The Basis of Culture Brave New World by Aldous Huxley and Leisure by Josef Pieper - Essay Example

The Basis of Culture Brave New World by Aldous Huxley Leisure (The basis of Culture) by Josef Pieper. Culture forms a society and society forms the elements and essence for work. Each individual offers there own working pattern, but this pattern is based on the culture and their norms. But how should each individual decide the pattern of work and what kind of work is worth performing that would contribute to the progression of culture and society at large. Let’s examine Aldous Huxley view of culture and work in his book ‘Brave New World and in contrast to his work, Josef Pieper view on culture and society. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley and Leisure (The basis of Culture) by Josef Pieper. Albert Einstein said "A human being is a part of a whole, called by us universe, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest - a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty." Brave New World by Huxley portrays the dehumanization of society wherein power, science and technology are utilized to control life. Elimination of spirituality and the essence of existence are void of personality. Life starts in a mother’s womb but in Brave New World life began in a test tube. The government controls everything from the embryo stage to the formation stage. Classification occurs into Alpha, Beta, Delta and Epsilon wherein the government manipulates and psychologically tutors each individual to love and hate what the government has established, i.e. to love Henry Ford, to always live with Soma (a drug) and sex. The ethos created is: "Community, Identity, Stability". (Huxley, 1946) As the director stated: "…that is the secret of happiness and virtue-liking what youve got to do. All conditioning aims at that: making people like their inescapable social destiny."(Huxley, 1946). The battle between mankind and nature, for nature represents all that is pure and serene in humanity and man with science and destruction being the focal point destroys nature to own individuals and humans transformed into inhuman. "What man has joined, nature is powerless to put asunder. (Huxley, 1946) Lack of moral control directed by a single government whose ultimate aim of humanity, in the words of Huxley “World Controllers”. Instead they seek for sexual pleasures and to escape from reality they utilize Soma the drug. Culture and society are faced with personality’s issues because man has never ceased to think of what lies beyond the existing ethnicity. The battle between good and evil is ever persistent. Governments can be divided into, rational propaganda whereby policies and law is created for the interest and welfare of society and the other non-rational propaganda that works against human interests and is dictated by a dictator. These two kinds of government can be witnessed in Brave New World with Henry Ford society as the non rational propaganda and John (the savage) society as the rational propaganda. Culture has always witnessed divisions between mankind thereby differentiating work and world’s. Divisions i.e. lower class, middle class and upper class form the basis of every society. Children belonging to a particular class are instructed about their personality and status and their difference with the other cultures. Similarly in Henry Ford’s society: “Alpha children wear grey. They work much harder than we do, because theyre so frightfully clever. Im awfully glad Im a Beta, because I dont 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 dont want to play with Delta children. And Epsilons are still worse. Theyre too stupid to be able to read or write. Besides they wear black, which is such a beastly color. Im so glad Im a Beta." (Huxley, 1946) Life means work but work towards the fulfillment and happiness of life and mankind. Unlike huxley’s world, "Till at last the childs mind is these suggestions, and the sum of the suggestions is the childs mind. And not the childs mind only. The adults mind too-all his life long. The mind that judges and desire and decides-made up of these suggestions. But all these suggestions are our suggestions... Suggestions from the State." (Huxley, 1946) Our world is still in our hands and with union with nature and science, i.e. the goodness of science this world can be our place for freedom and governments work for the welfare of the children who are the future citizens. “History is bunk” (Huxley, 1946) for the Ford’s society but we should use history as a means to connect to the past. History provides the union between the past and present and epitomizes life in its natural form. Society and culture should learn from history about the civilization and harmony of mankind. Bernard represents the society who desires to work with free spirit and harmony with other cultures and to break away from the work norms. Traditions and laws being rigid destroy man’s free spirit and free thinking as Lenina states “"When the individual feels, the community reels." (Huxley, 1946). Cultures and societies forever portray ones intellectual talents thus establishing and demarcating ones territory for power. As stated by the director, "The greater a mans talents, the greater his power to lead astray. It is better that one should suffer than that many should be corrupted. Consider the matter dispassionately, Mr. Foster, and you will see that no offence is so heinous as unorthodoxy of behavior. Murder kills only the individual-and after all, what is an individual?...We can make a new one with the greatest ease-as many as we like. Unorthodoxy threatens more than the life of a mere individual; it strikes at Society itself." (Huxley, 1946). The basis of culture depends upon ones constructive work and its portrayal thereon. Propaganda leads to destruction whereas constructive criticism could form the basis for human development. Just as Helmholtz stated ridiculous situation were necessary to produce masterpieces. "Why was that old fellow [Shakespeare] such a marvellous propaganda technician? Because he had so many insane, excruciating things to get excited about. Youve got to be hurt and upset; otherwise you cant think of the really good, penetrating X-rayish phrases... No, it wont do. We need some other kind of madness and violence. But what? What? Where can one find it?.. I dont know." Madness and violence exist in every individual, culture and society and the role of the government is to maintain balance between sanity and insanity combined with freedom of thought and expression for the policies crafted provides the answers for the future generations of humanity. Trends are ever-changing and these will influences life’s patterns. “O brave new world!” should always remember that “the possibility of loveliness, the possibility of transforming even the nightmare into something fine and noble. O brave new world! It was a challenge, a command." (Huxley, 1946) In reality work and culture constitute life, a life that demands happiness over misery, stability and the struggle over temptation. A brave new world, i.e. today’s world find’s most people who change jobs frequently for research states that people choose to render their permanent positions to favor portfolio jobs which provides individuals with liberty, elasticity and personal sovereignty. Science and scientist work for the benefit of