| In Brave
New World, Huxley has abolished the idea of local, city, state, and
federal governments, replacing them with one comprehensive World State, a
benevolent oligarchic dictatorship, ruled by ten world controllers, of
which we meet Mustapha Mond, Resident World Controller of Western Europe.
"History is bunk," is the personal motto of the controllers,
perhaps fearing that historical awareness would lead to dissatisfaction
with their "utopian" present, a world really based on Fordian
America's obsession with mass production and consumerism, and Soviet
Russia's suppression of individuality and intellectualism.
The motto of the
World State is "Community,
Identity, Stability."
Every citizen is brainwashed and conditioned to know their identity
as a caste member, not as an individual. Despite the differences between
the castes, and the open and accepted racism the upper castes feel for the
lower castes (the lower castes aren't smart enough to know they are hated,
or to hate in exchange), the castes each know that they could not exist
without each other...for the Alpha double-plusses would grow bored and
frustrated performing the menial tasks of the Epsilon semi-morons, and,
likewise, the Gamma technicians are not mentally astute enough to perform
the laboratory tasks of the Betas (the Deltas are smarter than the Gammas
and Epsilons, but dumber than the Alphas and Betas). So, each caste works
together for the common good of the greater community. Since the
World State is a productivist utopia geared toward the consumption of
mass-produced goods, the world controllers make sure that each citizen is
brainwashed to believe that, "ending is better than mending" ---
that they should just keep buying new things to keep from owing anything
old, and to keep the economy of their society consistently stable. |
