Hello, hello. I apologize for the dropoff in posts, but one of the funny things about graduate school is that they make you do a whole bunch o' readin' and writin'. Didn't see that coming. Consequently, I don't always have a desire to write for fun. But I thought this recent analysis of Brave New World
by Aldous Huxley that I wrote for my course on the history of science and technology would be appropriate for the blog. Huxley's book is a modern classic, and I don't see how anyone could argue against its relevance in contemporary culture. That being said, here's my 1,800 words on the book. I could've written more, but the professor only wanted five pages, and I was working on a heftier term paper at the same time. Lemme know what you think, and if you haven't read the book, I hope my thoughts spur you to read it yourself.
“When the Individual Feels, the Community Reels”
An Analysis of Brave New World
In Brave New World, Aldous Huxley cynically destroys visions of technological and scientific utopias by presenting the reader with the World State: a society existing several centuries in the future that has taken technological and scientific development to an extreme by systematizing the entire human experience. From the time one is artificially conceived and developed in a hatchery up until the time he or she is admitted to a “hospital for the dying” around the age of 60, a citizen is a controlled member in the World State’s society. Although the World State was created as a utopia, where the harnessing of science and technology created an ideally efficient existence, it is indeed the very opposite. In Huxley’s world, humanity continues to exist, but the experience of human existence is largely denied by a loss of individuality, the repression of free-thinking, and the absence of meaningful interpersonal relationships.
Huxley introduces the reader to his futuristic world by introducing the Central London Hatchery and Conditioning Centre. A tour that the Director of Hatcheries and Conditioning is giving to a group of young students serves to describe the processes in which human life is created. Traditional childbearing no longer occurs; in its stead is a system of external fertilization that involves “Bokanovsky’s Process,” which artificially multiplies zygotes in order to yield a maximum number of human beings from every egg. The embryos are then methodically developed to fit into one of five castes, ranging from Alpha, which is comprised of those with the most developed minds, to Epsilon, which is filled with the dullest beings whose lack of intellect relegates them to jobs such as sewage worker or elevator operator. Human beings are conceived and developed in what amounts to a factory, and Huxley reinforces the idea of mass production by adding that the World State’s calendar marks the number of years elapsed since Henry Ford’s production of the Model T. This effectively bestows a divine status upon Ford, who is generally remembered, among other things, for the development of the extremely efficient assembly line.
From this point, the reader learns more about people’s daily life through the introduction of Huxley’s main characters. Model citizens, like Lenina Crowne, faithfully attend to their work during the day, and at night engage in community-oriented activities which promote the consumption of products. The pleasures offered by promiscuous sex and the drug soma are de rigueur and are encouraged by the State in order to keep citizens happy and occupy their time outside of working hours. On the other hand, Bernard Marx, who is infatuated with Lenina, stands out among the others for not adhering to social norms. Despite being an Alpha-Plus, Bernard is small in stature, which is a trait of the lower castes. Bernard is also deemed odd because he does not enjoy participating in community events and prefers to spend time alone.
The story progresses when Lenina accompanies Bernard on a trip to an Indian reservation in New Mexico. The community at Malpais provides the reader with a society that can be compared and contrasted with the “civilization” of the World State. The “savages” are less hygienic than Bernard and Lenina, they have religious beliefs which are manifested in rituals and stories explaining the world’s creation, and they practice monogamy and procreate naturally. They soon meet John “the Savage” and his mother Linda, who used to belong to the World State until she was separated from her group while visiting Malpais several years before. It is also revealed that she had had a relationship with the Director of Hatcheries and Conditioning, and had accidentally become pregnant with John. Without access to abortion, which she would have easily found in England, she was forced to deliver John naturally. As a native of the World State, she longs to return to the luxuries of consumerism and soma.
In the final portion of the book, John and Linda accompany Bernard and Lenina back to England for the purposes of study. Through John’s interactions in England, one can see that his moniker of “savage” is quite ironic because he experiences much more complex emotions than most of the people in the World State. He longs for Lenina, but remains chaste because does not want to betray the virtue of monogamy that he learned in Malpais; he is overcome by Linda’s death and how indifferently death is treated in his new environment; he is stirred by the writing of Shakespeare and finds the “feelies” (a sensory film) a hollow form of art because they stimulate only the physical senses. Ultimately, John tries to isolate himself from the new society, but when others find him and come to watch him as if he were a museum exhibit, he hangs himself.
