An Analysis of the Caste System

As mentioned earlier, the World State is separated into castes based on intelligence from Alpha to Epsilon in the Greek alphabet, from most to least intelligence. Each caste is assigned a color for immediate identification, with Alphas wearing gray, Betas mulberry, Deltas green, Gamma khaki, and Epsilons black. Each caste is sub-divided into pluses and minuses, although all wear the same color regardless of being an Alpha-plus or Alpha-minus. To reinforce the lower caste’s feeling that the upper castes are superior and to keep the lower castes in their place, the higher the caste the taller the person is. All castes are subjected to hypnopaedia, the process of listening to phrases repeatedly during sleep, throughout their childhood. All are given some of the same sentences, such as “cleanliness is next to fordliness”, but are also given certain different phrases. The Director of Hatcheries and Conditioning explains the separate hypnopaedia for each caste “And that… is the secret of happiness and virtue- liking what you’ve got to do. All conditioning aims at that: making people like their inescapable social destiny”. Children are conditioned to accept their caste from the day they are born. Alphas have the high-intelligence jobs, like designing research experiments and being college professors. Betas have the high intelligence jobs that require little thought and creativity, like being lab technicians. Deltas have jobs like being nurses, which requires some but not a great deal of intelligence. Deltas have jobs like piloting helicopters or being the doorman at a hotel, jobs that require no intelligence but do require the person to be visible. Epsilons take jobs such as being janitors, which require no intelligence or for the person to be visible.

Like Huxley’s society as a whole, readers may have different opinions about whether the merits of the caste system. The caste system brings a form of happiness, as the people are trained to enjoy the job they have to perform, and also brings efficiency and prosperity to society, as each individual part operating at maximum efficiency, which is a result of training, can produce large amounts of goods and services to meet the needs and wants of all members of society. However, especially in America where equality of opportunity is considered sacrosanct, at least in theory, the complete and total lack of social mobility can be a major downside for many people. Also, should a person be misplaced in the social order, he can be discontented and spread dissent among his peers. As I lean towards the World State over current society, I also lean towards the caste system. What differentiates this caste system to feudalism or other forms of the caste system we’ve had in the past is that the caste system of the World State is not drawn arbitrarily, and does not discriminate. Regardless of how intelligent a peasant was, he was still a peasant, and regardless of how stupid and foolish a lord was, he would retain his nobility. However, in the World State, caste level is based solely on intelligence, which, while determined by genetics, does not put someone into a caste he does not fit in. Also, all castes from Alpha-double plus to Epsilon-minus are granted the same rights to happiness; the desires of a higher caste will never supersede the desires of a lower caste. Because the caste system is fair both in its distribution of members and its treatment of them once they are placed within the system, and its great benefit to society through increased productivity, the caste system of the World State is superior to current systems of social ranking.

The Savage's Last Days

Near the end of the book, after Jon is brought to London, he witnesses his mother’s death. He goes outside and sees a group of Gammas receiving their soma rations, which infuriates him. He attacks the man distributing the tablets and begins to destroy them, and the Gammas begin attacking him. Helmholtz Watson, another person who thinks freely and intellectually rebels against the State, walks into the crowd and begins to help Jon while Marx watches from afar. All three are arrested for their rebellion against the State. After a discussion with Mustapha Mond, the World Controller for Western Europe, Watson and Marx are sent to an island where the State isolates those intelligent people who manage to think freely, but Jon is barred from going. Mond grants him an abandoned watch tower in the countryside where he can live alone. Jon begins a life of self-deprivation, fasting and working strenuously on a daily basis. He also regularly whips himself, all to make up for the life of leisure he had while in London. He is repeatedly harassed by reporters, and one day Crowne is brought to him. Since the two met at the Savage Reservation, Jon had a crush on Crowne. In London, she develops a love for him, and visits him in his room in order to have sex, which is perfectly acceptable in the society of the World State; everyone is believed to be the property of everyone else. However, in Savage Society, they believe in strict morality regarding sex and marriage, and Jon calls her a whore and she flees his room. When he sees her at his house later, he attacks her with his whip, and she flees in a helicopter. Confused by the harassing of reporters and his conflicting feelings of love and hatred for Crowne, Jon hangs himself, ending the novel.

Huxley uses the rebellion of Jon, Watson and Marx to show that once a utopian society is formed, it becomes nearly impossible to dislodge it, as dissent is quickly put down. The only way for society to be free is to prevent the creation of utopias; dislodging one is not a viable option. Jon attempts specifically to incite rebellion among the Deltas, or the lower castes, and both of those who help him, Marx and Helmholtz, are both Alpha-pluses, showing that the lower classes are likely to remain content with utopia, and any and all change must come from the higher, more intelligent people. Huxley uses Jon's death to show how damaging and confusing a utopian society can be to those who are developed intellectually and emotionally, and to further show the futility of trying to dislodge a utopian society, once it is created. Huxley is correct, in that it would be extremely difficult to make people of lower intelligence realize the damaging nature of a society that seems to provide all of their wants needs. The Savage's death is an interesting end to Brave New World; it begins essentially the same way as it started, a utopian society with no end and sight, and the characters fail, despite their best efforts, to make the slightest difference in the world.

