Brave New World Passage Analysis

Society in Brave New World seemingly has chosen self-indulgence over self-transcendence, regarding the latter as an insignificant relic of history. Mond, while discussing the role of God, or lack thereof, in society with John, explains that religious thought comes from the process of aging. He quotes Cardinal Newman, a 19th-century Catholic religious authority, and recites, “’religious sentiment tends to develop as we grow older… we feel the need to lean on something that abides, something that will never play us false… Yes, we inevitably turn to God; for this religious sentiment is of its nature so pure, so delightful to the soul that experiences it, that it makes up to us for all our other losses’” (Huxley 232-233). Mond uses this passage to demonstrate the antiquity of religion, arguing that humans turned to religion only to find comfort and quell their fears of death and aging. However, in its search for ultimate pleasure, the World State has eradicated aging, producing individuals who stay youthful (albeit with a dramatically shortened life-span) and are desensitized at a young age of their fear of death. “’What follows?’” Mond asks; “’Evidently, that we can be independent of God… There aren't any losses for us to compensate’” and therefore, “’religious

New World citizens say “Oh, Ford!” rather than crying out for God in their prayers and surprised exclamations. Sunday, commemorated in Christianity as the Lord’s Day, is replaced with “Our Ford’s day”, and the oft-quoted phrase, “God in His Heaven” becomes “Ford in his flivver” (44). Even the Christian trademark, the Cross, is twisted into a T, representing the Ford Model T, the world’s first mass- produced and affordable automobile (no pun intended). Sunday Mass is reduced to a sexual orgy where citizens attempt to “fuse” with this Ford-like “Greater Being”