Sex hormone chewing gum! - Can you say Viagra? And soma, the choice drug in Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World. What a scary similarity it has to the prolific use of Prozac and other anti-depression drugs in our modern day society to keep folks in a state of suspension, a state of perpetual happiness, when an individual needs help in coping with their life.
Excerpt from Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, c. 1932:
The Controller, after reading a paper scientific paper submitted for publication entitled “A New Theory of Biology”, makes the decision to not publish the paper because as he states, “The author’s mathematical treatment of the conception of purpose is novel and highly ingenious, but heretical and, so far as the present social order is concerned, dangerous and potentially subversive.” Upon the title page he writes - Not to be published.
After further consideration he thinks to himself, “the paper may cause the higher castes to lose their faith in happiness as the Sovereign Good and take to believing, instead, that the goal was somewhere beyond, somewhere outside the present human sphere; that the purpose of life was not the maintenance of well-being, but some intensification and refining of consciousness, some enlargement of knowledge. Which was, the Controller reflected, quite possibly true. But not, in the present circumstance, admissible.”
The key phrases here, the ones that ironically trigger an intellectual response in our current time, are the very ones that the Controller espouses that the scientific paper may trigger in Huxley’s world. Again, the key phrase here being, “that the goal was somewhere beyond, somewhere outside the present human sphere; that the purpose of life was not the maintenance of well-being, but some intensification and refining of consciousness, some enlargement of knowledge.”
Here, it is not that Huxley is pointing to a higher power, or a religious figurehead, when he refers to the purpose of life. In fact, the Sovereign Good, as he refers to it, is the present circumstance’s religion, with Ford (their term for God) as the figurehead.
- As an aside, my take on Ford as being the God of Huxley’s society, is that Ford was the father of the assembly line and a prominent figure of the industrial revolution. It is Ford’s assembly line concept which plays a prominent role in the development of the castes, the different classes (Alphas, Betas, Deltas, etc.) if you will, that make up Huxley’s utopian society.
Is it somewhat ironic then, that some 80 years after the publishing of Huxley’s seminal work, sustaining lasting happiness is perhaps the ultimate purpose in life? Have we come full circle? Or, is Huxley’s vision an extrapolation, an exaggeration, of prevailing thought during his time. That happiness is the ultimate purpose in life? If so, the Controller’s thoughts as to, “the goal was somewhere beyond, somewhere outside the present human sphere…” could be somewhat troubling if his alternately stated purpose of life is not taken collectively. The enlargement of knowledge, if taken as a singular recommendation, does not produce lasting happiness. It is that enlargement of knowledge, when undertaken in combination with the act of intensification and refining of consciousness that provides purpose. Huxley’s position may very well be that understanding your life’s purpose leads, by default, to happiness. This is reflected today in so much of what is written in self help books. Find your passion, your purpose, and attack that with all you have. Immerse yourself in your passion and happiness will be yours. Happiness, as a religion, or as a means to an end, is not happiness at all. It is a sham.
How does one enlarge knowledge and intensify and refine consciousness? That is a question that must be answered.
Consciousness:
· The fact of awareness by the mind of itself and the world
One’s consciousness can only be truly refined if a balance is attained between the mind and the world. If you refine consciousness only from a personal perspective, you promote ego, and a large ego is counter to lasting happiness. The mind is elevated through the expansion of knowledge but, it is important for the mind to understand its place in the world. There is a collective mind as well, which is made up of the minds of all individuals. Keeping that perspective, and promoting and encouraging others (the world) promotes the necessary balance that leads to purpose, fulfillment and true happiness.
The Controller reveals by way of quotation, to Bernard, John (the Savage) and Bernard’s friend Helmholtz, that he is evidently familiar with the work of Shakespeare. The Savage asks of the Controller pertaining to Shakespeare, “Why can’t the society make a “feely” (a kind of movie that can be felt while it is being viewed) of Othello.” The Controller indicates that it cannot be done, because Othello is old, and the masses wouldn’t understand it. You cannot make a tragedy in a society that only experiences happiness for they wouldn’t understand it’s real meaning. They would only see it as something unreal and farsical. They only understand the new and consume the new. Consumption of the new is what keeps them happy. This also seems eerily similar to the consumption society in which we now live. Our culture preaches that consumption leads to happiness, but as people soon find out, this is not the case.
Huxley’s portrayal of utopia should cause us pause. It raises serious questions as to where we are headed as a society. Eighty years after the release of Brave New World, have we progressed in such a way that we are heading directly toward what Huxley so prophetically predicted? It seems so in many ways. Current genetic research could easily lead to human engineering. The human genome has already been cracked, and further study of genes progresses.
How soon before we start pumping genetically superior infants out of baby farms? Pulling them straight from assembly lines and handing them over to new parents? And whose genetics will we be handing off? What messages will our scientists have planted hypnopaedically (while they were sleeping)? How close already is our marketing to a supposed innocuous form of propaganda?
Why aren’t our Alpha-pluses taking steps to stem the tide of these trends? Is it because they get richer off of the lower castes by remaining silent? Or, have they already been sent to their island?
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