Throughout time writers have taken to the pen in order to record their visions of what the future may hold. In the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries Leonardo Da Vinci drew up inventions that the world would not see realized for hundreds of years. In the late 1800's Jules Verne wrote books of fantasy containing machines that seemed unimaginable to people of the day. Today we find machines eerily similar to his all around us. Albert Huxley's 1932 novel Brave New World and Neal Stephenson's 1992 novel Snow Crash both take a look into the future, envisioning a world beyond their own. Although Huxley's work does so more directly, both books give us a look at future governments, and paint very different pictures of the direction in which government may evolve. Though both show governments highly evolved from what is seen today, Snow Crash and Brave New World differ on the shape and role of future government, while showing a chillingly similar vision of the use of human psychological programming.
Today much is made of the shape our government should take. Conservatives clamor for smaller, less intrusive government, while liberals feel that bigger government is better. In Snow Crash, Neil Stephenson envisions a world of mass-deregulation and privatization. The once powerful government of the United States has been reduced to hiding in highly guarded enclaves.
Fedland used to be the VA Hospital and a bunch of other Federal buildings; now it has condensed into a kidney-shaped lozenge that wraps around 405. It has a barrier around it, a perimeter fence put up by stringing chain link fabric, concertina wire, heaps of rubble, and Jersey barriers from one building to the next (Stephenson 163).Functions that were previously handled by the government are now farmed out to a myriad of private organization, each in control of its own small sector of former operations. Former federal highways have been sold off to two competing corporations, Fairlanes, Inc. and Cruiseways, Inc., who operate in direct competition with each other. Fairlanes' roads ``emphasize getting you there'' while the the roads of Cruiseways ``emphasize enjoyment of the ride'' (7). In some areas, where highways of the two cross, this competition escalates to violence.
Once there had been bitter disputes, the intersection closed by sporadic sniper fire. Finally, a big developer bought the entire intersection and turned it into a drive-through mall. Now the roads just feed into a parking system - not a lot, not a ramp, but a system - and lose their identity (7).Also eliminated in governmental down-sizings is the police force. People now live in a variety of FOQNE, or Franchise Organized Quasi-National Entities, choosing their ``nationality'' based on a variety of economic and philosophical criteria. These FOQNE are primarily concerned with the administration of their brand. Functions such as security are subcontracted out the other organizations that specialize in such matters.
In contrast, Brave New World portrays a complete evolution toward big government. In the world it contains, all governing is done by a single governmental entity with infinite power. This government controls not only the things considered normal in the present day, but every minute detail of life. The Brave New World is micro-management on a higher plane; mechanization applied to humankind.
[Mustapha Mond] governs a society where all aspects of an individual's life, from conception and conveyor-belt reproduction onwards, are determined by the state. The individuality of BNW's two billion hatchlings is systematically stifled. A government bureau, the Predestinators, decides a prospective citizen's role in the hierarchy. Children are raised and conditioned by the state bureaucracy, not brought up by natural families (Pearce).This one world government governs universally without regard for the scattered enclaves who would spurn it and hold to their own traditional practices. In some cases it allows these bands to persist, classifying them as ``savages'' and containing them in reservations because they are deemed unworthy of civilization. These are merely the exception, rather, and not the rule.
Correlating with their differing views on the shape of government, Snow Crash and Brave New World also differ in their views of the role future government will play in our lives. In Snow Crash the FOQNE takes a somewhat conflicted approach to governing. There are few laws, yet those that are defined in the Code for the franchise are duly enforced. One character observes that the FOQNEs are ``So small, so insecure, that just about everything, like mowing your lawn, or playing your stereo too loud, becomes a national security issue'' (Stephenson 42). Each FOQNE is isolated and disconnected from the others, responsible only for the conduct of those within its franchise. In a world with no common rule, organizations such as the Mafia, which had formerly been forced to hide their operations in a shroud of secrecy, are now able to stand out in the open. Streetside billboards become a platform for the Mafia to advertise its services. ``You've got a friend in The Family,'' the signs proclaim (8).
