It is in Chapter 16 that Helmholtz, Bernard and "Mr.
Savage" finally come face to face with Mutapha Mond, the "Resident Controller for
Western Europe." What begins is an explanation of why the dystopian world of this novel
is the way that it is. To me, one of the central explanations occurs after Mond explains
why this new world has no place for Othello. He argues that "people wouldn't understand
it" and that you need "instability" to understand a
tragedy:
"You
can't make flivvers without steel - and you can't make tragedies without social
instability. The world's stable now. People are happy; they get what they want, and they
never want what they can't get. They're well off; they're safe; they're never ill;
they're not afraid of death; they're blissfully ignorant of passion and old age; they're
plagued with no mothers or fathers; they've got no wives, or children, or lovers to feel
strongly about; they're so conditioned that they practically can't help behaving as they
ought to behave. And if anything should go wrong. there's
soma."
This,
then, explains the new world that John, the "savage", finds so difficult to understand.
This world has been created to promote stability, which the makers of this world have
identified as being necessary to erase all jealousies, angers, passions and other
"uncivilised" instincts that can't be tamed. In this world, everyone is happy, and
therefore there is no murder or instability. Of course, there is also no essence of
humanity either, which the makers of this world have chosen to forsake in order to gain
the stability which they feel results in "civilisation". Bernard and Helmholtz would
disagree, of course.
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