![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
wingedbeastWe've been leading up to this for a short while. For so important an event in setting up the story, we're half-way through the story. That's mostly me reminding myself. This is a quick read of a book, such that even taking one's time to deconstruct it a bit at a time still makes me think I'm breezing through it. There's a reason I read this twice in High School and at least once in College.
Still, a big part of last chapter was the buildup to just this moment. Bernard questioned Lenina's resolve and reminded her that this wasn't going to be... well, it is a walk through the woods at some points but only literally. Both she and he made their resolve clear. They wanted to see this.
So... you know... maybe they might try not being jerks about the whole thing when they get to the Savage Reservation? Nah... I'm not going to be as defensive of Bernard in this chapter.
Okay, we expect it of Lenina. After a moderate sized paragraph (my measure of paragraph size has been altered by the recent rereading of 1984) giving a description of a New Mexico landscape, we get the following.
I don't blame him. She spends nearly the entire time complaining. And, I get it.
Huxley, in this moment, is using her as an example of standard Fordly society. She not only hasn't been trained to deal with adversity of any sort, she's been expressly trained in the opposite. Her inability to find value in anything in this reservation is culturally induced. So is her inability to just politely not voice every bit of childish disdain that enters her mind.
I'm not entirely unsympathetic to her. I'm trying. Somebody has to be in the author's stead. But...
Yeah, unnamed guide, you don't have any obligation to smile for her.
That said, Bernard's not any better. Lenina spots two women breastfeeding their babies. She's scandalized by this, finding the whole thing indecent. Bernard... I get the feeling that Bernard thinks he's better and Huxley thinks the same but...
Lenina's scandalized by the very notion of it because, due to her society and her conditioning, she thinks of parenthood, both in biological meaning and in emotional meaning, abhorant. I have different objections.
Bernard, even though you're approving, I don't think those ladies appreciate being put up for your judgment. They didn't sign up for that. They didn't ask you to come around. They didn't propose you view their way of life and judge them or use them as a tool for judging your own. They're just trying to get along with their own lives.
Quite frankly, the only reason anybody's letting you come around unmolested is because you're the representative of a foreign power that could readily destroy them, as evidenced by the fence that surrounds their territory, regularly killing animals.
I know, Huxley thinks you're examining the value lost to your own society, that your society isn't capable of acknowledging. But, I think you're being a smug dick.
And, Lenina obviously doesn't want to be a mother. You can argue that's only due to conditioning. You can argue that the society you share should treat parenthood as a legitimate option. But, don't try to argue that she should be a mother. That's her choice, not yours. She didn't ask for your input and doesn't want that pressure from you.
If you view Fordly society as America (and I realize Huxley, the Brit, didn't), then both Lenina and Bernard are being classic "Ugly Americans". They come to a land not their own and proceed to treat all the lives present as though elements of the tourist attraction.
Huxley seems to intend for Bernard to be the one having the correct reaction with Lenina having the wrong. But, I'll disagree in part because Huxley's being just as judgmental and conditioning-bound as Lenina herself.
Also, Huxley does, I think by accident, give us a reason to side with Lenina at least a little bit.
Bernard and Lenina are witness to a religious ceremony. The drums of the religious ceremony match the synthetic sounds made during the Fordly religious ceremony of the "orgy porgy", something Lenina notes.
As an aside, here, she's got a point. You can, quite reasonably, argue that religion doesn't just do this, but... Religion does provide a bit of uniform experience. Some people talk about being a part of something greater than themselves. Another way of putting that could be that you dissolve your own identity into a larger identity. (The 1984 reference isn't intentional, but is unavoidable.)
The familiarity of such things, however, goes away when it comes to a sacrifice. Technically, it's possible that it doesn't kill the one being sacrificed...
The sacrifice consists of a young man, a boy, walking a circuit around a pile of writhing snakes as an older man whips him. This draws blood. That is, in fact, the point, to draw blood and pain while the tortured young lad keeps on walking the circuit.
Now, it's one thing to respect other people's cultures. It's another thing to stand by and do nothing while someone is, quite likely, killed tortuously before you. And, only Lenina vocalizes any desire to stop it. She doesn't have the power to, doesn't even know how to try. But, she does cover her mouth and beg someone, anyone, to make them stop it.
You can argue that it's just because the imagery is disturbing, but I don't think so, particularly with what's going to happen at the end of the book. She could treat this as just another spectacle at which she can gawk. I would argue that her reaction is closer to right than Bernard's lack-of-reaction.
Where, exactly, is the line between the rightful refusal to stand by and let someone be tortured and, likely, killed on one hand and just being a judgmental jerk on the other? I don't know. But, I'll argue Huxley doesn't know as well as he thinks he does.
Next week, we meet John.
Still, a big part of last chapter was the buildup to just this moment. Bernard questioned Lenina's resolve and reminded her that this wasn't going to be... well, it is a walk through the woods at some points but only literally. Both she and he made their resolve clear. They wanted to see this.
So... you know... maybe they might try not being jerks about the whole thing when they get to the Savage Reservation? Nah... I'm not going to be as defensive of Bernard in this chapter.
Okay, we expect it of Lenina. After a moderate sized paragraph (my measure of paragraph size has been altered by the recent rereading of 1984) giving a description of a New Mexico landscape, we get the following.
