Happiness has a high price tag. In Brave New World, Aldous Huxley explores exactly how high that cost is. The World State had established a society in which the people accepted the dictates of the government to gain happiness and stability. Huxley creates this "Brave New World" to demonstrate that the price of happiness and comfort is truth and beauty.
The World State asserts that “universal happiness keeps the wheels steadily turning,” and operates under this guiding principle. Huxley created a world where frugality was not encouraged and self-denial would upset mass production. Laborers were needed in this industrial world but not thinkers. Workers were produced in assembly line fashion out of test tubes, conditioned to accept their caste and satisfied with the least amount of mind-numbing work for the most gain. An industrial society that is focused on prosperity needs consumers bent on their own pleasure, indulging in their whims and fancies. The Apostle Paul speaks of this people in Philippians 3:19, “…their god is their belly, and they glory in their shame, with minds set on earthly things.” Truth and beauty cannot dwell in this kind of world. In fact, truth and beauty draw us away from thoughts of self to appreciate and admire something else for its own intrinsic worth and value and cause us to strive for excellence, something beyond ourselves.
While enlightening his listeners on the historic beginnings of the new world, the state’s Controller, Mustapha Mond, avers, “When the masses seized political power, then it was happiness rather than truth and beauty that mattered.” Quite prophetically, Huxley alludes to the countless revolutions when nations were unstable, poverty ruled and people were willing to allow totalitarian governments to form in order to obtain happiness and stability. The people turned their backs on truth and beauty, on right and wrong. One year after Brave New World was published, Hitler would rise to power in Germany. The masses looked the other way and closed their eyes to the truth so long as they were prospering, so long as happiness prevailed in their life. For “the good of the German people,” Hitler took away the right to free speech, free press and the right to gather publicly. Who cared when they had jobs and food on their tables? Hitler later organized book burnings of literature he had deemed threatening to the Third Reich. But what did that matter when he had stabilized the economy? The Reverend Martin Niemoeller, a church leader who opposed the Nazi government was asked by a student how such a horror could have happened in Germany. He replied, “First they came for the Communists, but I was not a Communist so I did not speak out. Then they came for the Socialists and the Trade Unionsts, but I was neither, so I did not speak out. Then they came for the Jews, but I was not a Jew so I did not speak out. And when they came for me, there was no one left to speak for me.” Happiness and stability are expensive.
Huxley painted a very clear portrait of a people enslaved by happiness. The Controller conceded, “Happiness is a hard master – particularly other people’s happiness. A much harder master, if one isn’t conditioned to accept it unquestioningly, than truth.” Truth does not always bring happiness and comfort. Therefore, if happiness is the desired goal, truth must be concealed. One must work very hard to elude the truth. They must keep themselves occupied; pleasant vices must abound. Silence and solitude are enemies. Truly, if this world is all there is then we ought to pursue our happiness. Paul said, “If the dead are not raised, ‘Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die.’”(1 Corinthians 15:32) But this world is not the end. Jesus has redeemed us and set us free. He has bought us out of the slave market with His own blood. We, through faith, are citizens of a different kingdom and all of our present sufferings are “preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison.” (2 Corinthians 4:17)
Mustapha Mond, Controller of the World State, believes that society is better off with happiness and stability, even if the cost is liberty, even if it means suppressing truth and beauty. He rationalized, “It hasn’t been very good for truth, of course. But it’s been very good for happiness. One can’t have something for nothing. Happiness has got to be paid for.” The main character, John, realizes the poisonous nature of the “civilized” world and tells the Controller, “But I don’t want comfort. I want God, I want poetry, I want real danger, I want freedom, I want goodness. I want sin.” He wanted the choice. The message Huxley sends to our materialistic society is timely. We must consider our leaders and their actions. We must not compromise on moral issues because our pocketbooks are full. We must examine the liberties that are being taken from us “for our good.” Let us speak out now against all injustice and immorality so that we never hit a point where there is no one left to speak for us.
