Brave New World is often compared to 1948, it is easy to see why. The two books touch on a very similar subject matter. They are both about how a futuristic society controls its people. They both have a man as the protagonist feeling out of place, with a feeling that something is wrong with the system. And they were both written by English men, BRITANNIA RULE THE WAVE! I guess.
While the similarities are clear the approach the two books take are completely different. 1984 is about controlling the people with force and fear, While Brave New World is about controlling them with pleasure.
In this post I am going to explore what makes Brave New World a Masterpiece, and not just in the “it’s a classic so it is by default a masterpiece” kind of way.
First, we have to take a look at the author.
Part 1 The author
Who is Aldous Huxley?
Born in 1894 as Aldous Leonard Huxley, in Godalming, Surrey, England.
The first thing about Huxley is that he was very smart and he came from a family that was very intelligent as well. His grandfather was Thomas Henry Huxley, a famous biologist who coined the term agnosticism, ”the doctrine that humans cannot know of the existence of anything beyond the phenomena of their experience” This means you can´t know shit.
His brothers were Sir Julian Huxley a biologist who coined the term Transhumanizme you can read more about it here. And Sir Andrew Fielding Huxley was a physiologist who worked on nerves and muscle fibers.
When Aldous was sixteen he contracted a disease that left him almost totally blind. This is also the reason he did not follow his brothers into the scientific field. Throughout his life, he could only read by straining his eyes, and he could not read for very long at a time. His brother Julian once said that despite this he had an almost unnatural ability to absorb difficult texts with ease.
You might wonder, “Wait, why was Aldous not knighted?”. An excellent question, he refused knighthood because he felt the award would not be compatible with his lifestyle. Which is kind of a boss move.
A random fact:
When he was born his head was too big for his body, so he only learned to walk at two since he kept falling over.
Part 2 the book
Brave New World is an interesting read, like most classic sci-fi the characters are not really the point. While the characters in the novel are interesting in their own right, they are really only there to explore ideas regarding the futuristic dystopia.
If I was to summarize the novel (and I am) the first thing I would say is that the story is about exploring the society Huxley has built. The thing is a lot of things technically happen, yet it feels incredibly light when summarized. This is because there are no “flashy” scenes that are made to draw attention and engage the viewer. The book is an exploration through and through and thus a little light on the plot.
The story centers around Bernard, a brilliant scientist who constantly finds himself not happy with the society around him. He and his friend/girlfriend/it’s complicated Lenia takes a trip to a “savage resort” and meets a savage named John. A savage is basically what you and I would be considered as in this world. They are people born from a mother (I know crazy) who values art, family, and commitment. They live by themself off the grid if you will. Anyways, Bernard brings John back to the civilized world and hilarity ensues, except it’s not that funny. That is more or less what the book is about.
Part 3 The society
The most interesting thing about this book is the way Huxley builds society. He has crafted the world, culture, people, and rules with such care and attention to detail. I will now explore society and try to explain why it is so well made or at least why I think it is well made.
The hard part is where to start. There are so many elements that all feed into each other and make for a great work of art. I guess the proper thing to do is to start where the book itself starts.
The book begins in a lab, where a director-type person is showing a group of students around the fertilizing facilities. See, in this world, people are not born anymore which would be cross and inconvenient. Instead, they are grown in fertilizer machines. Having people be grown instead of birthed makes for a brilliant example of how they have all moved away from nature. The problem is that humans are animals and they need to breed in order to survive. Removing this step is a crucial decision with some major philosophical indications such as, by removing what is natural for a being does it then cease to be that which it originally was? What are the implications and consequences of this? Is nature inherently bad/good? These questions are raised throughout the novel and there is a real tension in the modern world and the more naturalistic world represented by John.
So, babies come from machines and are then categorized into different categories based on what role they can serve in society. The highest rank you can get is Alpha plus and the lowest is Epilos minus.
The different ranks are even color-coordinated
The problem here is evident: you essentially remove all choices from an individual’s life. It is already determined from birth what your job will be, what your intelligence is going to be (remember you are made in a lab), and so on. Your dreams and willingness to work and improve play no role at all.
The age-old question of what is more important nature vs nurture is avoided completely since society conditions you from birth. Let’s look at an example of this in action.
There are newly “born” children sitting on a carpet, the babies are lower in status, so they are Epilos and deltas. The nurses then place books and plants in front of them. When the children go to them they get a minor electric shock through the carpet conditioning them to hate nature and learning.
The troubling part of this is that you can’t be better through hard work and determination. When you are assigned a place in society you have to stick with it with no room for improvement. This goes without saying, but I am going to say it anyway, don’t electrocute babies, it’s wrong.
Interestingly enough one of the characters explains why they have to hate nature. He talks about once they were actually conditioned to like nature. However, they had to stop it because a love of nature doesn’t get people to buy stuff. The whole point is to brainwash people and make them less thinking and feeling so they buy more shit. This is beginning to look like the real world more and more.
Soma - happiness vs freedom
Now to what I consider to be the most important aspect of the book and that is the idea of soma and what it represents. Soma is this drug everybody takes to feel happy, yes you have to take a drug to feel happy. Every time someone is distressed, sad, or even mildly inconvenienced just take some Soma. It is being passed around everywhere and everyone has access to it.
Let’s take a minute to pause and look at what we got so far. First of all, everybody is made in a lab and genetically designed to fit within society. They are then conditioned to like and dislike things based on their place in society. Furthermore, they are given a drug so that they can only feel happy all the time. This is less than ideal. I would say essentially they remove any kind of freedom in order to be happy. The few characters in the book that actually think for themselves are not happy. So the book asks;
“is it better to be free or happy?”
