Page 30 - Community Living Magazine 35-1

history
Brave New World: satire or blueprint?

Aldous Huxley’s disturbing novel included human ‘defectives’ over by other, more “vigorous” nations
specially created to do menial work. Was he attacking the idea who had got their eugenic policies in order.
Much as the differing fictional visions of
or somewhat sympathetic to it? asks Susanna Shapland Huxley and Wells had shown, there was

remarkably little agreement over the
ldous Huxley’s satirical novel Brave practical application of eugenics despite
New World was published in 1932. widespread faith in its efficacy. Eugenicists
AIts primary target was American disagreed over how best to arrest the birth
culture, which he feared was in the rate of “undesirables”, with ideas ranging
ascendant, especially with what he saw as from birth control to the “lethal chamber”.
its impersonal production lines, unthinking Opinion coalesced around sterilisation of
consumption and homogeneous, low- the unfit, voluntary to begin with but, it was
brow culture that discouraged hoped, leading to compulsory measures, as
individualism and freedom of thought. had been seen across America and Europe.
Consequently, the citizens of his Brave There was also confusion over who the
New World are not born but engineered unfit actually were – but all agreed they
in a laboratory, then conditioned to fulfil included the “mentally deficient”. This
various predestined roles. vague term had been enshrined in law, with
It was also Huxley’s riposte to the people categorised as “idiots”, “imbeciles”,
optimistic futuristic visions of authors such “feeble-minded” and “moral defectives” by
as HG Wells, particularly Wells’ novel Men the 1913 Mental Deficiency Act.
Like Gods (1923), which featured a utopia Backed by the increasingly influential
consisting solely of eugenically engineered Eugenics Society, Labour MP Major
elites. Huxley thought this society Archibald Church attempted to introduce a
impractical as there would be no one willing voluntary sterilisation bill targeting “mental
to do physical and dirty work. defectives” into parliament in 1931.
The eugenically engineered society he His colleague Dr Hyacinth Morgan spoke
devised includes an elite, designated against it, denouncing it as “anti-working
alphas and betas; they are supported by a Although aspects of Brave New World horrified class legislation” introduced from the
bedrock of engineered working classes: Huxley, he supported sterilising the “unfit” “pinnacle of intellectual snobbery”, and
gammas, deltas and epsilons. These an “anti-democratic, anti-Christian,
workers are created, scores at a time, control by a meritocracy to implement unethical bill” (Hansard, 1931).
from embryos treated to impede cognitive eugenic policies could thus achieve The bill was roundly defeated but the
development by being deprived of oxygen societal stability – and he explored these threat of voluntary sterilisation for mental
or dosed with alcohol. ideas in his non-fiction work. Like many defectives continued, officially endorsed
The epsilons are the most damaged, others at the time, Huxley supported by subsequent government and medical
and perform the most repetitive and sterilising the “unfit” (Woiak, 2007). committees, and unofficially by influential
unpleasant jobs; but they, like the other figures such as Huxley and Wells.
castes, are kept happy and compliant Eugenics and fear for the future However, no legislation was introduced.
through regular drug use, consumerism Support for some form of eugenics was The extent of the Nazi atrocities committed
and frequent, no-consequence sex. extremely common across the political in the name of eugenics ensured that, in
Brave New World was also born of spectrum in the interwar years, including Britain at least, it never was. n
Huxley’s deeply gloomy feelings about among left-wing intellectuals and activists.
the state of society and the future of Playwright George Bernard Shaw, birth- References and further reading
civilisation, something he shared with many control pioneer Marie Stopes and Brignell V (2010) The eugenics movement
of his contemporaries, including Wells. architect of the welfare state William Britain wants to forget. New Statesman; Christie’s Images/Bridgeman Images/British Library; design by Leslie Holland/estate of LCW Holland; CC BY-NC 4.0
9 December. https://tinyurl.com/fwa9hy4v
When he wrote the book in 1931, Beveridge were all vocal eugenicists. Freedland J (2012) Eugenics: the skeleton that
Britain was reeling from the Wall Street The poor health of recruits in the Boer rattles loudest in the left’s closet. The Guardian.
Crash and the subsequent economic and First World Wars had provoked panic 17 February. https://tinyurl.com/acjpjh89
instability of the Great Depression, as well about the fitness of Britain’s population. Hansard. (1931) Sterilization. Vol 255, col
as what many saw as a failure of This was understood within the 1252-1256, 21 July. https://tinyurl.com/aun7esna
parliamentary democracy. framework of inheritance and genetics, Huxley A (2014) Brave New World. Vintage.
While Huxley found many aspects of his with eugenic controls and breeding Huxley A (1958) Brave New World Revisited.
Brave New World ridiculous or horrific, he increasingly presented as the solution. Chatto and Windus. https://www.huxley.net/
used writing as a way to work through Alarm and despair at the idea that those bnw-revisited
Overy R (2010) The Morbid Age: Britain and
ideas about how an improved society of “poor genetic stock” were outbreeding the Crisis of Civilization 1919-1939. Penguin
might function. their “superiors” gave rise to apocalyptic Woiak J (2007) Designing a brave new world:
Brave New World considers how predictions for the future, not least that eugenics, politics, and fiction. Public History.
Communist-style planning and rigid Britain would be overtaken and then taken 29(3):105-29

30 Vol 35 No 1 | Autumn 2021 Community Living www.cl-initiatives.co.uk