Blindfolded

"But once you began admitting explanations in terms of purpose-well, you didn’t know what the result might be. It was the sort of idea that might easily decondition the more unsettled minds among the higher castes-make them lose their faith in happiness as the Sovereign Good and take to believing, instead, that the goal was somewhere beyond, somewhere outside the present human sphere, that the purpose of life was not the maintenance of well-being, but some intensification and refining of consciousness, some enlargement of knowledge" (118).

In this particular section of Brave New World, Mustapa Mond grapples with the elusive concept of a world that it governed more by truth, no matter how cruel it may be, rather than material and artificial bliss. His decision to reject the publication of the paper, "A New Theory of Biology", symbolically demonstrates society's aversion to reality, as is demonstrated by the unabashed promotion of soma pill consumption. Oddly enough, Mond is particularly impressed by the paper, and he even comments, "It was a masterly piece of work" (118). Yet he is unwilling to grant its admission into society, consequently assuring and reinforcing the significance of material happiness, while simultaneously tightening the acetate silk cloth that has blinded that society for so long. Mond staunchly believes that truth cannot coexist with happiness because it will undermine the synthetic order of things in their consumption-focused society. It is interesting to note that in denying the publication of "A New theory of Biology", Mond, who blatantly admitted that the paper interested him, is ironically depriving himself of a certain happiness, which is, after all, his society's defined purpose of existence.

Is knowledge power? Or does a society immersed in ignorance function more efficiently than one in truth?