Huxley's hell

It is clear throughout the years that authoritarianism is a concerning (and common) problem for humanity. Authoritarianism is defined in many ways, but generally it is a governance system that stands opposed to democracy. Fundamentally authoritarianism is a matter of a top-down governance in which people below the leaders are subjected to their whims in various ways and without recourse. In many cases it boils down to a difference of opinion in whether people can/should be able to choose for themselves how society and their lives should run vs the authoritarian view that a select number of people would choose better for them and society as a whole than individuals. This can lead to a variety of interesting arguments about whether or not people are capable to make their own decisions, and whether those decisions being optimal is even the point of freedom in the first place. But those discussions aside, most people regard authoritarianism as a bad thing (probably right on that one). As such it is worth trying to look for the ways authoritarianism manifests, how people maintain their control, and what principles can help avoid it.

in the early-mid 1900’s Aldous Huxley wrote brave new world¹. The book explores Huxley’s view on a potential form of authoritarianism. This short essay sets out to take a look at Huxley’s view, adds some additional analysis, and compares it to other thinkers of the time. To make Huxley’s view simple to understand it’s worthwhile to understand much of Huxley’s ideas in contrast to other views of authoritarianism, the main one being from one of his students, Eric Blair (George Orwell). In Orwell’s 1984² it is clear the perspective of authoritarianism is one of intense and explicit control. Big brother is there to endure everyone know’s who’s in charge, and the people in charge know they are in charge. Not only that, but they will impose their will on people forcing them to do things they don’t want to do, and keeping them from saying what they want to say. This form of authoritarianism is incredibly prevalent in history, and is the reason people know and respect Orwell to the degree his name is an adjective (Orwellian). So how does Huxley differ?

There are a few ways. Most notably is that the authoritarianism has a control that is enforced positively instead of negatively. Instead of using a stick you drown the population with carrots until they just hand over their freedom. You create a governance of a sickly self-indulgence, where people are drowned in a viscous slew of pleasures until they’re placid. Imagine you are annoyed with how little money you are making, so your boss says you will talk about it next week. On the day your boss gives you mandatory ecstasy so that you’re drugged into a “happy” submission, and “decide it’s not worth it”. Now imagine instead that everyone in your “caste” is given those drugs 24/7, so you’re never not placid. This world of constant pleasures to drown out revolution, and keep people in line is Huxley’s hell (the brave new world). It’s worth especially mentioning that the asserted goal I will be talking about with authoritarianism is to maintain control, dispel dissidence/revolution, while maintaining a functioning society. “Community, identity, stability”³ is the mantra of the Brave New World.

Free Labour

Huxley’s system relies a lot on “self-governance/group-governance”, where people will be invested in their own ruling to maintain the positives. In the case in the book of forced consent, where people must sleep with others you don’t need to hire people to enforce it, because plenty of pervy people will self-enforce it out of personal interest. Likewise those people will happily protect the system that allows them this privileged. This is especially true if you create the sort of caste system that exists in Brave New World, wherein people of “low-status”⁴ can access the same “amenities” (sex with others) as those above them.

Sex, drugs, and Submission

In every authoritarian regime there does seem to be an obsession with sex⁵. Anti-miscegenation, eugenics, sexual-repression, forcibly arranged relationships, etc. All of these forms however exist to keep people from sex*. Huxley however in his Brave New world explores what happens when people are encouraged and in many cases are forced to have sex. The Victorian traditionalism is clear in some of the writing, however prudishness aside there is an interesting question here. Can you control people with an encouragement of sex? Huxley seems to think so, in particular getting people to have sex constantly erodes many of their inhibitions and many reasons for them to rebel. Crudely, if you’re getting laid your less likely to be frustrated enough to revolt.

A similar story can be told for drugs, giving people drugs to ameliorate every negative feeling can have the same effect. Dousing people in dopamine, and then controlling the supply of that dopamine keeps them coming back. Likewise when people are reliant upon drugs (especially those they choose), then they are reliant on you. If they “chose” the drugs then there is the added benefit of people not wanting to admit they “chose wrong”, that can also help keep people from revolting.

Kafkesque

It is important to differentiate Huxley also from someone like Franz Kafka. With Kafka in works like The Trial⁶ he develops a sense of bureaucracy-turned-tradition as the modus operandi of authoritarianism. Once the authority has been instantiated people will continue with it out of primarily apathy, and a disinterest in changing. This is interesting because there’s not necessarily an “evil” person here. The “evil” is more structural in nature, and the maintaining of the status quo is the impetuous for injustice. It’s not that everyone is out to get you because they care, they’re just their to do what they’re supposed to, and get home.

Book Burnings

It is interesting to look at the three figures mentioned, and look at 3 possible ways this would be incorporated. Consider an authoritarian government that wishes to burn books to control the information flow and try to avoid uprisings. In Orwell a book burning would be intentional malice for control. The people orchestrating the book burning are part of a system they seek to uphold to maintain their power, and it’s done to control information and ensure the safety of the authority. In Kafka it’s likely they’re doing the book burning because they do the book burning every year, and now it’s time to do the book burning this year. No one really questions it enough because they don’t care enough to change it. In Huxley it’s likely people would offer to burn the books to free up some space in their houses since they’re boring anyways and who gives a shit about books when you have TV, threesomes and drugs (don’t blame them). They might even just offer people something for the books (free tv channel, 2 free threesome coupons, or a few ounces of drugs etc.), which they would happily make the “trade” for.

