God Sister Teresa
We live in apocalyptic times, but heaven forbid that today’s lethal combination of terrorism and high technology will ever lead to Aldous Huxley’s Brave New
World, first published in 1932, and set 600 years from then. Some of his prescience makes the blood run cold: over-population, London’s nasty new skyline, Muzak, embryology and surveillance helicopters troubling the night skies over East Anglia are all horribly familiar today. Recreational sex is with us, though not quite in the infantile state to be found in Brave New
World, or so I would hope. Nonetheless, in 1959, Cliff Richard in his hit ‘Living Doll’ was singing: ‘I’m gonna lock her up in a trunk so no big hunk can steal her away from me’. And this wasn’t satire. Recreational drugs are also a reality; who knows when soma (a happy pill) may be distributed by governments so as to guarantee docility in workers:
‘Hug me till you drug me honey; Kiss me till I’m in a coma: Hug me, honey, snuggly bunny; Love’s as good as soma’
(Soma, in ancient Greek, means body. In Homer, more specifically, it means corpse, a discouraging name for an alleged life-enhancer. This verse from Brave New
World is satire, but it is unnervingly similar to modern pop songs which aren’t satire at all – a cause for alarm.)
Very recognisable in our times is built-in obsolescence. In Huxley this outmodedness applies unequivocally to clothes. From infancy people are brainwashed whilst asleep: ‘ “But old clothes are beastly,” continued the untiring whisper ... “Ending is better than mending, ending is better than mending ... The more stitches, the less riches. We love new clothes.” ’ Tell that to the Carmelites: the community’s 75 brown serge habits – each one is expected to last, on average, ten years – have just been put into my care for patching and darning. They are greatly preferable to the heroine’s uniform in Brave New World: a jacket of bottle-green acetate cloth with green fur viscose cuffs and collar, matching corduroy shorts and white viscose-woollen stockings, all 100 per cent disposable. No thanks.
In the 1946 foreword to his novel, Huxley writes that religion is a viable alternative to slavery or savagery, and that the world needn’t end up in the ghastly mess he has created. ‘Religion would be the conscious and intelligent pursuit of man’s Final End ... The Greatest Happiness principle would be secondary to the Final End Principal.’
Which is fine, but dry and dull. It is a relief to turn to Romans 8 for its warm and powerful encouragement: ‘For ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye have received the spirit of adoption, whereby we cry Abba, Father.’ The subjugating and obligatory ‘happiness’ of
Brave New World is enforced by scientific interference, turning its inhabitants into clones, and conditioning most of them to have as little intelligence as possible. And all of them are equally enslaved and have fear-ridden states of mind. We have the freedom of the children of God, and are guaranteed fullness of life and also joy. Joy, not bondage, is what the human heart is made for; St Paul’s sense of certainty should be a source of great reassurance when one battles with the disagreeable things in life. They are not everlasting.