In his novel, Brave New World
“I suppose Epsilons don’t really mind being Epsilons,” she said aloud.
“Of course they don’t. How can they? They don’t know what it’s like being anything else. We’d mind, of course. But then we’ve been differently conditioned. Besides, we start with a different heredity.”
“I’m glad I’m not an Epsilon…”
“And if you were an Epsilon…your conditioning would have made you no less thankful that you weren’t a Beta or Alpha…Everybody’s happy now.”
“Yes, everybody’s happy now.” (74-75)
If an Epsilon was responsible for setting those clocks, think of the relief she must have felt when she moved that four-thousandth clock-hand to, let’s say, 11:58 P.M. Can you see her standing on a stepladder beneath that final clock, her eyes on the second-hand as it ticks around the face? Do you think her palms sweat? Is she anxious about what’s to happen? And when the second-hand, the minute-hand, and the hour-hand all tick forward together, in this clock and in every clock, 1,200 hands moving at once, and the joyful blast of the bells, four thousand strong, sing the chimes of midnight, mustn’t that moment, even for an Epsilon, feel magical?
Of course, in Brave New World, every moment feels magical, thanks to soma, a designer drug that makes “the flowers of the present rosily blossom” (104). And when soma is out of reach, the moment still feels magical, thanks to the complex mix of genetic engineering, “Neo-Pavlovian Conditioning” (19), and “Hympnopædic” (25) moral education that aims at “making people like their inescapable social destiny” (16). In Brave New World, negative feelings have not been outlawed as much as they’ve been eradicated, and only those who are “stunted” (46) still feel “glum” (54).
Yet, in a world where sadness is a sign of sickness, Huxley somehow finds a moody individual to cast as his main character. The reason is obvious—the outsider perspective is preferred when the topic is the systematic description of a given society. But reasonable or not, by choosing to follow this particular character, Huxley neglects the life experienced by the majority of brave new worldians, and this choice makes everything he writes reek of elitism. Would anybody but an elitist suggest that art, science, and God (230) are more important to the average person than “universal happiness” (234)?
This is not to say the brave new world Huxley imagines is not frightening in its prophetic range, but his condemnation of it demonstrates a distinct lack of sympathy for the reality of the real, live underclass in this world. Yes, we should be wary of any movement that would reject “the liberty of the subject” (46), enact “the conscription of consumption” (49), and massacre “[e]ight-hundred Simple Lifers [for suggesting humanity go] back to nature” (49-50). But shouldn’t we also be wary of the writer who offers, instead, only more of the same? Remind me: when was the last time art, science, or God provided even a moment of universal happiness? We’re born crying.
Huxley wants his reader to be afraid of his Brave New World (the suicide of one of his main characters confirms it), but that’s only because, as a writer and as a person, he neglects to stand beneath that four thousandth clock and look through eyes of an Epsilon. He doesn’t do this because, for Huxley, suffering is noble: “Getting rid of everything unpleasant instead of learning to put up with it…. It’s too easy…What you need is something with tears for a change. Nothing costs enough here” (238-239).
Only a man who lives luxuriously enough to pay would bemoan the lack of a price. For members of the underclass, however, for the Epsilons of today and tomorrow, free happiness might be worth more than honor. Huxley doesn’t understand this, and so, with his character, he claims “the right to be unhappy” (240).
Huxley uses Shakespeare to do much of his arguing against the brave new world. Perhaps Shakespeare
