Bernard manages to simultaneously embody two types of ethnocentrism. One is that of evangelical missionaries with paternalistic attitudes toward foreign cultures, where they are surprised that sub-Saharan Africa has cities. The other is the false romanticism that many Americans of all political persuasions have about allegedly pre-technological cultures. Both use American culture as the point of comparison for all other cultures as though we are the norm.

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.