One of the main themes that runs throughout Huxley’s novel is the loss of individual identity that occurs due to the systemization of society. This is introduced from the outset when the Director lauds Bokanovsky’s Process for its social stability, because it guarantees “uniform batches” of men and women. (p. 7) This absence of identity is exhibited further on the multiple occasions that parenthood, particularly motherhood, is treated as profane. A simple utterance of the word “mother” is an ignominious act that makes others uncomfortable. (pp. 23-24) This strong rejection of parents is essentially a strong rejection of identity. Every individual’s mother and father, whether for better or worse, is part of his or her identity. And the hypnopædic phrases that are repeated thousands and thousands of times during development provide an ethos among everyone that shows that they are incapable of original thought. There are several times in the book where Lenina frustrates Bernard because she is only able to answer his conversation with the short phrases that everyone else repeats.
One could argue that the social construction of the World State allows for its citizens to have some sort of an identity, as each person identifies with a specific caste. But this is an artificial identity that is automatically thrown upon the individual even before they are decanted. It is also a denial of free will that is inherently human. A person is unable to cultivate an identity for oneself because the powers-that-be condition a person to fit a certain niche in society. And in the same way that embryos are assigned to different castes, men and women do not have a choice concerning what kind of livelihood they wish to pursue because in many cases they are specifically conditioned for certain environments and tasks before they are decanted. (p. 17) It also appears that Huxley’s main characters all sustain and perpetuate the World State’s system, since they are employed in positions involved in the production and development of human beings. It seems that the sole purpose of regeneration in the World State is to produce the succeeding generation of men and women who will continue the cycle and achieve the “stability” of the government’s motto. This raises a whole host of existential questions which cannot be appreciated by the people of Huxley’s future.
It could also be argued that while the World State suffocates the individual, it fosters a strong sense of community. After all, its motto begins with “community.” But the community oriented activities in which citizens participate, like the “Solidarity Service” that Bernard is mandated to attend, are little more than mindless group activities. In fact, the World State is an awful example of a society because one of the bedrocks of community—interpersonal relationships—is generally non-existent. Children are taught hypnoædic aphorisms like “every one belongs to every one else,” but this lesson seems only to apply to sexual relations. During the course of an average life, it is normal for one to “have” many different partners, and these encounters are treated merely as a recreational activity. A conversation between Lenina and her friend Fanny suggests that it is abnormal to have only one sexual partner for months at a time. (pp. 40-41) This lack of interpersonal connections also allows the citizens of the World State to avoid the complex emotions involved with death. During Linda’s death, the nurse fails to understand why John is so distraught. Her inner-monologue reveals that she does not think death is all that terrible or that any individual matters all that much. (p. 206) This, of course, relates back to the homogeneity of citizens. Since every person is virtually a carbon copy of all the others, it is difficult to find reason to mourn an “individual.”
But there are other reasons why little attention is paid to death. One is that the feelings involved with the end of life require some level of introspection, but the World State eliminates this and many other thought processes by administering soma. Soma is the ubiquitous drug that allows the user to take a “vacation” from reality, which essentially isolates them from the rest of the world for hours at a time. Soma pills are freely administered to everyone at the end of the workday, and the euphoric effects they provide are very much in demand, because a deprivation of soma is an “appalling thought.” (pp. 208-210) One of the other pastime activities offered is the “feelies,” which are essentially films that stimulate one’s senses. In the end, the culture’s emphasis on sex, soma, games, and feelies provide men and women with a constant bombardment of pleasure, but they are all distractions because they do not allow anyone to utilize their brains during their leisure time.
On top of all of this, Huxley adds tiny bits of evidence that suggests that those in control of the World State are aware of how unnatural their human engineering is. Natural biological impulses are remedied through hormone treatments. Around the age of 21, women are given “pregnancy substitutes,” presumably to extinguish any desire to bear children. (p. 38) “Violent Passion Surrogates” are also administered to everyone on a monthly basis so that the adrenal glands are regularly stimulated. (p. 239) This is a recognition that the nearly constant state of pleasure that men and women experience must be balanced with a more natural mixture of hormones.
Ultimately, Brave New World is much like Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein in that it is a warning against the excesses of scientific and technological discovery. Huxley’s version of mankind is very culpable for its excesses of science because it chooses to use its knowledge to create the systematic manufacture of human beings. As a result, individuality, identity and meaningful relationships are sacrificed in the name of efficiency. Human beings are devoid of the many things that define human nature, and are little more than cogs in a giant machine. Huxley best summarized the main point of his novel in his 1946 foreword when he said that science and technology should be useful tools for mankind, not something to which humanity should be “adapted and enslaved.” (p. ix)
