Brave New World Revisited

A force consisting of Big Business and Big Government which, according to Huxley, controls a capitalist democracy. This conglomerate owns the means of production like factories and stores, the banks and financial institutions, and the media; in this position, the Power Elite is thus able to influence everybody’s thoughts, feelings, and actions (18). Huxley sees this concentration of power as the antithesis of the Jeffersonian democratic ideal of a “gradation of authorities” (19) leading from small self-governing communities to the federal government. 

The Will to Order is a natural human desire, a “kind of intellectual instinct, a primary and fundamental urge of the mind” (21) to organize experiences and ideas. The Will to Order can “impose order upon confusion, [in order] to bring harmony out of dissonance and unity out of multiplicity” (21). The Will to Order has the potential to inspire positive results in the realms of art, science and philosophy, but it becomes dangerous in the realms of politics and economics where the Will to Order often results in over-organization, conformity, and over-simplification. These results contribute directly to the power of propaganda to control the members of a given society. 

Enlightened self-interest is defined as a characteristic of behaviors that aid both the individual and the wider public. In other words, doing good for others will ultimately rebound to one’s own benefit. Huxley evokes enlightened self-interest in Chapter 4, Huxley defines rational propaganda as compatible with enlightened self-interest (see Propaganda). 

From the Latin for “that which is to be propagated,” propaganda consists of widespread information that influences the public’s understanding and opinion of abstract ideas like causes. Propaganda is a major theme in Brave New World Revisited, as Huxley discusses various forms of propaganda throughout the middle chapters of the book. Huxley sees propaganda as a major force in the modern world, one that will progressively weaken freedom of thought and action. 

This term refers to sleep-learning. It is formed from the Greek roots hypno, sleep, and paideia, child-rearing education. In Chapter 9, Huxley extends the term to refer to propaganda that is spread while the subject is asleep. 

The term dystopia was coined in the mid-19th century as a counterpart to utopia, or an ideal place or state. A dystopia is an imagined place or society in which members live in a reduced state thanks to changes to social patterns, technology, or some other influential force. Although Huxley does not describe his novel as dystopian, Brave New World is generally agreed to be a dystopian novel, describing a world in which scientific progress has run amok and human values have decayed. 

This is Huxley’s name for the organizing principle that is becoming dominant in modern society. In Chapter 3, Huxley asserts that “biologically speaking, man is a moderately gregarious, not a completely social animal” (23). Modern social engineering, the process by which social activity is organized and regulated, tends to treat human beings as if they were social creatures like bees or ants. This Social Ethic leads to collectivism which sublimates the individual to the group or system which he or she serves. The Social Ethic assumes that the group is greater than the sum of its parts, a belief that directly contradicts the value of the human individual.

An example of the Social Ethic is observable in factories and other industries, where people are required to perform mechanical functions in a repeated and unvarying way. The Social Ethic results in the treatment of human beings like machines who perform a function instead of creatures with distinct needs and desires. It downplays the importance of individual accomplishment and overemphasizes the natural or social environment. Huxley sees the Social Ethic as an attempt to justify the mechanization and over-organization that has already taken place in society.