Brave New World Journal #1

Topic A

"'Think of water under pressure in a pipe.' They thought of it. 'I pierce it once,' said the Controller. 'What a jet!.'
He pierced it twenty times. There were twenty piddling little fountains. (...) Mother, monogamy, romance. High spurts the fountain; fierce and foamy the wild jet. The urge has but a single outlet. My love, my baby. No wonder these poor pre-moderns were mad and wicked and miserable. Their world didn't allow them to take things easily, didn't allow them to be sane, virtuous, happy. What with mothers and lovers, what with the prohibitions they were not conditioned to obey, what with the temptations and the lonely remorses, what with all the diseases and the endless isolating pain, what with the uncertainties and the poverty- they were forced to feel strongly. And feeling strongly (and strongly, what was more, in solitude, in hopelessly individual isolation), how could they be stable?" (Huxley 27)

This metaphor is a good representation of the mindset of this society. Emotion only leads to pain and misery. In the old society (similar to our current society), the single piercing in the pipe represents family life, how there was too much love and concern for each individual. In their eyes, this led to "mad and wicked and miserable" people. Strength in society lies with the lack of emotion. Towards the end of the passage, Huxley writes about how strong feelings leads to instability. In this society, instability is the worst possible thing on earth. Everything must be stable and efficient, and if anything is not, things go wrong. This is why all of the people in the society are conditioned exactly the way that the elite members want them to be, because this creates a stable society. Instability is feared more than anything else in this society, and instability is brought on by the presence of emotion. This is why all members of the society are taught to not become emotionally attached to other people, which is one of the reasons why Bernard is viewed as abnormal, because he feels emotions towards Lenina. This passage shows the society's main views on life.