the role of history in BNW
The role of history in Brave New World
The changes
The introduction of Ford’s first T-Model as opening date of a new era ‘AF 0’ (‘anno Fordi’ instead of ‘anno domini’)
Ø World Control as only way of reaching economical recovery
Ø British Museum Massacre (culture-fans were gassed), suppression of books, blowing up historical monuments
ð People forget about past and progress
What Mond tells about the past
World Controller Mond wants some students to imagine, what it was like to have a viviparous mother and a home.
· The students can hardly imagine
· Some students mention terms like ‘family’, ‘home’ and ‘parents’ but these terms became already taboo à they can’t define them
· So he describes ‘home’ as a prison which is over-inhabited, dark, dirty, smells and causes diseases
· Families live in ‘rabbit holes’ full of trash, disagreement and emotions
· Mothers are like brooding cats, brooding over their own children saying “My baby, my baby” again and again like a backward creature which isn’t able to take things easily
· Freud was the first to discover the dangers of the family: misery, madness and suicide
· Remorse and isolating pain make people sad
Mustapha Mond just tells negative aspects of the past to make the people not even want to think about the past: “History is bunk!” (p.57/l.18) ->slogan of hypnopaedia
Henry Ford:
"History is more or less bunk. It's tradition. We don't want tradition. We want to live in the present, and the only history that is worth a tinker's damn is the history that we make today." (Chicago Tribune, May 25th, 1916)
The real intention
History is dangerous since it gives people a sense of time. People would recognize the progress which happened in the past. The totalitarian state tries to avoid this scenario since it wants stability in order to avoid revolutions. -> eternal stagnation
· Books (The holy Bible, poetry) are hidden (people could get rebellious)
· History is not taught at school -> people don’t think about progress
· Christianity is also prohibited as it is against the Bokanovsky’s process
· Abolishment of pregnancy and family -> to avoid emotions and retain stability
“Stability. No civilization without social stability. No social stability without individual stability.” Mustapha Mond (p.66/l.24-26)
authors: Christoph Herbert Eduard Ziegler, Maximilian Stopfer