For the concept of “I” to exist, we must ask whether independent thought is possible within a community. An individual is like a cell: every person who makes up a community is an individual, but for an “I” to exist, that person must be able to think independently of the community's values. I belong to a community, yet I am also distinct from everyone else in it. The community's values, however, exert an immense influence on the individual. What ideas and values are emphasized determines what we encounter most frequently, and this inevitably affects the formation of our own value systems. To preserve the boundary around the “I,” therefore, we need an attitude almost like looking down from the sky. We must question whether ideas taken for granted are truly justified and cultivate the ability to think for ourselves.
In this sense, the “civilized” people in the novel are little more than cells that have lost their individuality. With very few exceptions, the characters live confined to entertainments and indoctrinating slogans prescribed by the system. Once everyone belongs to everyone else, the boundary of the “I” disappears, and human beings are reduced to components operating a gigantic machine. The dystopia depicted in Brave New World is thus like a machine moving forward without purpose, assembled from cells that have lost their agency.