Mermaids on Mast

By Ed Raymond
Staff Writer

Will We Eat The Whole Pig By 2025?

Long before invitro fertilization, the pill and the sexual revolution and the modification of the human through plastic or mental surgery, Aldous Huxley wrote “Brave New World.”  Today some call it a dystopian—or anti-utopian—novel while others might congratulate him for creating guidelines for a very satisfied society. Huxley chose his title from Miranda’s speech in Shakespeare’s “The Tempest” when she is describing earth and its inhabitants : “0 wonder! How many goodly creatures are there here! How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world! That has such people in it!”  Huxley loved the irony of it.

Before writing his futuristic novel, Huxley was already an eminent biologist and best-selling author. He was a member of a distinguished English family composed of scientific experts in artificial selection, eugenics, breeding and genetics.  All before the discovery of DNA.

I always had my senior English Literature students read “Brave New World,” because I felt that, although published in 1931, this book would give my 1960s students a look at where their world might be in the first quarter of the 21st century.  They were always interested because there was some sex in it through Huxley’s fantasizing about the “feelies,” the “orgy porgy” and the “centrifugal bumble puppy.” Hah! I knew I’d get your interest! (I told the students if their parents questioned them about the contents they should say it was a “religious treatise!”  Well—it is in a way.)

The Creation Of A Smoothly Running Society In A.F. 632

Huxley’s book opens in 2495, or 632 A.F. (“in the year of our Ford”) or 632 years after the birth of Henry Ford, our “History is Bunk” guy and the developer of the assembly line and the Model T. (Huxley thought that Ford named his first car “T” by removing the top section of the Christian cross. But that’s another story.)

Huxley’s “world”  has now struggled for over 600 years to be free of war, poverty, hatred, pain and disease. The citizens of the world have substantial leisure time, material possessions and many physical pleasures. The world has been limited to two billion human beings. But in order to maintain such a society the citizens have to give up freedoms and many traditional human values. Reading, as an example, is a rebellious and subversive activity. They are conditioned not to care about their fellow humans.The world is now ruled by ten Controllers chosen because they love standardization and “progress” above anything else. Conformity and mind control are two important virtues.
 
Citizens are no longer “procreated” by couples having sexual intercourse. In fact, such acts are against the law. Anyone born of this natural function is killed or banished to reservations. Human beings are now “decanted” in hatcheries and conditioning centers in litters of 96 cloned from one fertilized egg. (Can you imagine the members of the North Dakota Legislature discussing regulatory bills on this system?)

“We Are Much Better Than The Gammas And Deltas”

The Controllers then determined how many people in five different castes they needed to run the society. The Alphas are conditioned for intellectual and managerial occupations.  The Betas, Gammas, Deltas and Epsilons are conditioned to serve other needs. A hypnopaedic message played to Beta children while they are sleeping prepares them for their position in society: “Alpha children wear grey. They work much harder than we do, because they are so frightfully clever. I’m really awfully glad I’m a Beta, because I don’t work so hard.  And then we are much better than the Gammas and Deltas. Gammas are stupid. They all wear green, and Delta children wear khaki. Oh, no, I don’t want to play with Delta children. And Epsilons are still worse.  They’re too stupid…”  The lower castes perform all the manual labor with Epsilons assigned the real dirty work. Each caste also has “+” or “-“ members.

All caste members are deliberately limited in their intellectual and physical abilities, making them easier to manipulate and control. The hypnopaedic educational process teaches each caste appropriate self-images, social outlooks, morals, ambitions, tastes, prejudices and values necessary for melding into their own caste.

No Flowers Or Books

All individuals are conditioned by electric shocks, control of oxygen, toxic chemicals and sleep conditioning. The lower classes are taught to be happiest with their own castes and to dislike other castes. As infants the lower castes are taught to hate the smell of flowers, pictures of art and the pages of books, thus limiting or destroying any sense of creativity. The lower castes are also taught to enjoy harmless and mindless activities and all sports. At the same time they are encouraged to use new products and entertainment devices. All of these consumer activities keep the economy going.
 
All sex is recreational and is an approved social activity among all castes. Remember it is not a means of reproduction. It is encouraged at all ages. Females of a reproductive age wear “Malthusian Belts” similar to cartridge belts which hold a large supply of contraceptives. (Remember Malthus and his theories of population and food supply?) In the education of the young the maxim of “everyone belongs to everyone else” is constantly drummed into the five castes. The following topics were considered to be obscene: marriage, natural birth, parenthood and pregnancy.
 
All “world” citizens are programmed to die at age 60. In order to save “green areas” all are cremated and their ashes are used to add “body” to cement and asphalt roads. All citizens are trained to consume in order to keep unemployment low. Spending time alone as an individual is taught to be “shocking and horrifying.” A universal drug called “Soma” is used to cure any thought of individualism or depression. It is also used to promote orgies and hallucinogenic parties, which are mock religious services called Solidarity Services. These services enhance the qualities the Controllers want each caste to exhibit.

