The Illusion of Humanity
Humanity is malleable, yet painfully brittle
Two centuries ago, Mary Shelley wrote a book which many now consider the basis of modern horror — Frankenstein or The Modern Prometheus. This best-seller did not only push the boundaries of pseudoscience but also questioned what it truly means to be human in a world of rejection. Shelley tells the story of a nameless monster who is rejected both by society and his creator, Victor Frankenstein, simply because he yearns to be human. Almost a century and a half later, Aldous Huxley wrote Brave New World with similar themes of societal rejection and isolation. In Brave New World, Huxley strived to highlight what it means to live meaningful lives without relinquishing our human nature and the core values that define our humanity.
Huxley’s criticism on humanity takes a definite shape in Brave New World, a novel constituting a world where “the goals of pleasure and stability have crowded out every other human good, burying discontent under antidepressants, eugenics, and virtual-reality escapes” — as Ross Douthat describes it in The New York Times. Huxley introduced the idea of a potent antidepressant called soma, which the citizens take regularly to escape the harshness of reality. “There is always soma, delicious soma,” Huxley writes. Even in a world where there seems to be everything, happiness is still the ultimate goal achievable. Huxley criticizes the human values in Brave New World by abasing the citizens in its society. He erases love, family, and parenthood to ridicule humankind. To maintain “Community, Identity, Stability” — the motto of the World State, “The greatest care is taken to prevent you from loving anyone too much.” Love, as a sentimental human value, is regarded as something from the old world since every human emotion is one way or the other, corrupted by soma. Adam Kirsch, an American poet, and literary critic at Columbia University describe the world Huxley creates as a world where “the most antisocial behavior is monogamy, and a man is a “perfect gentleman” if he refrains from paying too much attention to any particular one of the women he is sleeping with.” Sexual indulgences have no meaning except to satisfy the mental conditioning these citizens received from childhood. Sexual desires, once reserved for intimate relationships — a dying essence of humanity — are replaced with meaningless debauchery to satisfy the body. But as Margaret Artwood puts it, even with the “dollops of sex-on-demand, the bodies in Brave New World are oddly disembodied, which serves to underscore one of Huxley’s points: in a world in which everything is available, nothing has any meaning”. The fundamental values that define humanity are merely non-existent in Brave New World; hence, life becomes meaningless.
Sexual desires, once reserved for intimate relationships — a dying essence of humanity — are replaced with meaningless debauchery to satisfy the body
Artwood goes on to argue that John “is the only character who has a real body, but he knows it through pain, not through pleasure”. John justifies his pain saying, “Once I did something that none of the others did: I stood against a rock in the middle of the day, in summer, with my arms out, like Jesus on the Cross. I wanted to know what it was like being crucified”. Huxley uses John as the embodiment of humanity in this fallen dystopian society — a society where solitude is rare, and when it does befall, people are programmed to seek out interaction or soma fantasies.
John the Savage is a self-aware citizen whose intellect is matched only by Mustafa Mond, a controller of the World State. His life and upbringing make him unique, not only his way of thinking but in his view of the world around him. John was born on a reservation in North America, which still preserved some aspects of the old way of life that define humanity — marriage, love, and religion. John’s thoughts are his own and are not based on mental conditioning, unlike Lenina and everyone else in the World State. John exhibits a trait which Joan Didion once described as “a certain toughness, a kind of moral nerve once called character, a quality which, although approved in the abstract, sometimes loses ground to other, more instantly negotiable virtues”. He has the willingness to accept responsibility for his own life and an intrinsic sense of his self-worth, which, for better or for worse, constitutes self-respect, a human virtue. Although John displays such innate self-awareness, he feels — without a doubt, a sense of alienation. In some ways, he thinks himself an outsider on the reservation since his “mother” was, in fact, from the more civilized London. “They disliked me for my complexion. It’s always been like that. Always.” On the other hand, when John moves to London, he quickly realizes he still feels isolated from society because of his profound understanding of the old world and the lack of meaning in everyone’s lives around him. Although John the Savage is intensely moral, he is also somewhat naïve. In defiance of Brave New World’s social norms, he falls romantically in love with Lenina but spurns her premature sexual advances. John realizes that love, just like life, virtually has no meaning in this society. Its technological wonders and soulless consumerism are no substitute for individual freedoms, human dignity, and personal integrity.