mankind not destruction. The work of humanity is to prevent governments from changing good science to bad science. Developmental movements for community science and technology should be incorporated for community needs. Presently nuclear weapons utilized for demolition of civilization, instead the work towards the development of regional energy self-sufficiency would reduce the social control held by any organization. Finally the law proclaimed by God transformed by man to suite his work and culture had transformed civilization and man is made to work to suite the needs of all mankind. But man should realize that freedom and happiness are part of life and therefore work should be individual’s gateway to a fulfilled life. The atmosphere for a constructive working environment is to share, live and let live and creditability granted for all. “The Gods are just. No doubt. But their code of law is dictated, in the last resort, by the people who organize society; providence takes its cue from men." (Huxley, 1946). Life, work, culture and society are not all that morbid. Contrast to Huxley, Josef Pieper in his book “Leisure (The basis of Culture)” states that culture is devoid of leisure, as Aristotle stated “the first principle of action is leisure”. For Pieper, philosophy involved thinking that leads the pathway in search of truth and leisure. And this search would form the foundation of culture. As Pieper said “Culture depends for its very existence on leisure, and leisure, in its turn, is not possible unless it has a durable and consequently living link with a church community and with divine worship.” (Malsbary, 1998). Unlike Huxley world where toil and work found destruction and unhappiness, Pieper found that through leisure, religion is reborn and unity with nature is rekindled. World of only work will kill leisure and life. This leisure is an attitude of ones mind and a state of ones soul that would enable the recognition of the real world. “Of course, the original meaning of the concept of leisure has practically been forgotten in todays leisure-less culture of total work: in order to win our way to a real understanding of leisure, we must confront the contradiction that rises from our overemphasis on the world of work. One does not only work in order to live, but one lives for the sake of one’s work. This statement, quoted by Max Weber,’ makes immediate sense to us, and appeals to current opinion” (Malsbary, 1998). The art of silence and meditation on happiness will assist in a peaceful and leisurely life, failing which this cult of “work” would destroy our culture and lives. The only method to enable rebuilding of culture and society is to understand the true meaning and spirit of leisure. "It is difficult for us to see how in fact it turns the order of things upside-down. And what would be our response to another statement? We work in order to be at leisure. Would we hesitate to say that here the world is really turned upside-down? Doesn’t this statement appear almost immoral to the man or woman of the world of total work? Is it not an attack on the basic principles of human society? (Malsbary, 1998). Pieper leads us to the past to remind us of the Greeks who lived up to the meaning of leisure and culture. Leisure for the Greeks meant education. Leisure was the time they spent in logical activities which were a break from their work and these intellectual activities sought the Greeks to explore and learn about human society combines with individual responsibility. “For, when we consider the foundations of Western European culture (is it, perhaps, too rash to assume that our re-building will in fact be carried out in a ‘Western’ spirit? Indeed, this and no other is the very assumption that is at issue today), one of these foundations is leisure. We can read it in the first chapter of Aristotle’s Metaphysics. And the very history of the meaning of the word bears a similar message. The Greek word for leisure (skolee) is the origin of Latin scola, German Schule, English school. The name for the institutions of education and learning mean leisure.” (Malsbary, 1998). Further Pieper using the Western perspectives, draws a distinction between leisure and idleness. Leisure refers to the meditative side of a man and thus the ability for his culture and society to receive knowledge and wisdom. "Now the code of life of the High Middle Ages said something entirely opposite to this: that it was precisely lack of leisure, an inability to be at leisure, that went together with idleness; that the restlessness of work-for-works sake arose from nothing other than idleness. There is a curious connection in the fact that the restlessness of a self-destructive work-fanaticism should take its rise from the absence of a will to accomplish something” (Malsbary, 1998). Pieper says that “man seems to mistrust everything that is effortless; he can only enjoy, with a good conscience, what he has acquired with toil and trouble; he refuses to have anything as a gift.” He quotes St. Thomas Aquinas: “The essence of virtue consists in the good rather than the difficult.” Christianity and leisurely culture are related, just as “Cut off from the worship of the divine, leisure becomes laziness and work inhuman.” (Malsbary, 1998). Sabbath day the Lord rested portrays the freedom from work and a day for the community to spend in leisure. A time away from work and time spent in reflection and communion with one. “We should consider for a moment how much the Christian understanding of life is based on the reality of Grace; let us also recall that the Holy Spirit Himself is called Gift; that the greatest Christian teachers have said that the Justice of God is based on Love; that something given, something free of all debt, something undeserved, something not-achieved - is presumed in everything achieved or laid claim to; that what is first is always something received - if we keep all this before our eyes, we can see the abyss that separates this other attitude from the inheritance of Christian Europe." (Malsbary, 1998). Pieper continues to state that most individuals in society are married to their work and place personal development as their foremost in life and their worship of labor. "People who talk about revolution and class struggle without referring explicitly to everyday life, without understanding what is subversive about love and what is positive about the refusal of constraints - such people have a corpse in their mouth." (Malsbary,1998). Thus their outlook to life and culture is narrow minded and stunted. The way out from this rigid life is leisure which is necessary for the acceptance of reality. “…..Leisure is the disposition of receptive understanding, of contemplative beholding, and immersion - in the real”. (Malsbary, 1998). From the weird world portrayed by Huxley, work and man are like robots under the control of a dictator and Pieper offers a world of freedom and leisure which enables an individual to come in contact with their inner self. This expression of love and companionship as a whole can contribute to the world being a place as God had designed before the fall of man. References 1. Huxley, H.Thomas. (1946). Brave New World. New York: Harper Perenni   2. Malsbary,G. (1998). Leisure, the Basis of Culture. By Josef Pieper: Introduction by Roger Scruton. South Bend. Evangelical Theological Society.   Read More