enthusiasm for apparatus-heavy country sports, ensuring consumption of both transport and products.
To illustrate sleep-teaching’s origins, the Director recounts Little Reuben Rabinovitch, who unconsciously memorized a radio lecture during sleep. Early attempts to use hypnopædia for factual learning failed—the “Nile” example shows parroted words without understanding—so intellectual education was abandoned in favor of moral conditioning.
On a higher floor, the group enters a dormitory of sleeping children. After “Elementary Sex,” the current broadcast delivers “Elementary Class Consciousness,” repeating lines that instill Beta contentment and disdain for lower castes. The Director emphasizes that repeated, reasonless suggestions accrete into identity; both child and adult minds are made of State-provided suggestions. His emphatic demonstration inadvertently wakes the children.
Who Appears
- The Director (D.H.C.)Leads the tour; demonstrates infant conditioning, explains economic motives, recounts hypnopædia’s history, and showcases moral sleep-teaching.
- Head NurseOperates the conditioning switches, triggering alarms and electric shocks during the demonstration.
- StudentsObserve, take notes, and question the rationale; witness both conditioning and hypnopædia sessions.
- NursesArrange roses and books, handle Delta infants, and present stimuli during conditioning.
- Delta InfantsConditioned to fear books and flowers through paired loud noises and mild electric shocks.
- Little Reuben RabinovitchAnecdotal child whose sleep-memorization revealed hypnopædia’s principle but not understanding.