The Savage Reservation

Certain areas of the earth were considered to be too expensive and difficult to civilize, and were set aside as Savage Reservations. Marx, as an Alpha-plus psychologist, obtained special privilege to go to the Reservation and observe the Savages, and takes Crowne with him. When they first arrive, they witness a brutal ritual where the Savages whip a boy as he walks around a pit of snakes, offering his blood to their gods. After the ceremony they find the house of a woman who had once been a member of the World State, who had a son who could speak both English and the tongue of the Savages. Because of the shame of being a mother, the woman never returns to London. After talking to the boy about his life, where he was shunned by the tribe for his light complexion, Marx befriends him because of their shared status as outsiders, and takes him back to the World State for studying.

Huxley uses the Savage Reservation to contrast the World State. While the one is free and connected to nature, the other is restrained and mechanical. However, Huxley does not mean to praise the Savages. In some ways, their practices are more perverse than those of civilized society. Self-abuse and constant sacrifice are exalted in their society, and the people live in absolute squalor, with little development or happiness. Huxley uses the Reservation and the State to say that human beings are trapped “between insanity on the one hand and lunacy on the other” (vii). Returning to the past can cause us insanity, with a devotion to tradition that can prevent adaptation and lead to desolation for the people. Rushing into the future with utopian ideals can destroy our freedoms. Both major paths before humans can lead to their own forms of ruin, and we as a society must find another way into the future in order to avoid our own madness.

The Ford Complex

One of the more interesting features of the World State is that the concept of God has been replaced by Henry Ford. The religion of the book focuses not on a supernatural being such as a god, but is rather a form of idol-worship on steroids. Ford has many specific comparisons to God; pronouns replacing Ford are capitalized; the people have a saying “cleanliness is next to fordliness”; the time is measures in A.F. and B.F, after and before Ford respectively, with 0Af starting in 1910 A.D. with the production of Ford’s first Model T, or T-Model, as it is called in the book. Every word of Henry Ford is considered to be sacred and must be followed, although the State most likely only publishes those statements that agree with it. The State’s hymns idolize Ford, and the people engage in a strange pseudo-religious ritual involving prayers to Ford and drugs to unite twelve members as one mind, representing the societal conformity Ford imagined.

Huxley means to use the worship of Ford as a critique of the World State, showing the sacrifice of religion in achieving utopia. It can be seen as a specific critique of communist states; Russia communists tried to eliminate the church because it divided the people into factions, and tried to create hero worship of Lenin during Huxley’s time, as Brave New World was written in 1932, and later hero worship of Stalin. While Huxley means to use this as a critique of state-controlled religion, I personally interpret it differently. I see any religion whatsoever as a means of repressing the people and stifling social discontent, and the World State obviously uses the worship of Ford to that end. Hinduism is a perfect example of the use of religion for oppressive purposes; the caste system makes it the religious duty of the peasants to stay in their place. Christianity’s promise of Heaven for those do good deeds on Earth is a great way to prevent peasant uprisings; if one believes that something better is in store after death, he is less likely to rebel against evils on Earth, which is furthered by the belief that suffering is simply God’s will. Huxley is warning against the danger to religion posed by a centrally controlled society, and he uses the Savages devotion to religion to show that strong belief in religion can effectively oppose such a tyrannical society.

Chapters 1-3

The first chapter begins with a tour of the Central London Hatchery and Conditioning Centre, led by the Centre’s director, for a group of new scientists who are to work at there. This tour introduces the reader to many of the aspects of the World State, a global government that exercises absolute control over every inch of the planet. In this futuristic society, motherhood no longer exists; children are raised from embryos in a solution of nutrients. Embryos are divided into castes based on intelligence level. The castes are, in order from most to least intelligent, Alpha, Beta, Delta, Gamma, Epsilon, and the caste system will be explored more in depth in a future post. Another characteristic of this world is that God has been replaced by Henry Ford, whose developing the assembly line was the starting moment for this utopian society, and this will be explored more in depth in a later post as well. One mean for obtaining stability is the maintenance of the happiness of the people. From birth, children are subjected to hypnopaedia, where they are constantly, during their sleep, read a line the State wants them to know, and it is forever ingrained in their heads. They are also given the drug soma, which creates pleasant hallucinations with no side effects, and are conditioned to take some instead of brooding over discontent, preventing dissent against the State.

The World State is an exceptionally interesting society, and an interesting concept. It provides no freedom, yet all of its citizens are happy. It has eliminated disease, hunger and war; it has created productivity unimaginable to any society that came before. Yet, these benefits come at a cost. Religion is replaced with Ford, as mentioned earlier, and the State is the true follower of Ford, meaning that the State has effectively replaced religion. Virtually all freedoms are eliminated. From birth, children have their career paths set for them. All writers must submit their works to the State before being published, to ensure their ideas are compatible with social order. All of those with different, unique, unorthodox behavior are shipped to islands where their dissidence can’t spread. The question is: are order and happiness worth sacrificing freedom? This is a question for the reader and society as a whole to decide.

About the Book

Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World is a story about a futuristic, utopian society, and the struggles of those who live in it. It explores many themes, such as genetic engineering, conformity of the individual, and government’s role in society.