Bernard, who is introduced as someone who is different from the rest, not really fitting in and not conforming as much as the others, refuses to take Soma. This is one of the reasons he is left out of place. He can see the things that are wrong, even though he can’t quite find the words to express this idea.
John the savage comes from the outside and has a clear perspective. At one point he warns everyone to not take Soma, and that it is poison for them and poison for the soul. Everyone else of course thinks he is crazy.
When Bernard and Lenina go to the savage camp Lenina gets so distressed that she takes too much soma and falls asleep. When faced with any kind of distress, just take Soma, are you sad? take Soma, no one is actually feeling happiness through authentic means. A more potent point is that humans need to feel pain; it is part of the human condition. Pain and failure are what makes us grow and become better. How are you going to know happiness if you have nothing to contrast it with?
Sex and commitment
In Brave new world, no one is in a relationship of the traditional kind. Bernard wants to be with Lenina and so does John, but neither of them can have her because relationships are prohibited and as they state multiple times in the book.
“everybody belongs to everyone”
Thus no one can get married, get kids, or start a family. These are all elements vital to our experience as humans today. You might think not being in a relationship with someone is freedom and in a sense it is, but it also takes away your ability to choose a life partner thus limiting your choice and in turn your freedom.
At one point Lenina says that she has been with all the men in her department.
People are very sexually liberated everyone is having sex with everybody. At some point, most of the alphas have gathered in a religious ceremony where they all take Soma and have an orgy, the cue for the orgy to start is that somebody says orgy-porgy.
Shakespeare and art
Art plays a big part in the story or more precisely the lack of art plays a big part. Art such as Shakespeare’s writing is also prohibited in this society. The people live with no art and beauty at all, for admiration for art doesn’t get people to buy stuff.
The lack of art makes for a deeper conflict in terms of the human condition, take my favorite character from the book Helmholtz Watson as an example. Helmholtz is introduced as one of Bernard’s friends if not his only friend. Helmholtz and Bernard both feel empty inside, they both know something is wrong with the way society works, but they can’t put it into words.
Helmholtz talks about how he wants to write something, he wants to get something out, but he is unaware of what it is and how to get it out, it’s this vague feeling of dread.
A side note is that doing the scene where Helmholtz and Bernard talk in the beginning, Bernard suddenly gets paranoid that someone is listening in, he opens the door only to find nothing. This is interesting, for what would the harm be in people listening? It is not clear, but this society does not like people talking bad about it and thus one has to be careful. However, the threat is not as clear as in 1984.
Helmholtz is shown Shakspears’s work by John and is instantly mesmerized by it as if Shakespear was the thing to fill his void. One of the reasons for Helmholtz not being able to write is that he has no reference point, there is no art to get inspired by.
Religion vs Ford
Religion is also a thing that does not exist anymore, for religion according to the book is only for people fearing death. Since no one is worried about anything, you get a job and a social status assigned to you before you are “born”. You don’t have to worry about finding someone because everybody belongs to everyone and if you are just a little distressed you just take Soma and you get to be happy, or you take a lot of Soma and you fall asleep.
There is a very large degree of hypocrisy in that statement, for the people still worship something or rather someone. They all worship Henry Ford as some kind of deity, everyone uses Ford instead of God, people say for Ford’s sake all the time along with his Fordship. In that way Ford has simply replaced God it’s still the same doctrine nothing is actually that different from normal religion.
This worship of Ford further built on the theme of consumerism for what could be more of a critique of capitalism than having everyone literally worship Ford as a God?
John is us
John the savage serves a very important function in the story. John is us, he represents our way of living. He is placed as the outsider in the story, everyone thinks of him as crazy, uncivilized, and stupid. However, he is the voice of reason and sanity for he sees the truth from an outside point of view. He sees how Soma is poison to the soul, as do we. He gets upset when his mother dies, as would we (I hope). He tries his best to warn people, but they are so indoctrinated that they cannot see the problems at all.
Taxicopter
Apparently, Taxicopters are a thing in this book, people use taxicopters to fly around instead of a normal taxi. I guess flying cars was too much of a stretch.
Conclusion
Brave new world is a book that touches upon many different subjects and themes. It weaves all of its ideas together beautifully and with such attention to detail. Everything is expressed through the characters and how they experience the world around them.
I started this post by comparing it to 1948 after all the two books seem like companion pieces at this point. They both depict a future that is, shall we say, less than ideal. They both achieve this in very different ways and here really lies the beauty of Brave new world, see in 1948 it is very clear. You have a totalitarian government that suppresses all citizens with violence. Whereas, the worst thing happening in Brave new world is when Bernard loses his job and gets fired. Now, that might not seem all that bad compared to 1948, however, Bernad falls on his knees and begs not for him to get fired. He also calls out his friends and tries to rat them out so that he can save his own skin. The fact that he would go against his friends so easily only by the mere thought of being ostracized really proves how much the people are being controlled without them even noticing it.
On the surface Brave new world might not look so bad, surely 1948 is a much darker and more hard dystopia, and that might be true, but Brave new world is not just a dystopia. It is a utopia disguised as a utopia, where everything seems perfect, but nothing is.
Freedom has been replaced by happiness, but not just happiness fake manufactured happiness. All throughout the novel, Bernard has this feeling that something is wrong. It’s not something he says more than it is something he feels, everything about him indicates that he knows that something is off, yet he can not express this idea for the fear of being ridiculed or worse. But we never see the “or worse” part and that is the true brilliance of Brave new world and why I consider it a masterpiece.