The Brave New World has a much more overweening approach to government. Humans are produced in the same assembly line style that is today employed by large industrial and commercial operations. Government involvement goes much further than mere production, however. The use of social programming allows each citizen to be fitted at inception with a particular role in life.
He rubbed his hands. For of course, they didn't content themselves with merely hatching out embryos: any cow could do that.
``We also predestine and condition. We decant our babies as socialized human beings, as Alphas and Epsilons, as future sewage workers or future ...'' He was going to say ``future World controllers,'' but correcting himself, said ``future Directors of Hatcheries,'' instead (Huxley 8).Groups of identical looking citizens are produced and fed the same teachings in order to instill in them an overwhelming sense of conformity. A complete lack of emotional ties, both at inception or developed later, along with free sexual relations at all ages, lead to a loss of individuality, and therefore stability (Gehlhaus). From the time they're working their way up the line, future citizens are being conditioned for future work. For those designated to work in the tropics, heat conditioning imbibes a natural inclination for warm weather. ``Hot tunnels alternated with cold tunnels. Coolness was wedded to discomfort in the form of hard X-Rays'' (Huxley 10). Future citizens are also conditioned to be drawn to places and activities that would maximize their economical contributions. Infants are conditioned to hate flowers and nature because they are free.
Primroses and landscapes, he pointed out, have one grave defect: they are gratuitous. A love of nature keeps no factories busy. It was decided to abolish the love of nature, at any rate among the lower classes; to abolish the love of nature, but not the tendency to consume transport. For of course it was essential that they should keep on going to the country, even though they hated it. The problem was to find an economically sounder reason for consuming transport than a mere affection for primroses and landscapes (14).In order to keep people coming to the country citizens are then instilled with a love of sports that can be carried out nowhere else. In this way the government is able to insure both the consumption of transport and the purchase or sporting equipment. Scientific advances also allow citizens to be kept in peak physical and mental states up until the point at which they die. By keeping ``their internal secretions artificially balanced at a youthful equilibrium'' the Brave New World is able to keep its citizens spry throughout their entire existence (73). No longer is society cursed with those who, now effete, are merely a burden to those who remain.
Both books foresee a day when the human brain can be programmed as easily as a computer. In Snow Crash we find the the ``nam-shub,'' an ancient Sumerian magical speech that functions as a sort of machine language for the brain, bypassing all conscious thought and directly programming the brain itself. In Brave New World we find behavioral modification of infants using electric shock to train their sense of good and evil. Infants are also subjected to hypnopaedia, or sleep teaching, in order to form basic moral instincts. Interestingly, this hypnopaedia works only with moral lessons, and not intellectual ones. The abilities of hypnopaedia do not extend into rational thought because ``You can't learn science unless you know what it's all about'' (17). The hypnopaedic phrases ``are all concocted so as to make everyone happy all of the time, everyone thrilled and content to fill their predestined role in society, to want nothing more than what they've got, to want nothing less. Square pegs in square holes, round pegs in round holes'' (Waitt). In a way, hypnopaedic teaching occurs even today. In an essay on the cost of stability in the Brave New World, Ming Li observes that
Psychological conditioning in the new world is much like the television programs of today. The programs repeatedly tell their obedient worshipers to consume name brand material and to follow the lifestyles of the characters in the programs while the true masterminds slowly take away their devoted members' hard-earned wealth. The psychological conditioning limits the mental freedom of the citizens so that they are never at liberty to decide what they want for themselves (Li).Snow Crash and Brave New World are very different books. Juxtaposed, they evidence very different aims and goals. Yet despite this they manage to provide two vantage points for a single commonplace subject. Though the governments of the two may be as far on opposite ends of the political spectrum as seemingly feasible, it would not be too much of a stretch to take a look at the actions of present-day government and extrapolate either of the portrayed bureaucracies as its inevitable outcome. The future of government teeters on the brink of decisive change, and both Snow Crash and Brave New World provide very plausible models for what it could become.