Brave New World

Brave New World

By Aldous Huxley

I am in the middle of the biggest book I have ever read and it would have been at least another week before I updated my blog so I decided to dip into my pool of recently re-read novels that I have read with a class over the past year. I'm a little tired, so this post might seem a bit disjointed, but I'll do my best to edit it over the next few days.

Aldous Huxley's classic 1932 novel Brave New World, along with with George Orwell's 1984, set the bar for dystopian fiction. Brave New World is not a perfect book by any stretch of the imagination. The narrative is flimsy and often tedious and those who read this novel for the story are bound to be extremely disappointed. But if you read it with the Western world as an immediate comparison, Huxley seems to have has a startlingly clear vision of the future.

What strikes me as odd is that in 2012 the comparisons between Huxley's version of the future and that of Orwell not only remain valuable, they have, to a certain degree, been actualized in our world. Both of them. At the same time. I'll touch on the comparison, but I'll concentrate a good deal more on Brave New World as it is the novel I have most recently read (I haven't read 1984 in about 15 years).

Orwell's dismal notion of the future is still very much a concern especially when you look into the restrictive regimes of China and North Korea. With their social, cultural and economical restriction, China has realized Orwell's nightmare in a very real way and their culture and population suffer for it. The Great Firewall of China is the most visible symbol of China's big brother style control. Whereas, in the west, the Orwellian notion of Big Brother spoke to an entire generation raised under the ominous specter of Soviet-style governance and the possibility of Cold War nuclear holocaust, it is Huxley's version of the future that has manifested itself as our own sort of dystopian nightmare. While Big Brother certainly lives on in the West through our over-litigized court system, Google Earth, book banning and video surveillance (to name just a few), it has lost some of its steam over the years.

In Huxley's version of the world, humans are engineered in a laboratory (Bokinovsky process), spared from the aging process and divided and sub-divided into several classes and sub-classes of people who never intermingle except for hedonistically disposable encounters that have no emotional currency. Each class of human comes complete with favorite colors, a disposition for certain kinds of work, a similar IQ and a predilection for specific activities. The trade off for this eternally youthful life is a lower life expectancy and complete adherence to the rigid caste system.

The manufacture of humanity is akin to our own ever-increasing demand for eternal youth. While we have not gone so far as to implement eugenics programs or bio-engineering Olympic athletes, were certainly have made a massive industry out of cosmetic surgery in an attempt to maintain that which cannot be maintained. Botox injections have become as commonplace as the application of mascara. Body modification has become socially acceptable. Scientists tease us with talk of frayed telomeres and their effect on aging. We look everywhere and anywhere for reassurance that we will retain our youth. It has become imperative to maintain vitality into your 50s and 60s. How many times have we heard someone say "Fifty is the new forty," or "Life begins at sixty."

I'm certainly not implying that living a healthy lifestyle into into your autumn years is somehow inhuman, but our obsession with youth and beauty has reached manic proportions. If one extrapolates this desire to remain young for as long as possible, the extremes expressed in Brave New World don't seem so far fetched.

But what of control?

The people in Huxley's novel have no inherent value other than their work. Therefore it is of the utmost urgency that those in control maintain stability among the population (in the novel the world is controlled by a vague organization of which a man by the name of Mustapha Mond controls Western Europe). Rather than implement Orwellian control measures (which, of course, did not yet exist in 1932), Huxley supposes that in this world people are given every possible distraction and pleasure they desire. Those in control (whoever they are) provide everything and anything that a person might want as a method of pacification and mollification. There is simply no reason to question anything if you are constantly entertained. However, with so much entertainment comes abject ignorance and blind adherence to the system.

When we juxtapose Brave New World with the Western world there are shocking similarities. If you take a look at society as a whole's obsession with reality television, social media, conspiracy theories, K-Pop, FarmVille, Fifty Shades of Gray, The New York Yankees (etc... etc...) and couple that with are almost constant use of technology as entertainment (just look around at the hordes of smart phone zombies completely disengaged from the world around them) one can plausibly opine that we are very much heading in such a direction. We are engorged with information and entertainment (infotainment). We run the risk of being at once the most informed and technologically advanced society in the history of the world and the most ignorant.... at the same time. That's not to say that any of these things are bad by themselves (except reality television. Reality television is to the human brain what ten gallons of Coke a day is to human teeth). But they are distractions from much of what is happening around us and we have proven to be less than responsible in dealing with what is important and what is not. We willfully distract ourselves with utter nonsense, and in turn eat up valuable time and energy. Now, I'm certainly not making a case for limiting or banning anything but we do have addiction and attention deficit issues, don't we?

