In the following essay the role of religion in the Novel Brave New World is going to be analyzed. Religion is an underlying and important topic in the All World State which is according to the conditioning of the inhabitants. The religion in Brave new World is totally different to the religion we know and practice today.
For example as we Christians have God and Jesus as symbols for our faith, the people in the All World State (AWS) belief in Henry Ford, who partly "invented" the mass production. This mass production leads to the basement idea of the AWS producing humans in masses, like cars, clothes or mobile phones.Henry Ford was the first man who used mass production in his factory. This type of producing cars in masses was the first acting someone ever did until he invented the popular car brand "Ford" in 1903 which was founded as "Ford Motor Company before they shortened the name for marketing reasons to "Ford". Until today Ford stands for an important symbol for mass production. Nearly all factories based in a way on his invention of assembly-line work.
People in the All World State see him as a pioneer of the community, because in the AWS nobody were naturally born anymore.They were all produced in masses in assembly-line and conditioned to several characteristics according to their caste. Part of their conditioning is also the implementation of the religion and the special rituals as there is for example the T-Sign which is similar to the Christian-Cross. This T-Sign stands for the first Car which was the “T-Model”, produced in assembly-line by Henry Ford. Also their calendar is based on Henry Ford and the invention of the T-Model. The Date in the AWS count from the invention of this first car at January 14th 1914.
Another ritual in the AWS’ “Religion” is, that the whole community is told to attend solidarity services, where twelve members have a soma orgy, instead of visiting the church like it is usual in the Christian-faith. Whether the people are not waiting for the appearance of god or something else but rather they are waiting for the soma to create an illusion of boundless fortune, which is made up of group sex. As there is everything explained and right down to the last detail affirmative, the number of the participants is not randomly chosen. According to God’s Son Jesus, who had twelve apostles surrounding him as well.
Sex is a kind of ritual in the AWS associated with religion and stands for the total opposite to “old-fashioned” religions, which decline sex without the aim of creating new life. Instead of those religions, every individual in the the community of the AWS is conditioned to have sex just for fun because there is no need for natural births, moreover a natural birth is not well known though the community and generally proscribed. In the All World State is no need for religion and faith, simply because the World Controllers made this decision.In their opinion people try to find answers through the religion, which causes, in the opinion of Mustapha Mond, one of these World Controllers, wars, pain, suffering and tears.
But this God is too old and not compatible with the society anymore1 because time past by and the society revolutionized a lot. In order with this incompatibility the AWS is based on a daily life with machines and scientific medicine2. Basically everything in the AWS has a matter and is well-conceived. As in our world most people believe in any faith because of for example fearing the death, the inhabitants of the society handle those situations in another way.
There are no families or relationships as we know in the AWS so there is no sadness or sorrow if someone dies. Everyone lives alone and happy and has only one goal, keeping the three basements of the community according to the motto “Community. Stability. Identity.
” In conclusion for the record, in the society of the All World State is no religion needed to control the people because the World Controllers made the drug Soma a perfectly instrument for controlling and blending the people.As the famous quote of Karl Marx3 describes, that religion hold the society from doubting the system, the government and their life as a whole, it works perfectly fine in the all world state by replacing religion with soma. Soma makes every inhabitant happy, careless and questionless. If someone in the AWS is unhappy with any issue, he takes soma and those bad feelings are immediately gone. There are also “Soma-holidays”4, where the people are consequently happy during this weekend because of taking huge doses of soma. A perfect basis for peacefull, working and stable society.
