Reduction of Human Possibilities

The mechanization of society is a frightening idea because the average person knows that conditioning is involved in the process. In the past, there have been both positive and negative forms of conditioning a society, or the forcing of constant repetition by an instructor or some kind of official for the purpose of achieving a goal. Two books that deal with the negative out comes of conditioning are Hard Times and Brave New World. These books deal with different types of ecosystems and how they both interrelate in terms of how they are run. At the same time, the specific processes of conditioning a society in each book differ from one another. Both books go into great detail on how that particular process leads to dire results for a society, by homing in on specific human lives. These human lives go through the turmoil of living in a mechanized society where logic is the prevalent tool, and those lives generally end in a tragic way because of the restrictions imposed on them.

This idea of running a society simply through logic or cold hard facts is prevalent throughout Charles Dickens’ Hard Times. The book details a state of reduction on people’s lives in England. The setting is a fictional town by the name of Coketown, where free will for the citizens residing there has been vanquished. It’s a very subtle process of constant repetition of facts without any elaboration or thought process involved. This kind of conditioning is first seen by the reader in chapter 2, where a young school girl by the name of Sissy Jupe can’t seem to get a handle on the instructions given to her by Mr. Gradgrind who has established the school she is attending. He wants her to simply define a horse, through the process of just stating fact. Sissy doesn’t have an answer because she knows that hers would be too original and elaborate. A boy in the class by the name of Bitzer gives the precise answer that Gradgrind was looking for and then defines how a person should answer a question in this society by stating that, “You are to be in all things regulated and governed…by fact… You are not to have…what would be a contradiction in fact… You must use…mathematical figures which are susceptible of proof and demonstration… This is fact. This is taste.” What’s apparent here is that this conditioning process happens at a young age.

It’s a very subtle process because a person would never realize that they might be losing something. By reinstating the learning of nothing but fact, what a person like Sissy Jupe could eventually possibly lose is her imagination. An example of this is when Gradgrind sees his two children looking at the circus by their home. Gradgrind is furious and says to his son Thomas that, “…you, to whom the circle of the sciences is open…who may be said to be replete with facts…you, who have been trained to mathematical exactness; Thomas and you, here…In this degraded position. I am amazed.” What becomes apparent to anyone surveying this society is that imagination ceases to exist because it leads a person to experience free will, which is not a logical and precise process. Free will could get in the way of getting the job done in the society, which is basically keeping the factories running. Later Gradgrind, along with a friend by the name of Bounderby who ironically runs many factories in Coketown, agrees that it was probably Sissy Jupe who led the children to the circus. They decide that she needs a strict upbringing and so Bounderby looks after her for many years. What’s ironic here is that Sissy was not just there for leisure, but instead tried to find her father who works at the circus. She wanted to take care of him because he is an alcoholic without really any money. What Gradgrind and Bounderby do not realize is that what may be construed as leisure is also done for an important purpose.

Why this particular society is tragic because of the restrictions imposed on it are shown in the details presented later in the book, when the Gradgrind children grow up. Gradgrind’s daughter Louisa is being forced by her father to marry Bounderby. Because Louisa has been conditioned to believe that she doesn’t have any free choice, she acccepts the offer. However, a reader can see that this was not at all what she wanted because she’s attracted to a man by the name of James Harthouse, who means to seduce her. Louisa doesn’t even get a chance to experience what her and Harthouse would be like as a couple because she can’t stand her fathers strict policies any more, and decides to confront him and tells him in chapter 12 of the second book what she feels about her upbringing. She states to him, “How could you give me life, and take from me all the inappreciable things that raise it from the state of conscious death? Where are the graces of my soul? Where are the sentiments of my heart…if you had known that there lingered in my breast, sensibilities, affections, weaknesses…defying all the calculations ever made by man…would you have given me the husband whom I am now sure I hate…Would you have robbed me…of the immaterial part of my life…my refuge from what is sordid and bad in the real things around me…” What Louisa is basically stating to her father is that she really is left with nothing in the end, because she’s trapped in an existence where she is not free and is constantly looked after, and she can’t even have some leisure to take her mind off her problems. Why Gradgrind never allowed his daughter to explore other possibilities is because he felt that if she experienced a little harmless fun, she would start to have free will and begin to imagine what her life would be like if it were different. What’s ironic and makes this story a satire on the mechanization of society, is that Louisa rebelled against her father anyway and came to the realization that she’s being burdened by him.

Another person who comes to the realization that they do not have any free will is a poor hand who works at the factories by the name of Stephen Blackpool; his story is even more tragic than Louisa’s. He constantly experiences the trappings of society; whether it’s the refusal from Bounderby for allowing him to divorce his wife in chapter 11 of the second book, or the expulsion from Coketown because he was fired from his job for not agreeing to join the union in chapter 4 of the second book. What’s apparent here is that in both Louisa’s case and Blackpool’s, their life is tragic because in the particular society that they live in, there should be no deviation from the rules at hand. This is what the conditioning process has ultimately led to; a lack of freedom.

