Sociology in the Brave New World

Dystopian novels always seem to find some way to take our own fears of our world and make them incredibly real. Brave New World is no different. The book was first written and published in 1932, around the time of the Great Depression and the aftermath of the Industrial Revolution. It was also the time of Joseph Stalin’s reign in Soviet Russia, and it witnessed the growth of capitalist economies. This is the time when the assembly line was being put into use on large scales in Western societies and sociologists such as Max Weber and Karl Marx were speaking out against it.

Brave New World is a dystopian novel in which Henry Ford is worshipped instead of God and innovation has come so far as to produce people in factories on a massive scale. In this society there is no longer art or culture, nor is there any difference between people. The concept of individuality has been conditioned out of people through neo-pavlovian techniques. However, characters such as Bernard Marx and Helmholtz Watson still feel as though they are individuals (although they feel this way for separate, individual reasons). The key turning point in the novel occurs after Bernard brings home a couple of “savages” after he goes on vacation. One of them, John, actually ends up making Bernard quite popular. However, after incident with a girl leaves John feeling very upset he refuses to go to a party and Bernard loses all the popularity he had just as fast as he got it in the first place. The more separate Bernard, Helmholtz, and John become from the rest of society, the less people like them. So finally, when John loses his temper and makes a scene when his mother dies the three men are all banished to islands. John goes to live at an abandoned lighthouse, where he takes his own life.

In Aldous Huxley’s novel, Brave New World, he portrays the historical figures of Henry Ford, Max Weber, and Karl Marx in his fictional characters to speak out against Capitalism that came as a result of the Industrial Revolution. Based on the time period that the book was written in and some of the events that take place very clear connections can be made to Henry Ford and Calvinism (also known as the Protestant Reformation), Helmholtz Watson and Max Weber (a father of sociology), and John the Savage as well as Bernard Marx with Marxism.

Henry Ford and Calvinism

In Huxley’s novel the society has taken the accomplishments of Henry Ford to a whole new extreme, and people worship him the way that modern society worships God and Jesus. The way that he is looked up to causes people to blindly follow him. The people of the society wish to live in a way that would make him proud. This form of religion looks similar to Calvinism, the reformed version of Protestantism that was very popular during Huxley’s time. Calvinism was a religion that helped move Western culture into the industrial age. It encouraged capitalism, while discouraging greed and self-indulgence. It believed that those were the things that made God the most important part of the world (“John Calvin”). In the novel the worship of Henry Ford and his model-T (along with propaganda) is what really pushed the society to the state it is in when we read the novel. The society has simply replaced God and Jesus with Ford and the assembly line. “‘We condition the masses to hate the country,’ concluded the Director. ‘But simultaneously we condition them to love all country sports...So that they consume manufactured articles as well as transport’” (Huxley 23). Much like how Calvinism promoted to its followers the support of capitalism but discouraged purchasing things for the purpose of self-indulgence, the government of Brave New World conditions children to hate nature while still enjoying the consumption of it.

During his time, Henry Ford's assembly line was revolutionary. Workers followed him and willing agreed to work in mindless factories to be able to earn a living wage; making him appear more incredible than he potentially was (Conley 550). So as the society of Brave New World worship Ford they also use his assembly line method for whatever they can. “Next to the Liners stood the Matriculators. The procession advanced; one by one the eggs were transferred from their test-tubes to the larger containers; deftly the peritoneal lining was slit, the morula dropped into place, the saline solution poured in...and already the bottle had passed, and it was the turn of the labellers” (Huxley 9). If it can be produced, an assembly line method will be used to produce it. Even if it is children. In the novel, Henry Ford is God. People in the novel follow everything that he did and use ideologies similar to Calvinism to promote the ideas of capitalism that were huge during Ford’s time.

Helmholtz Watson and Rationalization

Helmholtz Watson reflects Max Weber, a German sociologist during the Industrial Revolution. Weber believed that social changes came from the new ideas coming from within a society, and felt that if we rationalized too much then we could potentially lose creativity altogether.

To Max Weber (considered a founder of sociology) the cause of social change was largely the ideas that a particular culture shared. His believed that there would be no capitalism without the emergence of Calvinism (Cooley 548). Very much like how in Brave New World the new society would probably not exist without the incredible success of Henry Ford and his model-T, “Here the Director made a sign of the T on his stomach and all the students reverently followed suit” (Huxley 25). In a similar way to how Catholics make the sign of the cross over their hearts, characters in the novel make a T, signifying the effect that the car has on their society. Without Henry Ford’s innovations the Brave New World society would not exist, and it is because the people as a whole worships and follows Ford that society continues to exist.

