Brave New World by Aldous Huxley : An Analysis of the Themes of Consumption and Utopia

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Throughout "Brave New World" by Aldous Huxley, the concepts of consumption and utopia are constantly juxtaposed and compared to determine whether or not they are genuinely compatible. Although one could state that the citizens of this world in  "Brave New World"  are genuinely happy, this is more a result of ignorance and blindness rather than a truly fulfilling sense of bliss. Because the state in  "Brave New World"  has meticulously given consumption an almost holy significance, the culture that exists around it must accordingly be conducive to it. As a result, the signifiers of identity such as a concept of nature, religion, and self, have been obliterated to foster a powerful and complete reliance on the state. Because of the almost infantile degree of dependence the state has created in  "Brave New World"  the culture of consumption is able to thrive. It is only through the character of John, who is most allied with our perception of reality, that the reader is able to discern how the ideas of consumption and utopia cannot be compatible. Through his eyes, it is possible to see how instead of creating happiness in  "Brave New World"  by Huxley the combination of these two opposing forces breeds dependence and destroys the individual.

The culture of consumption in "Brave New World" by Aldous Huxley is the engine driving the success and “happiness” of the state. Although to the masses it may seem as though identity is something secure and comfortable, it is rather based upon identity-obliterating principles of mass-production and consumerism. All traces of human elements of individuality and identity have been replaced by the concept of the common good and even ideas about love, family, and sex have been reduced to the maxim, which is one of the important quotes from "Brave New World" by Aldous Huxley, “everybody belongs to everyone else” (26). Furthermore, the basis of life in "Brave New World" by Aldous Huxley an idea that is sacred and personal in our society, is firmly rooted in Ford’s famous model of production—the assembly line. With the help of science, human beings are created according to a narrow set of specifications (which class they will eventually belong to) and their lives, once no longer useful are considered meaningless, especially since they can be easily replaced. As Mr. Foster, who presides over the conditioning and “hatching” of the new human lives says in one of many important quotes in  "Brave New World" by Aldous Huxley “Murder kills only the individual and, after all what is an individual? …We can make a new one with the greatest ease—as many as we like” (133). Even from the beginning of the text we are forced to question the concept of mass-production and consumption in terms of humanity. We are introduced to the process of (re)production, which describes how, “a bokanovskified egg will bud, will proliferate, will divide. From eight to ninety-six buds, and every bud will grow into a perfectly formed embryo, and every embryo into a full-sized adult” (4). With the aid of technology, identity and the function of nature have been both combined and destroyed simultaneously. After the process of conditioning, the concept of the self will be even further limited to an individual’s participation in the economy and his or her value or obedience as member of a caste. In other words, by obliterating the concept of the individual, all that is left is the state and its capacity to meet the relatively simple supply and demand-based needs of the citizen. This fact in turn makes the individual completely reliant on the state to provide for them and allows this state to completely control all aspects of society, including the individual’s understanding of the natural world, their sense of place within the grand scheme of things, and thus by proxy, the concept of God. At the pinnacle of all concerns—both by the citizens and their state—is an almost holy reverence for consumption.

