Alpha+Wiki+-+Part+2


 * Larger philosophical questions**
 * Political philosophy
 * Decadence and deprivation
 * **1984:** As the examples in the previous section demonstrate, the Party uses deliberate deprivation of basic necessities to subjugate people.
 * **BNW:** However, the methods that the World State uses to placate its people are the exact opposite of the Party’s: the World State pacifies everyone with decadence.
 * **Example:** “‘Government’s an affair of sitting, not hitting. You rule with the brains and the buttocks, never with the fists…in the end,’ said Mustapha Mond, ‘the Controllers realized that force was no good.’” (Huxley 49). Unlike Orwell, Huxley predicts that future government will use the “slower but surer” method of using happiness rather than force as a method of control. The entire book can be seen as an extension of this argument, as shown by the numerous examples of this idea in the previous section.
 * **Analysis:** Orwell argues that deprivation is part of what keeps the citizens of Oceania oppressed, and that they would better understand their predicament if they did not have to constantly worry about survival. Conversely, Huxley argues that decadence prevents people from seeking the truth, and that some suffering would be beneficial. Do these two arguments contradict each other? At first it seems as though they do, but it is important to keep in mind that they are not necessarily discussing the same degrees of pain and pleasure: Orwell is contrasting deprivation with sustenance, while Huxley is contrasting euphoric decadence with unpleasantness—they are not talking about the same extremes. However, in the example above Huxley seems to be stating that the Party’s style of governing is ineffective, and that it is easier to control people with happiness. This point will probably always be open to debate (and hopefully the human race will never see a government attempt to solve the problem by experimentation).
 * Human freedom
 * **1984:** In //1984//, freedom seems to be inherently tied to the concept of objective truth. As Winston puts it: “Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make for. If that is granted, all else follows” (Orwell 81).
 * **BNW:** In //Brave New World//, however, freedom is “the right to be unhappy.” Huxley emphasizes that it is important for human beings to live their lives without the safeguards of society, and that they should welcome the pain that is the consequence of a “free” lifestyle.
 * Consider the following exchange between John and Mustapha Mond: “[John:] ‘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.’ ‘In fact,’ said Mustapha Mond, ‘you’re claiming the right to be unhappy…not to mention the right to grow old and ugly and impotent; the right to have syphilis and cancer; the right to have too little to eat; the right to be lousy; the right to live in constant apprehension of what may happen tomorrow; the right to catch typhoid; the right to be tortured by unspeakable pains of every kind’” (Huxley 240). Here Huxley is saying that it is possible to be free, but it requires isolating oneself from industrialized society.
 * **Analysis:** It is interesting to note how these two books handle the idea of freedom so differently. Conversely, the two dystopias treat freedom in a very similar way: neither society has any laws, but thinking unorthodox thoughts is considered a crime against society, and the person who committed it will be re-conditioned. This difference in emphasis is an interesting topic to pursue when comparing the two novels and examining how they act as social commentaries and warnings.
 * The ruling party’s motives
 * **1984:** Orwell does not even set up a straw man argument to justify the Party’s methods—as O’Brien shamelessly admits, the Party’s only objectives are to remain in power and to continue to exercise that power by making others suffer.
 * **Example:** O’Brien: “All the others, even those who resembled ourselves, were cowards and hypocrites…They pretended, even believed, that that they had seized power unwillingly and for a limited time, and that just round the corner there would be a paradise where human beings would be free and equal. We are not like that…Power is not a means, it is an end…the object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power” (Orwell 263). As O’Brien explains here and on page 267, the Inner Party's only goal is to remain in power at the expense of everyone else below them.