Another rebel in the family is Thomas, who robs the bank that Bounderby owns. In chapter 8 of the second book it’s believed that Blackpool is the one that commited the crime, because he was seen outside the bank. Blackpool decides to forever stay out of Coketown and leave his love Rachael behind. He is eventually found by Sissy, Rachael, and Louisa in a well where he has fallen (chap 6 book 3). Even though he is retrieved, Blackpool dies. What he has to say right before he succumbs is very appropriate for what all the characters who lack free will in Coketown feel but cannot express and that is, “…aw a muddle! Fro’ first to last, a muddle!” This muddle that Blackpool describes has resulted from the conditioning that everyone in Coketown has experienced, of never being allowed to wonder.

A similar situation is present in A Brave New World, only under a new context. Because the story takes place in the future, the processes of conditioning this particular society are much more elaborate than they were in Hard Times. What’s present in this society are conditioning centers, where ova that is fertilized produces human beings. This is done for the purpose of getting rid of the family structure. Parenthood is no longer required, because in this society it’s deemed as being too strong of a relationship factor. Relationships in the brave new world are seen as being detrimental to the society.

There’s also a caste system present in the society. Each fetus is determined as being an alpha, beta, gamma, delta, or epsilon. The alpha children, which are deemed the most intelligent caste, have to also work the hardest, while the betas do not have to work as hard, even though they are more intelligent than the gammas, deltas, and epsilons. There’s also the actual conditioning process, given to young children known as hypnopedia. This is a process where children are asleep but still receive suggestions from a voice coming from an electronic instrument. It’s a basic indoctrination technique which is alluded to in chapter 2. The description of the hypnopedia process can make a reader who has read Hard Times believe that this society is just a further extension of the one in the previous book; it’s just more scientifically based and stricter. In actuality, it is somewhat different because now the new adage that the resident world controller has given to the citizens of the world state is that no one is allowed to “leisure from pleasure.”

The only rule of the brave new world is to experience pleasure; if a person is ever depressed they should take the soma drug, they should constantly be hedonistic and not stay in a serious relationship. Sex is actually the only so-called religious experience that the citizens of the brave new world experience. In chapter 5, the character Bernard (an Alpha who is more altruistic than the rest of the inhabitants of the brave new world) goes to a solidarity service where hymns play and soma is passed around, resulting in an orgy. Any reader reading this section is well aware that this is not religion and because of this, it’s a very disturbing passage.

This question of religion and how it fits into the new world is answered by the resident controller Mustapha Mond when he talks to the main character in the book by the name of John. John is known as the savage because he comes from a reservation area that’s basically a wasteland, filled with people who are very different from the denizens of the new world. Bernard and a woman that he cares for by the name of Lenina were visiting there and brought John back with them. Bernard did this for selfish reasons in order to make himself a celebrity in the new world, while Lenina actually cares for the savage and wants to have a relationship with him.

John is incredibly repulsed by the new world because of the careless pleasure seeking that he witnesses. In his mind, there is no actual striving for human knowledge or for something beyond oneself. At one point in the story he gets in trouble with the law for throwing soma out of a window. This soma belonged to delta workers and consequently what he did was a grave offense. Once John sees the resident controller in chapters 16 and 17, all his questions about this society are answered, and yet John remains unsatisfied.

What John learn is that with religion, the process of going beyond oneself and being altruistic, runs against the notions of the brave new world. The resident controller says to John that, “The greatest care is taken to prevent you from loving any one too much…you’re so conditioned that you can’t help doing what you ought to do…so many of the natural impulses are allowed free play, that there really aren’t any temptations to resist.” The resident controller goes on to talk about the importance of soma in contrast to religion when he states to John that, “And then there’s always soma to calm your anger…to make you patient and long-suffering. In the past you could only accomplish these things by making a great effort and after years of hard moral training…Anybody can be virtuous now. You can carry at least half your mortality about in a bottle. Christianity without tears—that’s what soma is.” After this comment, all the strange procedural workings of the new world make sense, including the process of electro-shocking babies and conditioning them into hating books and nature, which is done so that art, where deep concentration and thought are present, are consequently done away with in the society. A reader can see what the resident controller Mustapha Mond is saying in that deep thought can lead to aggression and other unsavory emotions, and still not agree with him. That “great effort” that he mentions is very reminiscent of the great effort to imagine in Hard Times. It’s an unsavory emotion that is very important to have and should not be withheld.

John’s tragic life ends when he begins to whip himself for atonement, and while he’s not looking is filmed without his consent. This religious act is made into a porno otherwise known to the people of the brave new world as feelies. Because John feels exploited and also ashamed for shunning Lenina away, he commits suicide.

It’s that tragic element in both stories that connects them, instead of the actual processes of conditioning. Even the ideologies in both books are different, although they both share the similarities of being superficial. In Brave New World, altruism and passionate thought are discarded in order to not get in the way of consumerism, while in Hard Times imagination is discarded because it gets in the way of logic and the processes of being a diligent hard worker. Leisure is looked down upon in Coketown, while in Brave New World it’s encouraged. However, both processes of mechanizing society ultimately lead to the citizens lack of striving for a higher purpose. It is feared by the rulers of both societies that once a person receives the attribute of going beyond oneself, they will rebel against the system. What’s ironic and what makes these stories satires is that people like Stephen Blackpool and John the Savage rebel anyway. It’s ultimately tragic because not only do their lives end in a horrible fashion, but the rest of the citizens of both societies never even realize that they lack free will. It’s tragic that leaders like Mustapha Mond and Bounderby will never realize that they have conditioned a society to always remain in “a muddle.”