Page 151

"Death conditioning begins at eighteen months. Every tot spends two mornings a week in a Hospital for the Dying. All the best toys are kept there, and they get chocolate cream on death days. They learn to take dying as a matter of course." (p. 151)

In the society portrayed in this book, we see humans altering the way that nature intended things. One way that they do this is by "conditioning" people beginning before they are even born. The death conditioning that they talk about in this passage is one of the ways that the humans are triumphing over nature. Death is not something that we celebrate or choose to be around. We usually don't accompany death with toys and ice cream. In their world if death were something that people worried about, they would not be happy all the time and that would ruin everything. The way they talk about these different types of "conditioning" show that they are proud of what they have accomplished. The things that they are doing are terrible to us, but in this society it is an accomplishment to have altered the way that people think and live. Without these changes, people would not be happy all the time and would threaten their entire way of life.

Why are the people in this book so proud to have changed the way nature intended things? Why do they think what they are doing is okay?