History and Literature of the 20th Century Heredia, Daniela

Consumerism and conformity disguised as happiness

Brave New World is one of the outstanding English novels of the twentieth century,
written by the British novelist Aldous Huxley. This is a dystopian story which
portrays an hedonist society controlled and manipulated by the government. People
are conditioned to live in a highly consumerist society mainly by the use and abuse
of drugs and sleep-teaching. In his novel, Huxley tries to portray the government
intention to produce a highly ordered world of happiness and social stability,
something that sounds as perfect as shocking. In order to achieve its objective, the
ideas of love and family were replaced by the materialistic idea of fleeting
satisfaction.

According to Merriam-Webster Dictionary, a dystopia is an imaginary place where

people are unhappy and usually afraid because they are not treated fairly. It is the
opposite of a utopia which is an imaginary place in which the government, laws and
social conditions are perfect. In this case, Huxley makes a combination of both and
creates a utopian World State in which this “Brave New World” is where a highly
consumerist and even hedonistic society takes place. This can be perfectly shown in
the following example where we see one of the situations in which people constantly
replace things, in this case their clothes. Instead of mending or cleaning them, they
just buy new ones. Here it is reflected the consumer's interest in buying large
amounts of goods. “And look at these clothes. This beastly wool isn't like acetate. It
lasts and lasts. And you're supposed to mend it if it gets torn...Besides, it never used
to be right to mend clothes. Throw them away when they've got holes in them, and
buy new. The more stitches, the less riches. Isn't that right? Mending's anti-social.”
(Huxley 121).

In this community, values are pleasure, order and conformity; and universal
happiness is the only common goal. The most hallowed shibboleths of our culture,
such as family, religion and love were eradicated and replaced by totally shallow
morals. First of all, passion was portrayed to have two extremes; violence and sex.
Emotional attachment was straight-up illegal and promiscuity was the law in Brave
New World. There was no love or no couple. Indeed, it was a sin to be
monogamous. Instead, Huxley refers to sex as being the medium by which people
find pleasure and give pleasure to others sharing their bodies, focusing in the

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History and Literature of the 20th Century Heredia, Daniela

hedonist thought they had. So, sex is encouraged to occur with everybody. Even
kids are encouraged to participate. Instead of treating sex as a personal matter, it
was treated publicly and casually in the novel. For instance, we can see how children
were thought from the very beginning this rule by the use of erotic games in the
following example. “A nurse rose as they entered and came to attention before the
Director. ‘What's the lesson this afternoon?’ he asked. ‘We had Elementary Sex for
the first forty minutes,’ she answered. ‘But now it's switched over to Elementary
Class Consciousness.’ The Director walked slowly down the long line of cots. Rosy
and relaxed with sleep, eighty little boys and girls lay softly breathing.” (Huxley, 72.)

On the other hand, the World State does not really have a religion, but it does have a
symbolic and revered father figure: Henry T. Ford. Ford is the perfect "god" for World
State society because he invented mass production by means of the assembly line
and the specialization of workers, the system that the government take to create all
humans. Furthermore, the typical Christian cross became a deformed T, which
represents the T-Model invented by the praised Lord Ford. What is more, instead of
visiting church, the whole community attend solidarity services, where twelve
members have a soma orgy. The twelve participants are waiting for the greater being
to reveal himself. Instead of waiting for the appearance of an almighty god, however,
they are waiting for the soma to create an illusion of boundless fortune, which
culminates in group sex. This number of twelve members is not chosen at random.
Quite the contrary, it refers to the twelve apostles Jesus had. This situation is clearly
seen in the following example where the participants of the orgy sing this song.

“Ford, we are twelve; oh, make us one,

Like drops within the Social River;

Oh, make us now together run

As swiftly as thy shining Flivver.

...

Orgy-porgy, Ford and fun,

Kiss the girls and make them One.

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History and Literature of the 20th Century Heredia, Daniela

Boys at one with girls at peace;

Orgy-porgy gives release.” (Huxley, chapter 5).

