Power Of The Few Over The Many Essay, Research Paper
The Eleventh Commandment portrayed the state church as being
the supreme dictator. It is through the eleventh commandment
that the church held it’s power and control over the masses.
Without the church and it’s leaders to guide the masses, their
society would have collapsed. However, compared to Brave New
World, the whole society is conditioned to "work for everyone
else"(Huxley 67) by the abuse and daily consumption of soma.
Without the drug called soma, their society would have also
collapsed due to withdrawal symptoms. The underlying reality
between the two societies is that the masses are manipulated,
controlled, and brainwashed, without resistance, to obey and
follow their leaders through various methods of enforcement.
The Brave New World is controlled by a select few who call
themselves Resident Controllers and Directors. These elite few
are able to control the production and selection process of
societies masses. Mustapha Mond, Resident Controller for Western
Europe, and the Director of Hatcheries and Conditioning, oversee
the conditioning of embryos. Their powers and control over these
particular jurisdictions gave them great power, and with that the
ability to manipulate others. "’You ass’… said the
Director,… ‘Hasn’t it occurred to you that an Epsilon embryo
must have an Epsilon environment as well as an Epsilon
heredity’"(Huxley 23). Through a hierarchy of Alaphas and Betas
down to the lower cast Epsilon, everyone was suited for their
job. The Director however, through his position of authority,
was able to "… condition the masses to hate the
country,"(Huxley 30). In doing so, the Director succeeds in
creating an obedient society, which obeys and bows to every whim
of his commands. The Resident Controller and Director were two
authoritative figures that were able to control whomever and
whatever each person worked at, even before they were conceived.
Each cast had pre-conceived morals preached to them through
conditioning, and to this end effectively brainwashed to the
point of utter obedience. The outcome of this brainwashing by
conditioning sets forth a society that exists in two tiers, the
guardians and the domesticated animals. [who? why?->BNW]
[who? why?->11th C]
The church and it’s head archbishops are able to control and
manipulate the masses in North America by preaching the eleventh
commandment through strict laws and enforcement practices. The
eleventh commandment ordained that every man and women must be
fruitful and multiply. Because of this commandment and of the
militant ruling religionist enforcement, North America alone had
four billion people, and yet the church continued to preach the
eleventh commandment and it’s practices. The competition between
continents was the driving force behind the eleventh commandment.
If it was not the competitiveness between ruling church states,
the eleventh commandment would have been abolished. Through
dictatorial control the repercussions of not being fruitful and
multiplying, or of using contraceptive devices were most severe
for any man or women, and quite often lead to punishment and
extermination. Coupled to the acts of punishment, often drugs and
other brainwashing techniques were used on those who did not obey
the eleventh commandment. Through control and brainwashing of
the masses the church was able to manipulate their society to the
point of total utter starvation.
[How? BNW]
Manipulation and enforcement to the masses in the Brave New
World was very easy for those who were in control. The
techniques used by those in power were varied between the usage
of subconscious persuasion, hypnopaedia, brainwashing, and
chemical persuasion. Pavlovian conditioning was used on young
children through constant manipulation and repetitive
hypnopaedia. The use of chemical persuasion however could be
seen to be more influent on the daily lives of the
differentiating casts. It was part violence and part
psychological manipulation for the people who lived in the Brave
New World. For those individuals who did not conform to the
standards set forth by their leaders, they were exiled to an
island where they were left alone for the rest of their lives.
[How? 11th C]
While chemical persuasion was prevalent in the Brave New
World, the accessibility and usage of drugs, especially
contraceptive drugs, was strictly forbidden by the church. While
the church enforced their commandments through a strict military
totalitarian enforcement agency, people continued to seek
contraceptive drugs. While some people were killed for their
digressions against the church, most people were brainwashed to
conform to the church commandments. "…it left a blankness
where there normally must have been thousands of mostly unnoticed
messages coursing to his brain. This was brainwashing!"(Lester
168). While most people did conform to the church’s
commandments, there were still however a select few who resisted
the church and sought to move away from the ‘arms of power’ of
the church’s Archbishops. Through manipulation however, the
church was able to offer food to those who conformed to the
church’s wishes.
[Success BNW?]
As the Brave New World was set in an age of advanced
technology, anyone’s ideas who went against the order of the
state was considered to be an anarchist. As the world state’s
motto suggested, "Community, Identity, Stability"(Huxley 15) the
pillars of the social hierarchy where continuously being eroded
by those who thought and acted differently. The states
totalitarian controllers ability however to deal with this group
of individuals through strong persuasion tactics saw that most
people did keep in line with the states wishes and orders. For
those who did not coincide with the states beliefs, they were
exiled.
[Success 11th C?]
Although the church was able to preach it’s commandments and
their other mystical religionist practices, there where still
over one billion people who were seeking to flee to Australia,
the supposedly safe haven for all Romish religion individuals.
The church, through it’s methods of controlling their society,
was still able to control a large percentage of the population.
However, this dictatorial control over the masses was only
accomplished through the punishment and extermination of those
who did not conform to the church’s propaganda and practices.
The successfulness of the church’s ability to control and
manipulate, while at the same time brainwashing their followers
allows them to rule their continent with an ‘iron fist’. If it
were not for the techniques that the church used, their ability
to control the masses would have been greatly diminished.
[Conclusion]
Through reinforcement of desirable behaviour and scientific
manipulation, the effectiveness of the Director’s and Resident
Controllers ability to control the masses was greater than those
manipulation methods practiced by the church in The Eleventh
Commandment. Even though the church had a military totalitarian
enforcement agency, the leaders in the Brave New World were able
to repress the masses through dictatorial control through
punishment and extermination. While in both societies the
underlying human interaction was the inability to communicate,
both had the essence of being superficial worlds.