          As this thesis statement for Brave New World by Aldous Huxley states, just as the state has destroyed the meaning and value of the individual in Brave New World so too has it altered the individual’s understanding of the natural world. This seems only just considering that this is a culture driven by the forces of science and technology, but the conditioning against the love of nature has deeper significance for the state. Throughout the text, the state seems keenly aware of the fact that nature and consumption are essentially at odds because, in other words, “A love of nature keeps no factories busy” (19). Here it is directly expressed that the enjoyment of the masses is directed toward what is economically desirable instead of what is personally enjoyable and thus, because of the mass acceptance of such a paradigm, individual fulfillment is inexorably linked to economic stability and consumerism. As the reader is told, conditioning has caused the “masses to hate the country…to love all country sports…and have all country sports entail the use of elaborate apparatus” (23). In other words, even though the citizens are outdoors and in the country, it is for the purposes of self-gratification (sports) and for the good of the economy (buying vast amounts of equipment to play these sports.) While these are more obvious examples of the state’s thinly disguised emphasis on consumption, the explicit statement is that nature itself is useless since it is all free and could be enjoyed by all without benefit to the state. Nature, like Shakespeare, art, and poetry, is an item of beauty—something that exists within itself as something desirable without any intrinsic commercial value. In response to this idea, Mond later explained in one of the important quotes from Brave New World by Aldous Huxley, “Universal happiness keeps the wheels steadily turning; truth and beauty can’t” (228). By stating this, Mond is suggesting that only the instant gratification of sports and play is meaningful to all parties (both consumer and provider) and that appreciating nature is something that requires more thought—something that state discourages from the time of birth. In this world, nature and beauty are all parts of the comedic world of the Reservation. They have been rendered ridiculous as a result of the new God, consumerism just as equally high notions of religion have. In essence then, both the act and prospect of consumption have become the new nature, the new God.

          Religion and the idea of a supreme creator is something that is almost laughable in the world Huxley presents in Brave New World. After all, with all of the most immediate needs satisfied instantly, why should there be a use for God or the strengthening benefits of religion? Upon taking over its role as the supreme provider of all goods, both consumer and otherwise, the state has set itself up as God. The mentality behind their status is that by keeping their citizens as docile and well-equipped with all things pleasurable as possible, the pattern of consumption will invariably continue and the economy (the key to stability) will thrive. Citizens are always informed of their status as dependent and the state makes it clear that,  “No pains have been spared to make your lives emotionally easy—to preserve you, as far as that is possible, from having emotions at all” (44). Through the repeated use of soma and other mind-altering forms of existence and entertainment, the sense of the individual is even further lost to consumption. Religion becomes antiquated because it is no longer necessary as the “souls” of these people are constantly being filled, even if it is with a false sense of fulfillment. Instead of having religion and an understanding of morality or even pain, “Anyone can be virtuous now. You carry at least half your mortality about in a mottle. Christianity without tears—that’s what soma is” (238). With the state taking over all aspects that contributed to an understanding of the self—nature, religion, and family—all that is left is the state. They are the ultimate provider because they posses both the means of production and the distribution of consumer commodities such as soma. In many ways, the citizens of this world are very much like young children who are incapable of functioning without their gods of consumption and provision. This is evidenced by Linda who, after being left with Indians was completely useless because she was as helpless as a baby and could not think or act for herself. Although this is a rather sad of imagining a society, it shows how powerful the state can become when it both acts almost solely on principles of consumerism. By becoming the both the god and the religion for its people, it has created a race of beings who will always be slaves to consumption and as a result will lose their identity completely.

          In the midst of these statements about the dangers of falling into a society based on consumption, John stands as the voice of the modern reader. He (like the writer of this essay) sees the hollowness of existence that results from consumerism and instead of viewing its ease as a utopia, he begs for the right to suffer his unhappiness. He pleads in one of the important quotes from Brave New World by Aldous Huxley, “I don’t want comfort, I want God, I want poetry, I want real danger, I want freedom, I want goodness. I want sin” (240). To John, all of the “happiness” that he sees before him in the “brave new world” is vacuous and artificial. No one experiences anything that makes us all essentially human because the state regulates experience through products such as soma. He, like the reader, sees this lack of humanity as a disturbing warning about the dangers of modern consumerism and understands that the pain and emotion of Shakespeare, nature, art, and god are more real and useful than tactics to produce mindless obedience. He is, in essence, the foil to every character in the book and is the true outsider—the only one who seems to see that utopia and consumption cannot exist simultaneously and can only breed infantile dependence and thus a lack of individuality and truth. Because the reader is also an outsider, having never been exposed to the bizarre culture presented in the novel, we find John’s statements even more compelling and it becomes clear that even though fiction has exaggerated the potential reality—there are definite dangers imminent when the consumption becomes the means to create a utopia.

This article by Nicole Smith   ~   All Content Copyright 2009 Article Myriad. All Rights Reserved.

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