The D.H.C. continues his tour of the Centre in the Infant Nursery. Here he lectures the new students on the importance of social conditioning as “moral education.”
The D.H.C. oversees a demonstration of “Neo-Pavlovian Conditioning.” Nurses expose a group of babies to books and flowers and then add a violent explosion, alarm bells, shrieking sirens, and finally an electric shock. This experience, notes the D.H.C., will “unalterably” condition the reflexes of the babies so that they will develop an “instinctive hatred” of books and nature.
According to the D.H.C., such social conditioning ultimately maximizes economic consumption among the population. To illustrate his point, he explains how a dislike of nature can be transformed into a love of country sports—and that involves the consumption of a nearly endless variety of manufactured consumer goods.
The D.H.C. also recounts an anecdote about little Reuben Rabinovitch to discuss “sleep-teaching or hypnopaedia”—the “greatest moralizing and socializing force of all time.” By way of an example, the D.H.C. and students look in on a sleep-teaching session on Elementary Class Consciousness.
