The Lighthouse in Huxley’s ‘Brave New World’
In my latest reading of Brave New World, I was struck by John’s chosen location for his retreat from civilisation: an abandoned lighthouse. Huxley’s choice is the perfect location for John’s base as it communicates — better than direct words — the plight of the World State and, by extension, acts as a warning to the reader.
John’s choice to flee the civilisation he once longed to join comes from his first-hand experience of the sterile cityscape, filled with endless numbers of twins that fill him with revulsion. He cannot stand the use of Soma, the lack of art and literature, and the sexual practices of the World State’s hedonistic and collectivist society. Thus, he completely rejects society by leaving.
Unfortunately for John, and perhaps for the reader, it proves impossible to truly leave society behind. John being found by a couple of Delta-minuses seems to reflect a general truth of life, namely that no matter how disgusted by or fed up with society one might be, actually leaving society and obtaining freedom through isolation is more difficult than it might appear at first. For John, it appears impossible since he is an object of interest and entertainment for the people of the World State. I think it is true to say that the same is true for us.
In a world where our data is constantly mined by multinational corporations and our own governments — that is, a world in which the individual is the product, a step of consumption and consumerism that not even Huxley foresaw — where cash is disappearing and everything moves into the realm of the digital archive, it is difficult to see how the individual might be able to leave society either. Thus, John’s failure to leave society behind is a cogent reminder of our relative lack of freedom and our entrapment by society, and — perhaps — is something that we should, at least, be mindful of, particularly when we think about our governments and who we vote for, as well as how much information and power we cede to corporate giants through one way or another.
Digressions aside, John’s choice of refuge is particularly fitting and revealing of the state of society in Brave New World. The abandoned lighthouse — or, as it may be thought of, the dead lighthouse — is a brilliant symbol of the state of all the things that should or could offer guidance to the people of the World State.
A lighthouse, obviously, provides a warning or guiding light to ships. In Brave New World, there is not a single mention of ships of any kind. Everyone travels by helicopter or rocket plane, and the ship is — perhaps — out of date and unnecessary. Thus, in the technologically-advanced age of Brave New World, it is simply unnecessary.
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The lighthouse may be regarded as symbolic of the press, the family, Christianity, literature, history and any number of other things that have either ceased to exist or been altered and manipulated to become what the World Controllers need them to be for the sake of the “community, identity, stability” of the World State.
We could spend some time unpacking this, but I would point to the way that the press is housed in the same building — still on Fleet Street — as the College of Emotional Engineering and the Bureaux of Propaganda. The press is not free but captured and a division of the collection of state organs that control the population through soft, non-domineering, ways. As such, it cannot provide any guidance or warning to the people of the World State.
The light is out.
Similarly, Christianity’s central teachings, language and rites — or sacraments — have been appropriated and manipulated to fit the purposes of the World State’s Controllers. This is best seen in the bi-weekly, orgiastic Solidarity taking place in what was once St Paul’s Cathedral (though it is no longer known as that) as a parody of the eucharist, one of the two central rituals or sacraments of Christianity. The idea is clear: Christianity is dead and can offer no challenge to the World State and no warning or guidance to the population.
The light is out, and the people of the World State have to bumble about in the light of Mustapha Mond and “our Ford”.
All of this is an invitation to the people of Brave New World to consider the way that these aspects of our society — and many others — are being spoken about and thought about. Publishing houses and newspaper editors and owners like to think of themselves as playing an active role in shaping the public consciousness, and, while this may have always been true, it seems far more overt than in the past — objectivity does not seem to be considered as an important aspect of the role. In fact, the very possibility of objectivity is increasingly denied on the obvious grounds that everyone carries one’s biases and perspectives into everything that one does. There is truth to this, but integrity is — in part — the ability to try and overcome these things and pursue the truth when attempting to capture word events.
Similarly, many parts of society’s makeup, such as religion, traditional morality, the family unit, and so on, tend to be written and spoken about as being out of date and unneeded, backwards or unenlightened, just like the lighthouse in a world absent of ships for the general population. The parallels between the abandoned lighthouse being replaced by the glitzy — but artificial — doctrines, lifestyle and social consciousness of the World State are inescapable.
Perhaps we ought to take the cold and dark lighthouse of Brave New World as a cautionary word for us as we consider the world around us and the ideas and promises that tend to be shoved on us by our social elites, governmental officials, para-state organisations and C-suite executives. Perhaps we ought to consider the lighthouses that still flicker in the gloom of our world and be warned that these things are not necessarily out of date, even if technology marches on.
This article was originally published on Substack.
