Brave New World: Debate

Mady Bridwell
Moseley
Brave New World: Debate Surveillance
Opening Speech:

In most cases, past, present, and the written future, surveillance can be expressed through methods such as recording audibly or visually. When we think of surveillance, we tend to think of video cameras, or of security guards watching society’s every move. The same situations are not expressed in Huxley’s Brave New World. Surveillance, by definition, is close watch or observation kept over someone or something. While the citizens of the brave new world are strictly controlled, they are, for the most part, not constantly observed in any way, shape or form.
"‘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.’" (Huxley 16) This is spoken by the director, one of the people who are responsible for the conditioning and psychological control of each member of society. Through the words, “Making people like their inescapable social destiny,” he implies that it is his duty to bind each person mentally to their place in society and to assure that they are happy, despite how truthfully horrid that place may be.
“‘I don't want to play with Delta children. And Epsilons are still worse. They're too stupid to be able to read or write.’” (Huxley 27) Referring to the obvious incapabilities and lack of intellect on the part of the lower cast members this quote emphasizes the point that those in society who serve the most undesirable of lives are too “stupid” to rebel or to realize how awful their lives are. Those who are smart enough to understand social standards are living such grand lives that they are untroubled by the structure of the government.
“‘Do you like being slaves?’ the Savage was saying… ‘Don’t you want to be free and men? Don’t you understand what manhood and freedom are?’” (Huxley 212) These are words shouted to incomprehensible Epsilons by John as he attempts to rouse them into rebellion and revolution. When they simply stand there stupidly, this only proves the fact that they are so incredibly psychologically controlled that, even when being persuaded to resist and rebel, they are incapable of thinking or acting in ways that may be threatening to the safety or the structure of the government.
As stated by Huxley, “...most men and women will grow up to love their servitude and will never dream of revolution…Stability was practically assured.”

Therefore, we can conclude that the societal safety of the brave new world does not rely on surveillance, but the psychological control or imprisonment of each person. The government does not need surveillance when each member of society is trapped in his or her own mind.
In most futuristic satires or dystopian novels, there will be a separate setting or community with contrasting utopian characteristics, which the author puts in place to emphasize the undesirable and immoral qualities of the dystopia in question. In The Hunger Games series, the utopian area would be District Thirteen as opposed to the capital. In Huxley’ Brave New World, this certain community of utopian characteristics is none other than the Savage Reservation, Malpais.
He describes the area as a place that has “survived” the forth coming of the new society (the brave new world). Huxley attempts to convey to the reader that this reservation is the more ethical and humane place in which to reside in the time of Brave New World, and therefore puts it in a position of morality. To us, it is meant to seem as the more desirable and correct choice of lifestyle.
In the Savage Reservation, we find that Huxley has included no surveillance whatsoever, whether it be physical—involving video cameras or audiotapes—or mental—being the psychological confinement undergone by the members of the brave new world. As John states to Mustapha Mond, “‘I like the inconveniences.’ ‘We don't,' said the Controller. 'We prefer to do things comfortably.' ‘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.' Mustapha Mond said, 'You're claiming the right to be unhappy. Not to mention the right to grow old and ugly and impotent… the right to live in constant apprehension of what may happen tomorrow… the right to be tortured by unspeakable pains of every kind.' There was a long silence. ‘I claim them all,' said the Savage at last.” (Huxley 240) This conversation displays the admirable desires of the members of the savage reservation to experience truth and honest emotion in their lives rather than the lies that the people of the brave new world are living. It shows once more that Malpais is meant as refuge from the undesirable system of the brave new world.
If Huxley meant for the reservation to pose as a utopian haven set aside from the deplorable structure of the Brave new world, then the lack of surveillance refers to his opinion that surveillance is not necessary for personal happiness or safety.

Refutation: Written by Madyson Bridwell

Summation:

We can safely conclude that Huxley does not believe societal surveillance is necessary for personal safety. Physical surveillance is completely nonessential to the community of the brave new world when the citizens are so thoroughly confined and imprisoned in their own minds by psychological conditioning and manipulation. As previously stated, the only instances of surveillance regard the assurance of progression and smooth development of the society rather than any sort of personal safety and are completely irrelevant to the topic. Because Huxley demonstrates Malpais as a utopia and safe haven while including no type of surveillance whatsoever, he expresses his opinion that societal surveillance is unnecessary for personal safety. So, when considering the differences between the brave new world and the savage reservation, as well as Huxley’s displays of each community, which lifestyle would he suggest you favour? Which opinion would you side with? What would Huxley believe is the morally correct choice, and what would you consider to be his view on surveillance, when it so clearly expressed in the contrasting apparatuses he portrays of a hell and a haven?

Quotes Used and Considered (Regardless of use in actual debate):
"Till at last the child's mind is these suggestions, and the sum of the suggestions is the child's mind. And not the child's mind only. The adult's mind too-all his life long. The mind that judges and desire and decides-made up of these suggestions. But all these suggestions are our suggestions... Suggestions from the State.”

“The world's stable now. People are happy; they get what they want, and they never want what they can't get."

"Expecting Deltas to know what liberty is! And now expecting them to understand Othello! My good boy!"


"We want the whip!"


“The real hopeless victims of mental illness are to be found among those who appear to be most normal. "Many of them are normal because they are so well adjusted to our mode of existence, because their human voice has been silenced so early in their lives, that they do not even struggle or suffer or develop symptoms as the neurotic does." They are normal not in what may be called the absolute sense of the word; they are normal only in relation to a profoundly abnormal society. Their perfect adjustment to that abnormal society is a measure of their mental sickness. These millions of abnormally normal people, living without fuss in a society to which, if they were fully human beings, they ought not to be adjusted.”
― Aldous Huxley, Brave New World Revisited

“All right then," said the savage defiantly, I'm 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."
There was a long silence.
"I claim them all," said the Savage at last.”

“...Most men and women will grow up to love their servitude and will never dream of revolution.”

"Stability was practically assured.”

“The Savage nodded, frowning. "You got rid of them. Yes, that's just like you. Getting rid of everything unpleasant instead of learning to put up with it. Whether 'tis better in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows or outrageous fortune, or to take arms against a sea of troubles and by opposing end them...But you don't do either. Neither suffer nor oppose. You just abolish the slings and arrows. It's too easy."

“What you need," the Savage went on, "is something with tears for a change. Nothing costs enough here.”

“One believes things because one has been conditioned to believe them.”

“Great is truth, but still greater, from a practical point of view, is silence about truth.”

“Ending is better than mending.”