Regress from Progress
Propaganda.
Nuclear warfare. Assembly lines. Three decades, fraught with the aftereffects
of the Roaring 20’s and two World Wars, ushered in an influx of such
innovations and more, from penicillin and the hydrogen bomb to the world’s
first television. As fields within science and machinery continued to advance
at unprecedented rates, the attitude of the day began to center around the
newest novelty, the next fantastic discovery. While many were among those who
eagerly awaited what technology had to offer next, a minority was not as
convinced.
The focus
on progress had its relative merits, but its downfalls were just as obvious: self-made
decisions, moral application of science, and product diversity were all but
disposed of (Bakke 1). As consumerism and conformity began to dominate where creativity
and individualism once flourished, Aldous Huxley expressed concern that the
technological capabilities of mankind were not worth the ideological sacrifices
man was so willing to make, a concern he voices in Brave New World and Ape
and Essence. Huxley satirizes society’s misguided hope in scientific
progress through devices of repetition, lack of meaningful dialogue, and
animalistic metaphors in order to warn of the paradox he saw within his own
society: that the continuation of the modern notion of progress would inevitably
lead to the devolution of mankind.
Through mimicry, Huxley’s use of repetition criticizes both
advertisements, the pervasiveness of which increased dramatically as scientific
discoveries were publicized and produced, and the danger of losing one’s
individuality to advertisements by conforming to the message they promoted. Huxley
was aware of the implications of repetition as he explored the application of
“verbal alternatives to reality” in propaganda, in which the true meaning of a
familiar word is veiled, by placing that word into unfamiliar frames to shift the
initial, accepted meaning into an entirely new context (Huxley 2). The language
of propaganda is used extensively throughout Brave New World in the form
of hypnopaedic conditioning. Not only does Huxley mention the exact number of
repetitions necessary to ingrain a statement, but also imbues a multiplicity of
the hypnopaedic phrases themselves throughout the entire text. Such “an overt
exaggeration of certain patterns” acts as a clear warning against the power of
advertisements (Rodriguez 2). Huxley’s repetition of hypnopaedic phrases imitates
the repetition of advertisements that so cleverly assaulted the common man in
the mid 1930’s-1940’s, and serves to shed light on the possibility that any
passerby who saw the advertisement was “conditioned with premises and slogans”
through the same subconscious influence of hypnopaedia, forcing every passerby
to think the same way (Al-Barznji and Rasheed 7). Individual thought, then, is
lost. Because Huxley constantly makes use of the same phrases throughout the
entirety of the novel, he is able to take the most effective route in making
“people realize the mental manipulation exerted on them” (Rodriguez 2).
Huxley’s lack of subtlety with his repetition is a direct pointer towards the
lack of individuality forced on his characters through the repetition of
hypnopaedic conditioning, a parallel for the same conformity slowly sweeping
through the 20th century as more people, consciously or
unconsciously, began to adapt to the ideals of convenience and consumerism,
ideals that were promoted to the mass public through advertisement.
Huxley not only applied the idea of
verbal alternatives to hypnopaedia but to other sections of the book as well.
The World Controller says, “’I’m interested in truth, I like science. But
truth’s a menace, science a public danger” (Huxley 227). Huxley begins this
statement by expressing a somewhat normal view of truth and science; by the
very next sentence, however, truth and science have become something to be
feared, something threatening. Such an “ad hoc modification” is applied
numerous times throughout the book, where the meaning of known words is
distorted slightly and lost as the words are continually repeated within
different contexts (Rodriguez 5). This allows Huxley to “display the blatant
statement of what the book is”: that even something as clearly defined as a
word can lose its meaning if repeated over and over again, and that the same
can be applied to humans (Bakke 1). Huxley’s use of warped meaning through
repetition serves as a parallel to how humans repeating the beliefs and
opinions and values of their peers through conformity can similarly lose their
meaning, their essence, that which makes them the individual that they are.
