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One of the more interesting features of the World State is that the concept of God has been replaced by Henry Ford.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.