In Orwell’s world, the books are taken from citizens explicitly. It’s likely this would come in the form of thugs knocking door to door, or some other direct form of state-induced violence. In Kafka’s world the books happen to be taken. In some sense the fact they’re taken from people is incidental from the citizens perspective, “they’re just doing their jobs”, “it is what it is”, “that’s how it goes” might be the reactions. In Huxley’s world people want to give their books. Whether it be simply because the books aren’t valuable because they aren’t exciting, or the reward. Even in the modern day you can see similar sorts of situations playing out. For the quarter century I’ve been alive many people have been convinced that literature and learning is “nerdy”, “boring”, “gay” (pejorative sense, not the fun kind) etc.

Aesthetic authority

Huxley’s government unlike Kafka and Orwell retains a certain sex appeal (literally). Importantly it maintains the aesthetic of being “on the citizens side”, in a very “trust me bro” kind of way. After all, how can it be authoritarian if I can “choose” to drug myself? If there’s anything people from the 2010’s onward should recognize it’s that suggestibility almost necessarily limits choice. This is particularly true in cases where people don’t even know they’re making a choice. A covert advertisement here, a gentle “suggestion” there, a few culturally significant shifts to the zeitgeist and most people fall in line. From more explicit forms like companies hoping on trends to be “in”, to more implicit forms like gorging on peoples advertising data until you can make statistically significant guesses towards peoples proclivities to exploit that they don’t know they have. To this day video game companies will employ an army of psychologists to determine the breakpoints of monetary exploitation that are most likely to earn them money.

The importance in all these cases is that the people must maintain a positive image in the eye of the beholder. If you can advertise without people’s recognition then you’re “not like those other greedy companies”. For so long as people think you’re on their side you can get away with more tension than you could in Orwell’s world because people will defend you (and for free!). Likewise if people are rewarded subtlety, and punished subtly when they “choose wrong”, they will often self correct. Pay a few people more for “a good job” and others will do a good job in the hopes of being paid more.

Dependence

Another aspect Huxley hammers home is that authoritarian societies need to make people dependent on the government. The population not only needs to be placid and pliable, but they also need to be weak and codependent. Since this form of authoritarianism feeds off “self-governing/group-governing” it needs to be the case that people will fold quickly. As an example someone who’s only ever lived in Florida will have no built up tolerance for the cold in northern Canada. Now if they are babied in everything they’ve ever done then their tolerance for anything negative will be low. Therefore you need to apply very little force to get them to give in. Because you need very little force, this also means people will defend your actions as “not a big deal” on the whole. To a population that takes painkillers for every ache and pain all it would take is to not give them any for a year for them to likely fall in line. This “soft-authoritarian” bent is a portion of what’s described by Huxley.

You can see an example of this as generations go on. The standard for a difficult job has gone way down over the years. People used to go in coal mines and die at 20 of the black lung. Therefore when people complain about exploitation in the workforce there are many people who will say “well at least it’s not coal mining”. This allows a cover for the employer to essentially never need to improve if enough people take that attitude. The same is true in governments. If people are used to an oppressive government who used to go house-to-house and beat people, then just exploiting a few people in labour camps is “better”, and people are less likely to complain. Again taken to the extremely mild people who are used to having “a state guy” come and fix any problems in their house might be willing to give up making voting a national holiday (which would entice more people come out) if they were told “funding for home services would be cut”. The more avoidant the population, the more you can push this principle.

Progress of a kind

Throughout the book Huxley makes clear an obvious conflict with authoritarianism and free thought. The early chapters describe the methods employed for controlled birthing programs (the hatcheries), and with this it’s clear there are “correct” ways that are socially enforced to view the practice. Huxley is clear as well in the foreward that science plays a major role in the book, and the view of “constant progress” is important. Not of specific scientific progress, but of scientific progress of the individual. Genetic modification, eugenics, psychological manipulation, genetically defined social strata, pharmaceutical mood and body enhancements to name a few of the sorts of “progresses made”. Anything that makes the individual experience more sanitized, safe and controlled.

It does seem like throughout Huxley hints at a disdain for “scientisim”, which is the belief that scientific advancement, and actions taken with scientific truths are axiomatically correct. The prevalence of eugenics, and a genetically constructed caste system (alphas, betas, omegas, epsilons etc.), according to their “predestined” genetic makeup at the hatchery is one such aspect. Just because you can, doesn’t necessarily means you should and science and the pursuit of “progress” is not always what leads to the best outcomes. It is not suggested by Huxley, but seems implied that the importance of the humanities is ignored. People are incredibly cynical, and find it impossible to see how the homogenizing, and crafting of their lives with medical interventions (from cradle to grave, and all the drugs between) could go wrong.

Neat little bow

Throughout the 20th century (and late 19th) we can see that authoritarianism was a hot topic. Leaders like Mussolini⁷, Bonaparte⁸, Bismarck⁹, and others like the Qing Dynasty¹⁰ no doubt started the discussion, before helping provide case studies for later authoritarian regimes like Hitler¹¹, Franco¹², Stalin¹³, and Pot¹⁴. Not only that, but the cultivating of authoritarian regimes, and their maintenance seem to have vastly different strategies. It’s also important to understand that all of the perspectives are not mutually exclusive. It would be possible for a bevy of these tactics to be deployed at one time, not to mention that these works are fiction. For as helpful of an analysis as fiction can provide, it is not necessarily rooted in any concrete existing example(s).

For that the works of Diana Garvin ¹⁵, Stanley G. Payne¹⁶ might suit it better, for a more philosophical tone someone like Umberto Eco¹⁷. However the books mentioned provide an interesting cross-section that can help better understand authoritarianism conceptually, and the ways it can be implemeneted.