"Queer," said Lenina. "Very queer." It was her ordinary word of condemnation. "I don't like it. And I don't like that man." She pointed to the Indian guide who had been appointed to take them up to the pueblo. Her feeling was evidently reciprocated; the very back of the man, as he walked along before them, was hostile, sullenly contemptuous.
"Besides," she lowered her voice, "he smells."
I don't blame him. She spends nearly the entire time complaining. And, I get it.
Huxley, in this moment, is using her as an example of standard Fordly society. She not only hasn't been trained to deal with adversity of any sort, she's been expressly trained in the opposite. Her inability to find value in anything in this reservation is culturally induced. So is her inability to just politely not voice every bit of childish disdain that enters her mind.
I'm not entirely unsympathetic to her. I'm trying. Somebody has to be in the author's stead. But...
Yeah, unnamed guide, you don't have any obligation to smile for her.
That said, Bernard's not any better. Lenina spots two women breastfeeding their babies. She's scandalized by this, finding the whole thing indecent. Bernard... I get the feeling that Bernard thinks he's better and Huxley thinks the same but...
"What a wonderfully intimate relationship," he said, deliberately outrageous. "And what an intensity of feeling it must generate! I often think one may have missed something in not having had a mother. And perhaps you've missed something in not being a mother, Lenina. Imagine yourself sitting there with a little baby of your own..."
Lenina's scandalized by the very notion of it because, due to her society and her conditioning, she thinks of parenthood, both in biological meaning and in emotional meaning, abhorant. I have different objections.
Bernard, even though you're approving, I don't think those ladies appreciate being put up for your judgment. They didn't sign up for that. They didn't ask you to come around. They didn't propose you view their way of life and judge them or use them as a tool for judging your own. They're just trying to get along with their own lives.
Quite frankly, the only reason anybody's letting you come around unmolested is because you're the representative of a foreign power that could readily destroy them, as evidenced by the fence that surrounds their territory, regularly killing animals.
I know, Huxley thinks you're examining the value lost to your own society, that your society isn't capable of acknowledging. But, I think you're being a smug dick.
And, Lenina obviously doesn't want to be a mother. You can argue that's only due to conditioning. You can argue that the society you share should treat parenthood as a legitimate option. But, don't try to argue that she should be a mother. That's her choice, not yours. She didn't ask for your input and doesn't want that pressure from you.
If you view Fordly society as America (and I realize Huxley, the Brit, didn't), then both Lenina and Bernard are being classic "Ugly Americans". They come to a land not their own and proceed to treat all the lives present as though elements of the tourist attraction.
Huxley seems to intend for Bernard to be the one having the correct reaction with Lenina having the wrong. But, I'll disagree in part because Huxley's being just as judgmental and conditioning-bound as Lenina herself.
Also, Huxley does, I think by accident, give us a reason to side with Lenina at least a little bit.
Bernard and Lenina are witness to a religious ceremony. The drums of the religious ceremony match the synthetic sounds made during the Fordly religious ceremony of the "orgy porgy", something Lenina notes.
As an aside, here, she's got a point. You can, quite reasonably, argue that religion doesn't just do this, but... Religion does provide a bit of uniform experience. Some people talk about being a part of something greater than themselves. Another way of putting that could be that you dissolve your own identity into a larger identity. (The 1984 reference isn't intentional, but is unavoidable.)
The familiarity of such things, however, goes away when it comes to a sacrifice. Technically, it's possible that it doesn't kill the one being sacrificed...
The sacrifice consists of a young man, a boy, walking a circuit around a pile of writhing snakes as an older man whips him. This draws blood. That is, in fact, the point, to draw blood and pain while the tortured young lad keeps on walking the circuit.
Now, it's one thing to respect other people's cultures. It's another thing to stand by and do nothing while someone is, quite likely, killed tortuously before you. And, only Lenina vocalizes any desire to stop it. She doesn't have the power to, doesn't even know how to try. But, she does cover her mouth and beg someone, anyone, to make them stop it.
You can argue that it's just because the imagery is disturbing, but I don't think so, particularly with what's going to happen at the end of the book. She could treat this as just another spectacle at which she can gawk. I would argue that her reaction is closer to right than Bernard's lack-of-reaction.
Where, exactly, is the line between the rightful refusal to stand by and let someone be tortured and, likely, killed on one hand and just being a judgmental jerk on the other? I don't know. But, I'll argue Huxley doesn't know as well as he thinks he does.
Next week, we meet John.
no subject
Date: 2017-10-26 02:04 pm (UTC)Also, Huxley’s characters describe the Reservation as a bouillabaisse of many different cultures and religions. I don’t know enough about world cultures to know which ones are depicted in this scene, particularly the torture. But I allow for the possibility that Huxley was exaggerating real-world practices to make the Reservation seem even more alien. Or to presage the ending of his book, which I still don’t understand. It’s not obvious why an entire crowd of Fordians would find whipping so appealing, almost like Huxley sees a desire for violence as no different from the sex drive.
What he doesn’t tell or show us is how the different cultures coexisted. Perhaps each would have staked out its own section of the Reservation, or perhaps they would have been an ongoing civil war.
no subject
Date: 2017-10-28 12:14 am (UTC)I imagine that the different cultures may have coexisted because there might simply not have been enough of them to do otherwise.
Sure, if you have a village to yourself, you might be able to make war on a neighboring village over who's got the right faith. But, if you're all just a couple hundred as it is, you need the help to survive.