Brave new world, Gattaca and the new eugenics

The Power of Knowledge

Huxley's civilized world is a society of ultimate knowledge. Humans have conquered almost all areas of scientific inquiry; they control life, death, aging, pleasure, and pain. This mastery of knowledge has given human beings great control over their world, and this control in turn has given great power to those who first envisioned such a society, and who continue to maintain its existence.

However, such knowledge and the abuse of power that it inspires often lead to downfall, as symbolized by Huxley's frequent allusions to Shakespeare's Macbeth. In Shakespeare's play, Macbeth gains small pieces of knowledge of present and future events that leads him to seek more power and control over his kingdom. However, this knowledge leads to abuse of power and is the cause of his ultimate demise. In the same way, characters in Huxley's novel must stay in the dark about the true workings of society because knowledge will lead to their ultimate demise.