“It was a masterly piece of work. 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 maintenance of well-being but some intensification and refining of consciousness, some enlargement of knowledge. Which was, the Controller reflected, quite possibly true, but not in the present circumstance, admissible.” (162)
In this passage, Mustapha Mond rejects a scientific paper despite his observation that it is “a masterly piece of work” because of its potential to spark change in the minds of the masses. Even in a society fueled by science and supposed progress, scientific discoveries are still strictly controlled. If published, a breakthrough that doesn’t fit with conventional scientific ideals could cause the population to actually think – a “dangerous and potentially subversive” threat to the stability upon which the Society is based. In this case, the paper that Mond reviews focuses on the purpose behind the science rather than simply addressing facts in a straightforward manner. The Society avoids explanations at all costs; one is not to think, but only to do. Citizens do not question why they love their jobs or hate nature; they simply accept the world as it is presented to them, just as they were conditioned to do. Although the Controller himself acknowledges that the idea of some greater meaning in life is “quite possibly true,” he does not allow the public to seek this truth personally. The question of purpose is particularly dangerous because if placed under scrutiny, the flawed logic and justification behind the Society’s existence would fall apart.
Q: Consider books that have been banned over the past century. How does this censorship compare to the Controller’s?
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