Sunday, July 29, 2012
Difference of Ford and God, is religion just needed for comfort?
In Huxley's world, the name Ford comes up a lot as substitute for the name God. However, I think the function of Ford as their deity is different than ours for our God. Both are supposedly responsible for the creation of human beings. God created life in almost all versions of present time religion and Ford created the assembly line which is used to create and condition humans in their world. Even though the people know he was not the original creator, because there were humans before him, they still worship him like God. Ford is used for their slang as a substitute for God and Lord, and rituals are performed in his name but the people do not confide in their deity like we do. They do not thank him for their happiness or ask Ford for anything because they do not need it. As they get older the people of the new world do not need to invest in religion because they are trained to love death and not fear it like the people today. There is no heaven because they are not scared, and they also don't need a hell to discourage bad deeds because no one is bad. Everyone is highly conditioned to not depend on a deity when times are bad because there's soma to fix their problems. Even though it may seem like Ford is a replacement he is used very differently, he is more like an important figure everyone looks up to like George Washington. People worship him in the new world but he is not a really God, he is just a highly praised and worhipped person that helped create their perfect world. Ford cannot answer prayers and perform magic to make everything better because everything is as good as it gets. The discussion between John and Mustapha Mond got me thinking. John states that the world needs God, but Mustapha Mond says that he is not needed because their world is stable now, which means perfect. Mustapha Mond is right, God is not needed in their perfect world. However, our world is far from perfect. Everyone has claimed something to believe in in our world and there is no religion in Huxley's world. So does this mean that religion is created just to comfort us and give us hope in our imperfect world? Soothe our fear of death? How do you think Ford is used in Huxley's world?
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ReplyDeleteI agree with your statement that Ford is very different from God. Ford was created in the World State to replace the concept of religion. Although the citizens had the “orgy-porgy” ceremony, they still didn’t necessarily worship Ford in a religious way. In the World State there was never a need for religion. This led me to think that Ford was an unnecessary figure, but Ford could also be an explanation on how the World State was created. The use of soma would cause the question to rarely come up, but some of the higher caste citizens still questioned their society, for example, Bernard Marx and Helmholtz Watson. I believe that both religion in our world, and Ford in the World State were created to give an explanation on how things came to be.
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ReplyDeleteI agree that Ford has replaced a deity in religion, if not exactly. I also see that the "hypnopaedia" replaces religious morals, such as the Ten commandments. These nighttime messages replace religious teachings regarding morals, but just like in this world, they are not perfect. The evidence of this are the "Islands" where they send non-conforming individuals. What I believe Huxley is trying to show is that there will always be people that have their eyes open and stand against the grain, but society will often ignore and shun them for being different, regardless of whether or not there is any merit to their thoughts or not.
ReplyDeleteI believe the "Ford Religion" in Brave New World is used only so the citizens of the World State can feel that they have a reason for existing. I do agree that in the book, the citizens rarely ever pray to Ford which proves that he doesn't truly have any significant place in their lives. All the people of the World State don't even confide in Ford, and interestingly it seems that "soma" may be their true god. Also, when looking from the perspective of the Savage Reservation tribes, we see that religion plays a huge impact on their daily lives; with their choices being made based on what their gods say instead of what their hypnopaedia messages teach.
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