Weber, along with Karl Marx, had a negative perspective on capitalism. However, Weber’s concern was that the rationality of modern industry ate away at the soul trap us in an inescapable cage (Cooley 549). While being a little over dramatic, it is a sentiment best expressed through the character of Helmholtz Watson. “‘Did you ever feel,’ [Helmholtz] asked, ‘as though you had something inside you that was waiting for you to give it the chance to come out? Some sort of extra power that you aren’t using - you know, like all the water that goes down the falls instead of through the turbines’” (Huxley 69). In the book Helmholtz is a creative writer in a world where creativity does not exist. He has ideas that are trying to break free, but have no way of getting past the metaphorical dam in his mind. Despite not sharing the same name, there are several very important similarities between the ideas and beliefs of Max Weber and Helmholtz Watson. Most notably the idea that an overly-rational society has a large negative impact on creativity and prevents people from coming up with new ideas.

Bernard Marx and John the Savage

Huxley does not take portray Karl Marx in the way we would expect. Marxism does appear in the novel, although not solely through a single character. It also manifests in the “Savage” character of John as well as the “psychologist” Bernard Marx.

Karl Marx is considered to be a father of sociology, and he studied human culture throughout history. One of the things he noticed about history was human’s struggle to control the environment; however, in the time of the Industrial Revolution instead of becoming masters of the world, humans become slaves to this new way of doing things (Cooley 23). This enslavement portrayed in Brave New World as experiments in conditioning and efficiency that become scientific laws that are used on a massive scale. In Huxley’s novel people are brainwashed and enslaved without ever realizing it. “Linda had been a slave, Linda had died; others should live in freedom, and the world be made beautiful. A reparation, a duty. And suddenly it was luminously clear to the Savage what he must do; it was as though a shutter had been opened, a curtain drawn back” (Huxley 210). John the Savage has a meltdown after this, but it is an important one. Karl Marx was an advocate for the rights of the working class, which is what John becomes in this part. When he realizes that the society was enslaving its workers he jumps up to try to protect them, and is exiled because of it. Just as Karl Marx and his friends were.

Karl Marx’s ideas of alienation was that (it is basis for a capitalist society) and is essentially when people are controlled by forces that they created themselves, and see it as alien (Cooley 545). According to Marx there are four ways in which capitalist economies alienated workers, one of which is alienation of one’s own self. This is similar to Weber’s own ideas of caged creativity. However, Marx saw it as, we are not the worker ants that the Industrial Revolution made us to be, we are naturally very creative (Cooley 547). In Brave New World the people are conditioned so that any sense of self does not exist. People in the story are worker ants and they are totally fine with that. Very much like Karl Marx the character Bernard Marx is not comfortable with everyone acting and thinking in exactly the same manner. “Bernard left the room with a swagger, exulting, as he banged the door behind him, in the thought that he stood alone, embattled against the order of things; elated by the intoxicating consciousness of his individual significance and importance” (Huxley 98). Karl Marx would likely argue that that feeling of individual significance is extremely important for a person. Marx believed that members of the working class should rise up, and to be able to do that there has to be a certain sense of individual significance. Bernard is portrayed as egocentric and ultimately only wishes to fit in with the society around him, and John over-reacts to upsetting situations, while in comparison Helmholtz is level-headed and is extremely likeable. This could be Huxley making a point against Karl Marx, or it could be him protecting his own image. He probably portrayed Marxism in the “crazy” characters because in 1932, when this novel was first published, there few who actually wanted to be connected as a supporter of the version of communism in Soviet Russia.

Conclusion

Brave New World was written in a time when a lot of changes were happening in the world. We were recovering from the first World War, and America was in the midst of a huge economic collapse that did not only impact them but anyone else that they traded with. So news ideas like minimum wage and factory work were very attractive to people because it meant that families could have some chance of survival. They were not in a place to complain about working or living conditions until people like Karl Marx and Max Weber said that they should. Huxley takes the innovations of the Industrial Revolution and exaggerates them to the extreme. He works in the ideas of Karl Marx and Max Weber in his own attempt to speak out against Capitalist methods.

We are still currently living in a Capitalist economy, and we are finally getting to a place in which we are realizing that Communism itself is not inherently evil, it is the people in history that have promoted and enforced it that are. Modern technology makes the science-fiction in Brave New World no longer appear to be as big of an exaggeration. Something Huxley knew almost a century ago, and we are finally able to learn ourselves; Marx’s theories are not perfect, nor are Weber’s, but we are progressing in a direction that makes them worth listening to.

Works Cited

Conley, Dalton. You May Ask Yourself: An Introduction to Thinking like a Sociologist. 3rd ed. New York: W.W. Norton, 2013. Print.

Huxley, Aldous. Brave New World. New York: Perennial Classics, 1998. Print.

"John Calvin." Infoplease. Infoplease. Web. 7 Feb. 2015. <http://www.infoplease.com/encyclopedia/people/calvin-john-importance-calvinism.html>

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