This notion of ubiquitous entertainment, by itself, makes Brave New World every bit as prescient today as it was in 1932. The West is a woefully (and willfully) ignorant society. The East is too, but via very different (Orwellian) means. It's interesting that Brave New World and 1984, two books so often compared, have become more than just symbols of the American dominated Western world and the Chinese dominated East. They have become virtual trail markers on an ever-more-clear cultural trajectory. High school students for decades have compared and contrasted these titles only to discover that such comparisons and contrasts exist on a macro-scale.

While China struggles with Orwell, we wrestle with Huxley. If Brave New World can teach us anything about our own world it is that we run the risk of losing common track for some vain notion of hyper-individuality (which, at its extreme is just a form of hyper-conformity). In the process we may have derailed into a banal wasteland of nonsensical nihilism.

Well, that was uplifting. Who's up for a Soma vacation?

Fahrenheit 451

Fahrenheit 451

By Ray Bradbury

As part of Banned Book Week I am honored to be taking part in an event hosted by Sheila at Book Journey. When she posted the notice a couple of weeks back I was compelled to participate. I mean, how do you pass up the chance to get up on your soapbox and rain invective upon those who would ban books? It sounded like fun and indeed... it was a pleasure to write.

I chose to write about Fahrenheit 451 because I've read it almost a dozen times over the last three years (mainly with students). I have a real affinity for this book and I wanted to take the chance to delve a little deeper into it, flesh out a few of my ideas and theories concerning the novel, why it has gained such a controversial reputation and what it has to offer. In short, this is a long overdue review. Sorry... No giveaways. I'm way over in Asia and sending books off this continent is cost prohibitive.

First, the nuts and bolts...

Fahrenheit 451 was published in 1953 at the very start of the television generation. In 1953 television was just beginning to establish itself as a viable mass media. Approximately 44% of American households had televisions in 1953 compared to only 9% three years earlier and over 70% three years later. Certainly, television was at the front and center of American popular culture at the time of publication and obviously a subject of much debate. If you listen to Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451 is ostensibly a simple science fiction story about the incursion of television on society and a possible future hyper-focused on the newfound instant mass media. In Bradbury's version of America, books have been banned in lieu of the rise of television and a cadre of "firemen" have been formed to root out and burn all remaining books.

But the novel is also so much more than that. It is a veritable tirade (oft-times strident) against censorship, populism and government control. It is a constant reminder of the responsibility inherent in the concept of free speech and how our worse enemy in this world are not governments or corporations but rather ourselves. The agent of governmental and corporate change always and forever boils down to public pressure. They ostensibly work for the majority whether for votes or profits and they act in accordance to our wants and needs (whether we know what they are or not). In the immortal words of Radiohead: "We do it to ourselves."

And for that, Fahrenheit 451 is one of the most often banned books in North America.

Just imagine this. A book about banning books is a banned book in real life. Sounds to me like there is a host of parents, teachers, legislators and concerned citizens out there that don't understand the definition of irony. Talk about meta-banning! Banning a book about banning books? If it wasn't so infuriating, it would be the pinnacle of hilarity.

So, why is Fahrenheit 451, the book about banning books, banned?

Well, I have heard a few reasons. First, Fahrenheit 451 contains strong language. Second, there are instances of violence in the story. But let's be serious here. These are merely excuses. Books don't get banned for language or violence. If they did, the Bible itself could be banned.

Well, damn! There has to be more, right?

There sure as hell better be!

Montag does burn a Bible at one point in the novel and it has been banned for that particular reason in the past. But that doesn't seem to make much sense either since the main characters are trying so very hard to make sure the Bible is not burned and go to great pains to save it the best they can. The novel itself seems to speak favorably of the Bible and the reader is expected to feel a great sadness when the Bible is finally incinerated. So it would seem that those offended by a burning Bible are missing the point a bit.

Another reason for the ban that I found was the negative portrayal of women in the novel. Admittedly, Mildred and her friends are shallow, callous, stupid and weak to the extreme. When compared to Montag, Faber and even Captain Beatty, these women are nothing more than pathetic, television-obssessed cutouts who represent the pathetic, television-obssessed populace of America in this particular world. Mildred's idea of a good time is sitting in front of her three televisions all day watching inane programming then nagging her husband to buy a fourth television when he gets home. If things escalate with Montag she is liable to head out into the county in her car and run down dogs and rabbits for fun and one of her friends has had ten abortions. But then again, Clarisse McClellan is the catalyst for Montag's spiritual awakening and she's a woman. Furthermore, there are any number of books out there with no strong male characters. Those books surely aren't banned.