If that which distinguishes man from
other men is individuality, then that which distinguishes man from animal is
voice. Man draws on his own internal experiences and thoughts to offer insight
based on those opinions—it is this capability that gives him sentience, and a
higher presence among animals. Huxley draws upon this parallel when crafting
the dialogue of his works. Dialogue is somewhat neglected in the current body
of literary criticism, perhaps because the contribution of dialogue to Huxley’s
purpose is minimal—often, the dialogue will consist only of mindless hypnopaedic
phrases like “Everybody’s happy now” (Huxley 75). Criticism of Huxley’s
narrative style instead tends to focus on Huxley’s “omnipotent role as author”,
in which Huxley conveys psychoanalyses and inner thoughts of characters within
the narration rather than having characters present such thoughts with their
own voice (Rodriguez 6). Huxley certainly is able to “express his attitude
about society” within the third-person narrative scheme as he imbues his own
personal social commentary within the novel, a feat that would’ve been
impossible if not for the omniscient quality of the narration (Bakke 1). The
very lack of influential dialogue passages, however, is significant in and of
itself. The key to Huxley’s society was the scientific discovery of hypnopaedic
conditioning. Phrases “repeated by some determined voices” echo in the minds of
Huxley’s characters, replayed so many times that the voice of hypnopaedia
dominates all else; they no longer have a voice of their own (Sarecino 2). If a
time were to come when a citizen thought something outside the bounds of
hypnopaedic conditioning, “people would resort to soma for…such thoughts” (Bakke).
In essence, any original thoughts would be cleansed by a dose of the
hallucinogen soma, and the hypnopaedic thoughts would claim their territory
once again. Huxley intentionally characterized the citizens of his dystopia
through shallow dialogue to convey their lack of depth in general—if it is not
something the citizens have been programmed to think, it is not within the
citizen’s capacity to think it. Dependent on external factors for thoughts, for
opinions, for voice, Huxley has characterized the humans within his works to
not be human at all.
Huxley has proven that the citizens
of his works cannot be classified as true humans. What, then, are they? Consistent
comparison between the humans of Huxley’s future dystopia and animals reveals
Huxley’s view that scientific progress will not expand man’s body of knowledge,
but rather devolve mankind, from intelligent beings to empty beasts. Ape and
Essence most drastically marks this connection between mankind and the
animal kingdom as Huxley asserts that man’s “glassy essence—like an angry ape” revealed
itself in two warring groups of primates, each with a pet Einstein used only to create and deploy nuclear warheads to attack
the other side (Huxley 20). By depicting a
symbol of scientific genius manipulated by a group of apes, Huxley highlights
how man’s greatest minds, are, instead of being placed in positions of powers
themselves, only abused by those who do have power, simply to further their own
gains. As Huxley eliminates the Einsteins and leaves only the primates left
after the battle, he asserts once more that if scientific progress continues
along its current trend, the future may align with that of the novel—knowledge
will be subverted, and animalistic conflict promoted, a future that is
undoubtedly less than desirable. The civilization built after the
nuclear fallout is one that also cares not for intellectual pursuits, but
instead spends its time in a constant struggle to survive, coping with “the
flesh rather than emotions”, as babies deformed by lingering radioactivity are
sacrificed in an attempt to appease the devil Belial, whom they believe is the
cause of the abnormalities (Al-Barznji and Rasheed 8). Unable to read, unable
to write, unable to diagnose the true reason behind their malformed species,
the citizens of this society can only devote their time to satisfying their
basic needs. Huxley’s portrayal of a future society built from the ashes of progress,
and built with no intent to progress, links the aftereffects of scientific
research with the stagnation of society immutably: the “fuel that allows man to
act on a belief or a dream, to grow and learn and to love” is eradicated at the
hands of so-called progress, and man turns instead to that most primal goal of
survival (Al-Barznji and Rasheed 8). Brave New World extends this
comparison as groups of characters are referred to as everything from horses to
rams to locusts, emphasizing that “the new world has so dehumanized its
citizens that they now resemble little more than animals” (Sarecino 2).
Directly addressing the people of his novel as animals, Huxley is able to
establish an immediate connection between the inhabitants of this society that
has supposedly progressed to the point of perfect equilibrium and the
animalistic tendencies they exhibit, which are not so much primal as they are
“like pets—not like free people” (Sarecino 4). As technology has provided the
new world’s citizens the potential to immediately fulfill any and every one of
their needs and desires, the humans Huxley portrays can
no longer be viewed as humans. Tame to the point of docility, happiness and
comfort handed to them on a silver plate, humans have nothing more to strive
for, nothing more to fight for, nothing more to be human for. Brainwashed into
believing they’re happy, humans become like sheep, blindly following their herd
and their shepherd no matter where it may take them.
Though the
society in Huxley’s Brave New World and Ape and Essence may
appear to be idyllic, the same cannot be said for its inhabitants. Limited as
they are by the science of the day, the humans of Huxley’s works no longer
thrive within the human experience, but survive in a superficial cycle: to be
born, to live, and to die. Because individuality is lost to devices of
repetition, voice is lost through the meaningless dialogue, and
characterization is lost to animalistic comparison, Huxley is able to caution
that if scientific progress is to persist as is, we must be willing to pay the
price of our own humanity.
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