Equally important, technology is a tool that enables the government to carry out this
process of conditioning which is implemented from fertilization. In this futuristic
setting presented by the author, the concept of family is totally eradicated and babies
are no longer fathered by a couple as we are familiarized with. On the contrary, they
are made in factories, just like any other product, and they are designed and
conditioned to serve to their community. Mass production is the main characteristic
of this process of creating babies, and during their different stages of their
development, children are exposed to various procedures. For instance,
hypnopaedia or sleep-teaching is the determining process by means of which every
citizen is compelled to listen to brain-washing recorded phrases so they really
believe what they are supposed to believe in. Hypnopaedia in the new world was
used to deliver moral education to the babies and introduced them to class
distinctions. Hypnopaedia was some form of Classical Conditioning (learning through
repetition while using a stimulus). “Alpha children wear grey. They work much harder
than we do, because they’re so frightfully clever. I’m really awfully glad I’m a Beta,
because I don’t work so hard. And then we are much better than the Gammas and
Deltas. Gammas are stupid. They all wear green, and Delta children wear khaki. Oh
no, I don’t want to play with Delta children. And Epsilons are still worse. They’re too
stupid to be able to read and write. Besides they wear black, which is such a beastly
colour. I’m so glad I’m a Beta.” (Sleep-teaching, chapter 2, page 27). These factors
make science a dehumanizing force used for controlling, creating and ending every
life.

The obliteration of the human identities and characteristics, like the concepts of
religion, family and sex, helps the author to emphasize the tri-partite pillars upon
which World State is allegedly built: “Community, Identity and Stability”. First,
“community" is understood as a group of diverse people, while in World State,
people are essentially manufactured to be sorted into one of five social castes in a
scale from the most intelligent to the dumbest one: Alphas, Betas, Gammas, Deltas,
and Epsilons. This is perfectly explained in this example. “‘The lower the caste...,’
said Mr. Foster, ‘...the shorter the oxygen. The first organ affected was the brain.

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History and Literature of the 20th Century Heredia, Daniela

After that the skeleton. At seventy per cent of normal oxygen you got dwarfs. At less
than seventy eyeless monsters.’” (Huxley, chapter 1, page 4). In this case,
consumption and mass-production make people feel secure, comfortable and even
successful. They are programmed not to complain, just to be perfectly happy.
Besides, the individuality of “sub-human” people produced in hatcheries of this
dystopian world is totally impossible. They are absolutely capable of work but not of
independent thought. Second, “identity" is understood to be highly individual, but
again, the caste system prevents anything by conformity and uniformity, and it is
through these that stability is achieved. For instance, in order to eliminate individual
identity, specific aspects of identity have been removed, like age and this situation is
portrayed in the following example. “Tall and rather thin but upright, the Director
advanced into the room. He had a long chin and big rather prominent teeth, just
covered, when he was not talking, by his full, floridly curved lips. Old, young? Thirty?
Fifty? Fifty-five? It was hard to say. And anyhow the question didn't arise; in this year
of stability, A. F. 632, it didn't occur to you to ask it.” (Huxley, chapter 1, page 8).

Finally, although World State is highly controlled, one can argue that it is anything
but stable. In a society in which individual rights are non-existent and people are not
permitted to develop unique identities, there can be no stability at all. John’s suicide
at the end of Brave New World confirms that World State is utterly chaotic, despite
all of the efforts to maintain complete social control.

In the novel is thought that love represents a risk to the stability founded on
uniformity and, as a result, recreational sex is such a dystopian alternative to make
the relationship and emotions among lovers less distinct, finding its social and ritual
expression in ‘Orgy-porgy’.

As a conclusion, we can say that Huxley achieves his aim of showing in his
unrealistic and bewitching world the great power that the government represents in
the story. Hence, it is portrayed in the way in which they manipulate their society and
how they implement certain totalitarian methods to convince people to love their
slavery instead of frightening and overwhelming them. Thus, the replacement of the
humanistic ideas of family, love and even religion by the ideas of conformity and
promiscuity was needed. The maxim of the governing world state is based on the
idea of taking control of the society they command under the conditioning of people’s

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History and Literature of the 20th Century Heredia, Daniela

beliefs and this is how the World State’s motto “Community, Identity, Stability” is
achieved.

Work cited

● Merriam-Webster Dictionary. Dystopia. Wed. 1 November, 2016. Web

● Sparknotes. Themes on Brave New World. Sat. 4 March 2017

● Paperstater. “Brave New World Thesis Statements and Important Quotes”.

Paperstarter. Ezoic Inc. Thur. 3 November, 2016.

● eNotes. Brave New World Critical Essays. eNotes, Inc. Fri. 3 November 2016.

● Shmoop Editorial Team. “Brave New World Theme of Society and Class”.

Shmoop. Shmoop University, Inc. Wed. 8 March 2017.

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History and Literature of the 20th Century Heredia, Daniela

● Huxley, Aldous. Brave New World. Ernst Klett Sprachen, 2008.

Instituto Superior Antonio Ruiz de Montoya 2018