Brave New World

by Aldous Huxley,1894-1963

 

This is the story about a future world which is controlled completely by a totalitarian government for the purpose of stability.  To achieve this aim the government controls every aspect of life, including generativity, recreation, indoctrination and emotion.  The interaction of the characters in the plot is used to raise many philosophical and prophetic questions.

 

Brief Outline

 

  1. Introduction to the Dystopia
    1. The London Hatchery and Conditioning Center
    2. Mustapha Mond in the Garden
    3. Lenina, Bernard, Foster & Helmholtz
    4. State sponsored religion and sex

                                                               i.      At the Cathedral/Cabaret

                                                             ii.      At the Solidarity Service

    1. The Director Relates His Tale of the Reservation
  1. The Savage Reservation
    1. The Tour
    2. John & Linda
    3. John’s Childhood
    4. Bernard Flies Them Out
  2. John in the Dystopia
    1. Introduced to the Dystopia

                                                               i.      Linda on Permanent Soma Holiday

                                                             ii.      The London Tour

                                                            iii.      Bernard’s Rise in Status

    1. Alone with Lenina
    2. At Linda’s Deathbed
    3. Soma Riot
    4. Before Mustapha

 

Summary

 

Brave New World introduces us to a dystopia in which every facet of life, indeed even the generation of life itself, is completely controlled by an apparently benign totalitarian regime for the sake of stability.  The motto of this World State is COMMUNITY, IDENTITY, STABILITY.  It arose from the ashes of a terrifying Nine Years War after which  the populace begged to have its liberties restricted in exchange for comfort and stability.  To achieve this aim the World State took control of all aspects of production, including human life and the creation of a highly defined caste system in which members are conditioned from their very birth in test tubes to be pleased with the destiny of their life, a destiny defined and made suitable for them by the differing needs of the World State.  The contention of the representatives of the State is that everyone is happy and contented with this highly invented world yet the people in the world to which Huxley introduces us have deep dissatisfactions despite the continual use of an emotion altering drug called soma.

 

There are no real heroes in this world in which nature is replaced with technology.  Bernard Marx, an “alpha” – the highest caste – is deeply unhappy with his loss of individuality yet, ironically, he seeks individuality only because he is forced into it due to physical defects (a factory processing error).  Bernard’s friend Helmholtz Watson also suffered a conditioning error – too much intelligence.  But when given an opportunity to finally express his poetic urge to its fullest by means of an introduction to an illegal copy of Shakespeare, in the end he cannot overcome his conditioned responses.  John the Savage, born naturally, comes closest to being a hero but fails in three important areas:

 

-         He too cannot seem to overcome the adversarial aspects of his childhood which conditioned him, this despite being born naturally

-         His discovery and highly unlikely grasp of Shakespearean literature provides an ineffective philosophical foundation for a refutation of the World State’s philosophy during the climax of the book: a showdown with the Controller Mustapha Mond

-         His own lack of maturity and authentic spirituality prevents him from restraining his excessive asceticism which ultimately results in his complete moral collapse, despair and suicide

 

To briefly summarize the plot: Bernard and Lenina go to a reservation of native people where they encounter John, a natural born man who happens to be the son of the Director of Hatcheries and Conditioning.  Bernard, realizing what an incredible scandal this is, takes John and his mother Linda back to London.  John’s presence off the reservation makes him an instant celebrity while Linda commits a long, slow soma suicide.  For his part John is desperately unhappy with this “Brave New World that has such people in it.”  He erupts at his mother’s hospital, Helmholtz joins him and together with Bernard they are arrested.  Bernard and Helmholtz are exiled by the Controller Mustapha while John is permitted to stay as a novelty and experiment.  John, unable to live in this world, commits suicide.

 

I enjoyed Brave New World very much, though more as a philosophical work than anything else.  The questions I found myself continually asking were:

 

-         Were the means by which the World State sought to maintain stability the most effective?  These included: state promoted sex as recreation to prevent any lasting ties among people; the complete laboratory control of human reproduction and subsequent creation of a rigid caste system; the conditioning of every person from birth through hypnopaedia and other means; the widespread use of the drug soma to control and dispel all ill-feelings (of which the citizens are conditioned from birth to be petrified); the encouragement to consume in order to stabilize the economy; the use of cultish brainwashing meetings and orgies to promote loss of self and the rise of community.

 

-         Where in our society today do we find that this work from 1932 was prophetic?  Certainly today suffering of any sort, including emotional, is seen as a great evil which only the demented would not “fix” immediately with a pill or distraction.  And who would refute that consumption is encouraged, though less by governments and more by multinational corporations who have only one interest in mind.  It doesn’t take much reflection to arrive at a list of some of the ways these corporations reach us and convince us of the necessity of their products: television, radio, newspapers, magazines, clothes, sponsorships, sports, fashions, the internet, recreations, marriage, child-rearing.  Perhaps the most egregious and stunningly successful example is that of the DeBeers diamond cartel: “Marry her all over again.”  In DeBeers we witness the corporate hijacking of the institution of marriage to create consumption and profit.  They have literally created the cultural tradition of giving diamonds for engagements, anniversaries and marriages.  DeBeers’ success can readily be seen by the number of those who have been conditioned to associate diamonds with human love.

 

I think Brave New World is a very effective novel because of the continuous stream of philosophical meanderings which it engenders in the astute reader’s mind.  It is somewhat unsatisfying in that it lacks a hero.  Indeed, in Huxley’s own forward to the book which he wrote years later there is regret expressed that John was not offered a third alternative: to return to the reservation.  It is also unsatisfying that John, despite his deep immersion into Shakespeare, was completely unable to offer effective counterarguments to Mustapha Mond’s vision and philosophy – this despite that his visit to Mustapha was in itself proof of the brittleness of the society: with relative ease he was able to incite a riot, which is the very symbol of the lack of stability in a society.  These are less shortcomings, however, than doorways through which the reader can enter Huxley’s world, engage it at a fundamental level and return back again, hopefully not unaffected by the prophetic warnings for his own Brave New World.