 * **BNW:** Huxley, on the other hand, uses the character Mustapha Mond to explain how the World State justifies itself. Mond claims that the World State has a selfless purpose: it promises to ensure stability and provide happiness to humanity. Mond is not a brainwashed, cruel character like O’Brien—he admits that works of literature and art that were created before the World State are far superior to anything produced afterwards, and he laments the destruction of scientific thought. However, he reluctantly maintains that stability and happiness are more important than truth or freedom, which is his justification for the World State’s methods:
 * **Example 1:** Mustapha Mond justifying the World State: “‘It’s curious,’ he went on after a little pause, ‘to read what people in the time of Our Ford used to write about scientific progress. They seemed to have imagined that it could be allowed to go on indefinitely, regardless of everything else. Knowledge was the highest good, truth the supreme value; all the rest was secondary and subordinate…Our Ford himself did a great deal to shift the emphasis from truth and beauty to comfort and happiness. Mass production demanded the shift. Universal happiness keeps the wheels steadily turning; truth and beauty can’t…What’s the point of truth or beauty or knowledge when anthrax bombs are popping all around you? That was when science first began to be controlled…People were ready to have even their appetites controlled then. Anything for a quiet life. We’ve gone on controlling ever since. 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” (Huxley 228).
 * **Example 2:** An excerpt from a scene in which Mustapha Mond lectures a group of students: “‘Stability,’ said the Controller, ‘stability. No civilization without social stability. No social stability without individual stability.’ His voice was a trumpet. Listening they felt larger, warmer. The machine turns, turns, and must keep on turning—forever. It is death if it stands still…Wheels must turn steadily, but cannot turn untended. There must be men to tend them, men as steady as the wheels upon their axles, sane men, obedient men, stable in commitment” (Huxley 42). This explains the ultimate reason for stability: in an age of industrialization, stability is a necessity if the global technology society is to be maintained.
 * **Analysis:** These very different approaches are thought-provoking in themselves—why does Orwell have O’Brien blatantly denounce the Party’s motives? Why does Huxley use Mustapha Mond, who is probably the most intelligent and reasonable character in the novel, to defend the World State?
 * Relativism
 * Mutability of human nature
 * **1984:** Oceania is founded upon the idea that human nature is mutable—like the World State, the Party alters human nature so that people do not rebel against the government. The evidence of this technique is abundant and obvious—almost all of the “methods of control” explained in the previous section are examples. Orwell also discusses human nature in Part 3, and through O’Brien he explains the Party’s stance on the matter:
 * O’Brien: “We create human nature. Men are infinitely malleable” (Orwell 269). As O’Brien explains here and on page 267, the Party aims to manipulate human nature so that it is impossible for people to rebel. Though these quotes are not evidence in themselves, they summarize Winston and Julia’s ultimate fate, which can be seen as proof that Orwell agrees with the idea that human nature is not permanently fixed.
 * **BNW:** //Brave New World// explores this idea to an even greater extent; the World State erodes many of the ideas we consider to be natural, including fear of death, loyalty, and monogamy.
 * **Example:** Mustapha Mond, responding to the claim that religion is a part of human nature: “One believes things because one has been conditioned to believe them. Finding bad reasons for what one believes for other bad reasons—that’s philosophy. People believe in God because they’ve been conditioned to believe in God” (Huxley 235). It seems as though Mond would almost definitely agree with O’Brien on this subject, and since Huxley did write //Brave New World// as a warning it would appear that he also subscribes to this worldview. As discussed below, this idea that human nature is relative is also used as a justification for the World State.
 * **Analysis:** Both books seem to indicate that human beings are blank slates on which almost any design can be inscribed; this view raises many philosophical questions. In both cases, the reader is left to decide whether this draconian //modus// //operandi// is ethical. In //1984//, Orwell goes to great lengths to prove that it is decidedly immoral because the government has selfish motives. In //Brave New World// , on the other hand, the government’s motives can be interpreted as selfish, so the question is not as easy to answer. Both authors explore this question differently— //Brave New World// makes a religious argument against this idea of “subjective morality,” while //1984// combines the idea of “subjective morality” with the concept of “the mutability of the past.” These ideas are explored below:
 * Subjective reality vs. subjective morality
 * **1984:** The Party does not even attempt to justify its actions in terms of morals, but it does use its control over subjective reality as a rationalization. In Part 3, O’Brien states that “Nothing exists except through human consciousness” (Orwell 265). He goes on to explain that the Party’s version of reality is the only one that has any truth to it. This is presumably the reason why the Party is so obsessed with stamping out thoughtcrime, even when it is harmless: they refuse to allow any conflicting view of reality to exist.
