Ford has replaced "Lord" in the language of the World State, and the sign of the "T," in memory of Ford's Model T car, has replaced the sign of the cross. Mustapha Mond, controller of the World State, is called "his fordship." Worship of Henry Ford's methods constitute the new religion.
All of this shows the immense symbolic power of both Henry Ford's assembly-line efficiency and his desire to spread consumption throughout society.
A specific example of Ford's assembly-line efficiency transposed to this culture is the practice of producing identical test-tube babies in large batches. This is efficient, like Ford's assembly line, and it promotes conformity, as did Ford, who stated that consumers could have a Model-T in any color as long as it was black.
Henry Ford's aim was to get a car into the hands of as many Americans as he possibly could. He wanted people to become consumers and buy his goods. An example of this ethos of consumption in the World State would be the law that requires any new sport or game to use more equipment than any existing games, requiring people to buy more products.
Huxley pokes fun at the worship of Ford to show how superficial and empty this conformist, assembly-line, consumerist culture is.
Thursday, December 5, 2013
Henry Ford, inventor of the assembly line that made mass production possible, looms large as a kind of god in the Brave New World. Discuss the specific ways that the society uses Ford’s methods to maintain stability. How does Huxley use Ford and the assembly line to advance his themes?
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