Huxley utilizes John’s appreciation of art, of death, and of pain — human values long forgotten in this dystopia — to highlight the shallow lives lead by its citizens. While the citizens of this society are conditioned to forgo the beauty of art and “sacrifice the high art” for happiness, the Savage embraces and studies them. John educates himself by reading the classic literary works of Shakespeare, reciting lines from Othello and Hamlet. Although barely understanding these works, he still makes an effort to do so instead of rejecting it altogether as “old” just like Mustafa Mond did. Mond argues that despite the beauty of art, they do not want people to be “attracted to old” things since they are useless. The argument offered by Mustapha Mond is not enough for John, who wants the old world back. He wants the pain, the suffering, the agony, and tears. He wants it all. John had a fantasy picture of the utopia from his mother’s tales and his knowledge of Shakespeare that he mistakes for an instruction manual to reality. He suddenly recognizes his delusion in the hospital when his mother dies. The hospital illustrates the dystopia’s approach to death, which includes trying to eliminate grief and pain. But like C.S. Lewis wrote in A Grief Observed, “Bereavement is an integral and universal part of our experience of love. It is not the truncation of the process but one of its phases; not the interruption of the dance, but the next figure”. Attachment gives our lives security and meaning. When death severed an attachment, grief is a natural response to the lost attachment. John was attached to his mother through the love they shared, but her death severed this attachment leaving John broken. In Brave New World, the natural responses to death are entirely eradicated from society since relationships have utterly no meaning.
The concept of meaningless relationships is something Mary Shelley highlights in Frankenstein. In her classic, we encounter a monster who faces pure isolation from society and rejection from his very own creator. The Monster in Frankenstein, very much like John, struggles to understand why humankind renounced him simply because he was different. To his detriment, he shares the same emotional needs as humans and is painfully aware of his artificial nature and monstrous appearance. Shelley strived to highlight how dehumanizing the Monster turned humans into monsters instead. Frankenstein, at its core, is quite a remarkable masterpiece in Victorian literature, and literature as we know it today. On one hand, it is about the “failure to recognize the humanity of those who do not resemble us” and those who do not fit the typical constructs of society. On the other hand, “it is a frank warning about a hubristic, overreaching science that unleashes forces it cannot control” writes Jill Lepore — an American Historian at Havard University.
Huxly and Shelley both used the protagonist of their stories to comment on the malleable nature of humanity. We see both the Monster and John questioning their very own existence in the respective worlds they find themselves in. People surround both characters, yet they feel a great deal of alienation due to their awareness of the world around them. For John, he feels isolated because he does not understand why the citizens are erasing core human values. The Monster feels isolated because he does not understand why humans around him will not accept change. Looking back in history, even Frederick Douglass struggled with the concept of alienation. After educating himself, he reaches an epiphany. He realized how slavery had changed the world around him. “I often found myself regretting my existence and wishing myself dead,” Douglass stated in The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass. The Monster: “Cursed, cursed creator! Why did I live?” Douglass seeks his escape; the creature seeks his revenge; John seeks to redeem humanity.
People surround both characters, yet they feel a great deal of alienation due to their awareness of the world around them
Brave New World is unlike any dystopia. There is no starvation like in Mad Max: Fury Road, no infertility like in The Handmaid’s Tale, and indeed no violent wars or political conflicts. While Brave New World does not fit the archetype of a dystopia — or a utopia — it indeed combines aspects of both worlds to create a society where happiness virtually replaces every human value and self-awareness. It is a dystopia that exists only in the minds of the self-aware, torturing their very own existence, but a utopia for the mindless souls that dwell in it. In the novel, humanity has slowly turn into this imaginary concept that no one cares about. But Brave New World was not intended as an instruction manual to the eugenicist on how to build future generations. Such assumptions will do no justice to Huxley. It is better seen as a catalyst, even an agent provocateur, that lures us into disclosing what we sincerely hope and fear — losing our humanity. Huxley looked at a utilitarian paradise — a world where all material needs are met, pleasure is maximized, and pain eliminated — and “pointed out what we might be giving up to get there: an entire vertical dimension in human life, the quest for the divine and the transcendent, for romance and honor, beauty and truth” as Douthat wrote. Huxley endeavored to highlight what it means to live significant lives without relinquishing our human nature and the core values that define humanity, such as love and family. Although Brave New World may not serve as a direct warning towards an inevitable future of technological advances, it certainly serves as a wakeup call on the aspects of humanity we could someday give up to satisfy our comfort and desires.
Collin is an Honors & Mount Fellows student at Mount St. Mary’s University where he is interested in Computer Science but also has a keen interest in Human Nature and Philosophy. — Collin Grimm on MSMARY