 * **BNW:** Mond responding to the claim that the average person in the World State is “degraded” by the society: “Degrade him from what position? As a happy, hard-working, goods-consuming citizen he’s perfect. Of course, if you chose some standard other than ours, then perhaps you could say he was degraded. But you’ve got to stick to one set of postulates. You can’t play Electro-magnetic Golf according to the rules of Centrifugal Bumble-puppy” (Huxley 236). Mond is essentially arguing that it is impossible to make a moral argument against the World State because that argument would have to be based off of an outdated moral code. Interestingly, this idea of moral relativism did not become popular until the postmodern movement, which became prominent many years after //Brave New World// was written.
 * Religious themes
 * **1984:** Though //1984// does not discuss religion—Winston himself professes that he does not believe in God—there is some significance in the repeated phrase “God is power.” This phrase makes little sense if taken literally, but reversed (as “power is God”) it summarizes the methods of the Party: their power (defined by O’Brien as the ability to inflect pain) makes them the equivalent of God in Oceanian society.
 * **BNW:** //Brave New World// contains a more in-depth discussion of Christianity, and Huxley makes a religious argument against the World State. Like Anthony Burgess in //A Clockwork Orange//, Huxley argues that people should have free will because God exists and wants people to live this way.
 * The World State’s response to this argument, as Mustapha Mond explains, is that theology and philosophy did not take modernity and technology into account. Mond explains: “[God] manifests himself in different ways to different men. In premodern times he manifested himself as the being that’s described in those books. Now…he manifests himself as an absence; as though we weren’t there at all…Call it the fault of civilization. God isn’t compatible with machinery and scientific medicine and universal happiness. You must make your choice. Our civilization has chosen machinery and medicine and happiness” (Huxley 234). Here Mond simply reiterates the two arguments discussed above: 1) that religion is relative rather than objective, and, 2) that spirituality is not compatible with industrialization. The argument also echoes one of themes discussed above, that the ideals of the “old world” must be sacrificed in the name of stability.
 * Mond continues: “The gods are just. No doubt. But their code of law is dictated, in the last resort, by the people who organize society; Providence takes its cue from men” (Huxley 235). Once again Mond uses relativism as a counter-argument, claiming that human beings ultimately determine the nature of God (and, by extension, the nature of morality).
 * Language
 * **1984:** Language is an immensely important topic in //1984// : the Party uses Newspeak to restrict people’s ability to express themselves, and they use language manipulation for sadistic purposes.
 * **Example:** According to Orwell’s Appendix, which deals with Newspeak: “It was intended that when Newspeak has been adopted once and for all and Oldspeak forgotten, a heretical thought—that is, a thought diverging form the principles of Ingsoc—should be literally unthinkable, at least so far as thought is dependent on words” (Orwell 299).
 * **BNW:** Language is not as important a topic in //Brave New World// as it is in //1984//, and with the exception of making certain words (monogamy, family, mother, father, birth, etc.) taboo the World State does not practice language manipulation. However, Huxley does make his position on language manipulation clear, and interestingly it seems as though he would agree with the Party’s analysis if not their motives.
 * **Example:** In this passage, the narrator discusses John’s feelings towards his mother’s adulterer, Popé, after reading Shakespeare: “He hated Popé more and more…Remorseless, treacherous, lecherous, kindless villain. What did the words exactly mean? He only half knew. But their magic was strong and went on rumbling in his head, and somehow it was as though he had never really hated Popé before; never really hated him because he had never been able to say how much he hated him. But now he had these words, these words like strange drums and singing and magic…they gave him a reason for hating Popé; and they made his hatred more real; they even made Popé himself more real” (Huxley 132).