Huxley presents the drug soma, which compares to all the painkillers in our world today. By taking the user on a “holiday,” it makes the user unaware of his surroundings. When one takes soma, he would escape the dolorous reality and enter an elated world. One can compare soma with painkillers. People have accommodated with using pain relievers even in at unnecessary times. The pain tolerance level of our society rapidly decreases; therefore, whenever the slightest pain arises, people take painkillers. One can also compare the effects of soma with the effects of painkillers in the sense that both belittle pain. Instead of enduring the pain, one would take a pain reliever or soma to make the pain go away. No more feeling lachrymose about anything anymore because of drugs. Both drugs show how the societies cannot face pain on any level, but instead act craven, and take a drug. Life in Brave New World cannot function without soma, and the same applies in our world.
The World State uses hypnotic practices to educate the society on how to live just like how technology always feeds us with information. In hypnotic practices, a voice under the pillow constantly feeds information into the ear of the person sleeping telling them how to live life. This relates to how the high-speed technology today always bombards us with new information. Advertisements constantly feed us with information on how to live our lives to ensure that we spend money on their products. By presenting us a perfect world, we crave to live like that; therefore, we buy their products. Because of the hypnotics, the society in Brave New World lives life the way government wants them to live it. We strive to live in the most perfect way possible, just like in Brave New World. Hypnotics taught people how to live life in Brave New World, and in our society, advertisements and television have shown us how to live life.
Even though social discrimination may not seem as prominent in our lives as it does in Brave New World, it still exists. The society in Brave New World consists of 5 distinct social classes: Alphas, Betas, Gammas, Deltas, and Epsilons. Higher castes look at lower classes in disgust. They do not appreciate all the hard work that the working class does because hypnotics has taught them not to.