Give me a McMansion - Americans
Mustapha Mond, World State Controller, believes that the population is better off with happiness than truth. In the Brave New World happiness is represented by immediate gratification of every citizen's desire for food, sex, drugs, nice clothes, and other consumer trinkets. If the proletariats think they are happy, they won't need to think or question reality. The World State cannot allow individuality to blossom. Free thinking individuals seek the truth. Spending time alone is considered an outrageous waste of time and money. Confession to a craving for individuality is shocking, horrifying, and embarrassing. John, the savage, grew up outside the World State and has studied Shakespeare. Everything that Shakespeare stood for: passion, love, intensity, seeking truth, relationships, and tragic endings, are at odds with the World State foundation. They cannot allow truth and true human happiness to exist in society or the Alphas will lose control.
The United States is the richest most powerful country in the history of the world. Our poorest live better than the aristocracy lived 100 years ago. We have indoor plumbing, air conditioning, heaters, clean water, automobiles, trains, jet airplanes, televisions, CD players, portable gadgets galore, free public education, fast food, gyms to work off the fast food, movies, the internet, restaurants, bars, concerts, sporting events, casinos, home improvement stores, grocery stores, discount stores, Wal-Mart, clothes stores, jewelry stores, dollar stores, churches, Disney World, Las Vegas, and Graceland. These are the things that are supposed to make Americans happy. Going into the woods alone, like Thoreau, to think, is frowned upon. The propagandists sell the American public happiness in the form of material goods and services. If you don't feel happy, take a pill. If you aren't happy with your appearance, have plastic surgery. If your spouse isn't making you happy, cheat or get a divorce and try again. If your neighbor outdoes you by getting a $20,000 kitchen remodel, get yourself a $40,000 kitchen remodel. Happiness is a 6,000 sq ft McMansion with 5 bathrooms, a pool, game room, and Jacuzzi for your family of three. Having your neighbors see you driving a BMW 750Li will surely make you happy. Wearing a Rolex will definitely make you happy. If you die with the most toys, you're still dead. Until reading a book to your three year old at bedtime is valued more than staying at the office until 10:00 pm to complete an investment offering, our society is destined for decline. Ours is not to reason why, but simply to do and die with a bare minimum of fuss.
In the Brave New World the policies of the State dehumanize the population. Stability and artificially induced happiness are more imperative than humanity and truth. Mustapha Mond explains to John that social stability has required the sacrifice of art, science, and religion. John protests that, without these things, human life is not worth living. After John eventually succumbs to the lure of the World State version of happiness, he hangs himself. An ending truly worthy of a Shakespearean tragedy. The pillars of our society are based upon the acquisition of material possessions using debt. Our society glorifies steroid taking athletes, sex crazed sports icons, drugged out entertainment personalities, vacuous TV housewives, and moronic cosmetically enhanced movie stars. Those who seek truth through questioning the status quo or digging for answers to questions the State doesn't want asked, risk alienation and scorn. The Alphas (bankers) of our society issue the debt and convince the masses that accumulating more stuff will make them happy. The Alphas (media titans) use their mass media to persuade, manipulate, and sell their message of material happiness to the masses. The Alphas (politicians) use the taxes collected from the masses and the dollars printed by the bankers to distribute social welfare benefits to the lower classes, keeping them sedated and under control. Seeking the truth through the study of literature, the questioning of authority, and pondering of our existence on this earth are rare. Those who question and doubt the propaganda put out by those in authority are shunned and denigrated as being unpatriotic.
Most ignorance is vincible ignorance. We don't know because we don't want to know.
Aldous Huxley
Dangers of an All-Powerful State
Freedom is therefore a great good, tolerance a great virtue and regimentation a great misfortune. Meanwhile there is still some freedom left in the world. Many young people, it is true, do not seem to value freedom. But some of us still believe that, without freedom, human beings cannot become fully human and that freedom is therefore supremely valuable. Perhaps the forces that now menace freedom are too strong to be resisted for very long. It is still our duty to do whatever we can to resist them.
Aldous Huxley
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