Another reason I discovered was the negative portrayal of minorities in the book. Contrary to popular belief, it is not the government itself that bans the books in the world of Fahrenheit 451 but rather it is pressure from the people themselves, specifically minorities (and here Bradbury is referring to literally any group of people who don't represent the majority be they black, white, doctors, hairdressers, cat lovers etc...). Captain Beatty lays it out in explicit detail when he notes that minorities don't want to be offended and the government obliges them in their quest for social equality. In bending to the will of minorities the government is pressured into banning literally every book ever published, owing to the fact that literally every book ever published has the capacity to offend someone, somewhere. In this way, Fahrenheit 451 can be seen either as a polemic against un-fettered democracy or perhaps a reminder that un-fettered democracy can theoretically give rise to populism which, in turn, can give rise to fascism. Interesting notion, that.

But that doesn't really work either, and here's why:

Throughout the novel the populist fascism that has overtaken American society is represented by fire. Fire is the agent of forgetting. It is the force in which the powers that be destroy unwanted social friction (i.e. books). The alternative to this is the ragtag group of intellectuals roaming the country outside the major urban areas. There are thousands of former professors living a feral life in the woods. After Montag hops into the river (Montag's baptism) to escape the Mechanical Hound, this ragtag group seems to be represented by water.

But water, just like fire, has the ability to destroy a book. So what is Ray Bradbury trying to say? Is he saying the the opposite of forced equality is also dangerous? I haven't worked that out. Probably nothing literal, but I'm sure there is something metaphorical in the shift from fire to water. It all sounds vaguely ominous at the end anyway. I've never seen the end of Fahrenheit 451 as hopeful or uplifting. It's as bleak as the beginning. Perhaps bleaker. But Bradbury isn't offering easy answers to these questions.

Anyway, back to why the book is banned.

My guess as to why Fahrenheit 451 is really banned is just as ironic as the the fact that it's banned in the first place. The novel itself is a very long diatribe against censorship. And those in the censorship game, be they parents, teachers, or legislators, would be hard pressed to censor anything with anti-censorship books mulling about. Let's call it a literary pre-emptive strike. Ban the books about free speech before they can gain a foothold in order to pave the way for more bans. One might imply that Fahrenheit 451 was simply banned for promoting anti-establishment sentiments, but I think it goes a bit deeper than that. Fahrenheit 451 is a virtual beginner's guide to critical thinking and the Socratic Method. As a teaching tool, it allows students to use reason, logic and their own judgment to formulate conclusions. Kids that master these skills tend to make up their own minds about things and don't swallow whole what parents, teachers, and legislators have to say. In effect, Fahrenheit 451 has the potential to promote open dialog, create free thinkers and encourage creative and dynamic thought.

Of course, trying to wrap your head around all this irony is akin to watching every episode of Twin Peaks on twelve hits of acid. Perhaps it's not worth the time and effort trying to understand the ban. It's meta-crazy!

If I were designing a one year intensive course in English literature for students between 14-17 years of age, Fahrenheit 451 would be a non-negotiable inclusion on the course syllabus. As far as I'm concerned, Fahrenheit 451 is required reading for all high school kids. As I mentioned about, it's a veritable textbook in reason. It's a brilliant introduction to the Socratic Method (I tend to teach Plato's Allegory of the Cave along with the book) and it literally begs students to think for themselves.

School isn't something to simply be endured for 13 years. It's a lifelong concept of human growth and discovery. The humanities in general (and English in particular) aren't simply a series of bird courses peppered between the job-creation subjects (math, science, business). They are the fundamentals tools that teach us how to remain students long after our institutional schooling is finished. In that respect literature plays an important role in teaching us what it means to be human. We can't simply pick and choose from the human experience.

In an age of ultra-accessible information via the Internet, Wikileaks, Occupy Wall Street, The Arab Spring, the Westboro Baptist Church, scandalous Mohammed cartoons, and any number of other examples, Fahrenheit 451 remains more important than ever. It continues to promote reason, reflection, critical thought and intellectual judgment in the face of irrational belief, superstition, greed and control. We owe it to our students to extol such questioning of authority rather than submission to it. Banning books such as Fahrenheit 451 sends a clear message to our kids that we simply don't trust their judgment.

Their judgment couldn't possibly be worse than our own....

Could it?