Does “Brave New World” Also Serve As A “Book Of Revelation?”

Bible Thumpers might conclude that Huxley’s novel about the “World State” of Henry Ford, including mass production, the homogeneity of the assembly line, and the consumption of consumer goods is remarkably similar to the final book of the New Testament, the Book of Revelation. Ford was somewhat of a messiah of capitalism when he doubled the wages of his assembly line workers. When asked why, Ford said, “Who else is going to buy my cars?”
 
Like Huxley in “Brave New World” the authors of the Book of Revelation tied together the worlds of heaven, earth and hell in the final battle between good and evil. Certainly the hatchery and conditioning centers and the ten Controllers absolute, rigid rules of the society they built is also a battle between good and evil. We have had our choices. Voltaire cynically outlined his view of why humans were born. He wrote in “Candide” that humans “are born to live in the throes of anxiety or the lethargy of boredom.” We seem to be at a moment in history where most of the poor and middle-class live in the throes of anxiety. The Controllers worked hard to entertain all Alphas to Epsilons to remove the “lethargy of boredom.” They enthusiastically emphasized recreational sex and constant consumerism. Even the chewing gum in “Brave New World” contained sex hormones.

Are We Following Huxley’s Paths To A Brave New World?

While the state of Minnesota is struggling to balance a budget that is $5 billion in the red, some of our politicians are discussing special tax levies to assist the billionaire owners of the Minnesota Vikings in building a $1 billion coliseum for Sunday afternoon gladiators. Is this a proper function of government? The Controllers would say “Yes!” We must provide entertainment for our lethargic citizens. The first task of government is to protect and preserve the state. The second function of government is to ensure that no one goes hungry, homeless or uncared for when sick. So the Minnesota Republicans are proposing cutting health care, K-12 and higher education programs, clean air and water regulations, legal aid for the poor, and support for city and state courts. Looks like the Controllers will win again.

The third function of government is to erase as much inequality as possible so that all children, no matter the station of their birth, can have the opportunity to gain wealth and position within a society. But with the accumulation of scientific evidence indicating that wealth of Zip Code determines the quality of education for our children, we are already developing the caste system of the Alphas, Betas, Gammas, Deltas, and Epsilons created by Huxley.  Want to be an Alpha?  You can buy a first-class Ivy League diploma for a measly $55,000 a year on average. Want to be a Gamma or a Delta? Take out student loans at the University of Minnesota and graduate with a $100,000 loan around your neck.

It’s happening all over. This week a judge examined the cuts made by New Jersey’s version of Rush Limbaugh, Governor Chris Christie, and determined that his cuts violated the state Constitution which requires New Jersey to provide “a thorough and efficient” education system for all, particularly the poor.

Another significant sign we may be in a brave new world is our version of the conditioning centers and hatcheries, the Leave No Child Behind program.  We are turning our children into creativity-starved Deltas and Epsilons by removing all flowers, music, art and books and replacing them with flash cards and multiple-guess tests based on science and mathematics. We are taking away the very oxygen and art of Shakespeare’s “Hamlet” and E.B. White’s “Charlotte’s Web” with Facebook and Twitter.

Our Corporate Controllers And The Best Congress Money Can Buy Screwed Up And Lost The World $40 Trillion!
Our controllers and Alpha caste from Harvard, Princeton, Yale, Wall Street, London and Tokyo bet in the World Economic Casino on derivatives, credit default swaps, and collaterized crap that they would always come up a lucky seven. Consequently they lost $40 trillion betting other people’s money. But now the controllers and Alphas want the Gammas, Deltas and Epsilons of the middle-class who are firemen, teachers, police, secretaries, welders and home health workers to come up with $40 trillion from their meager pensions and health insurance premiums to make up deficits the bankers and investors caused.
 
The rich, who gained 8 percent a year for the last three decades, suddenly take their Soma, grab their Malthusian belts, and run with their money to the Bahamas, Bermudas, Geneva and other money laundries to enjoy endless orgy-porgies. In the meantime the best congresses and parliaments money can buy have cut social services, broke unions, froze or cut wages, foreclosed and evicted millions around the earth and created huge castes of Deltas and Epsilons in most industrialized countries in the world.

Another sign of our entry into Huxley’s “Brave New World” is the fact that Jim Tressel, the head football coach at Ohio State, makes $4 million a year coaching 115 guys majoring in Sports Management while President What’s-His-Name of Ohio State makes $1 million—and could be fired by Tressel if he crossed him.

What is happening to our society? Are we already in “Brave New World?”  I think we are going to be dead meat soon. In the following story the farmer is the Controller, the Alpha guy. A salesman visits a farm where he notices a pig with a wooden leg. He asks the Controller-farmer about his asymmetrical companion and learns this is a special pig. The pig had saved the Controller-farmer’s family by racing through the house and waking them up during a fire. The salesman asks, “He lost his leg in the blaze?  No, the Controller-farmer responds, “A pig that great, you don’t eat him all at once.”
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