The Brave New World is here
I just finished my second reading of Aldous Huxley’s classic dystopian novel Brave New World. Originally published in 1932, it is necessary reading for sci-fi fans, libertarians and any conservative who sees the complete futility of a Sarah Palin presidency. The first time I read the novel I was a 15-year-old sophomore in high school. Although I was a fan of George Orwell’s 1984, I did not enjoy Huxley’s novel. I don’t recall why. For whatever the reason, I was a teenager, and like most of those ungodly pubescent creatures, I was wrong about lots of things. This book was one of them.
Like Orwell’s 1984, Brave New World is mostly driven by the ideas behind the novel rather than its characters or its plot. But unlike 1984, Huxley argues that coercion need not take the form of an ominous and ubiquitous Big Brother. Huxley warns us of a far greater and subtler danger—people can be conditioned to love their slavery; coercion and terror are superfluous.
Imagine a society in which every member of it has been trained to be nice, decent and polite, to respect the law and authority figures, to obey the rules of the road, eat only healthful, nutritious foods and become productive, fruitful members of society. Imagine that the aim or purpose of this society is universal happiness. And, indeed, such a society is very harmonious, ordered and happy. Individuals are trained and conditioned at a very young age to sacrifice their own desires or drives for the good of the rest of society. As such, people will be directed to work a certain job or profession at a relatively young age as well, usually while they're still children. And the children, or young adults, have no problem with the direction of their elders but happily, willfully, go along with such mandates. There's little crime if any at all. And people lead healthy, happy (though conditioned) lives through training by various carrots and the whips. It is the brave new world, and we’re as close to it (perhaps closer) as we are to 1984. If it’s not here now, it’s right around the corner. No doubt, the brave new world has its evil “World Controllers,” like Mustapha Mond, but Mond resembles Obama and the goons in Congress a great deal more than Orwell’s god-like Big Brother. Mond is benevolent, polite, educated and intelligent. He is not a mythical figurehead. The people know he is real, and few, if any, fear his power. However, Mond still believes that an ordered and controlled society is much preferable to a free one. Since he’s in control, he thinks he knows what the people want. Likewise, in our own world, it’s always the arrogant do-gooders who go into politics because they think they know what’s best for other people. (We call them Congressmen.) Also unlike 1984, some freedoms are still allowed in the brave new world, not because freedom is valued as an end in itself, not because a free society is the only society that does not degrade man’s integrity. No. These freedoms—uninhibited sexual freedom, the freedom to engage in games and sports, and the freedom to be high on soma throughout one’s day—the most shallow of freedoms, are not only still allowed by the state, but encouraged. If people are to love their servitude, they must be allowed some room to play, to laugh, to be distracted, to be happy—never leaving time to think, reflect or suffer. Ensuring happiness (in place of freedom), in fact, is the purpose of society and the state. Substantive freedom (for example, the freedom to be responsible for your own healthcare) entails hard work and possible suffering. It is no coincidence that one of the many less-than-thoughtful characters in the book reminds readers of too many Americans when she says, “What do you mean? I am free!”
Conservative intellects may appreciate Huxley’s eulogy to Christianity, democracy and (classical) liberalism as social vehicles that defended freedom and liberty against the tyranny of creating a “perfect” society—the brave new world. Art, science and religious life have all been sacrificed for collective happiness. Things such as art and religion require human thinking, dedication, perseverance, creativity and care, all qualities that challenge (sooner or later) the state and mankind’s “right” to universal happiness.
The hero and symbol of freedom for the novel, John the Savage, a young Indian (what PC police call Native American), who’s displaced from his primitive reservation to the brave new world, faces Mond in a climatic debate by the end of the story. John questions the authoritarian values of the brave new world.
So what if everyone’s happy? “Isn’t there something to living dangerously?” John asks (my favorite quote). Mond (sounding as smug as your typical statist on MSNBC) condescendingly tells John that by refusing to accept the brave new world, he’s claiming his right to feel pain, suffering, disease, instability, confusion, apprehension of the future, uncertainty, and yes, death. (I doubt anti-smoking zealots would appreciate this section in particular.) John’s defiant reply: “I claim them all.”
This final climatic phrase of self-ownership should be the new rhetorical command for all libertarians. “I claim them all!” holds far more rhetorical umph than “Who is John Galt?” and stands close to (though is not on equal footing with) Joyce’s “Yes! Yes! Yes!” That’s because it howls as a cry of defiance to conformist authority as forcefully as it stands to affirm life and humanity. Read Huxley’s brilliant work of art, Brave New World, and you’ll understand why
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