Brave New World cover
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Religious Role
Upon reading the book you may have thought that 'Oh Ford' was a misprint of 'Oh Lord' when you encountered it for the first time. However, you would soon realize it was meant to be spelled that way. In many ways Henry Ford takes over the role of God in casual conversation among this fictional society. Whereas we may say 'Oh my Lord' or something similar, the people of the World State change any reference to God or Lord to Ford.
The people's reverence of Ford is in no small part due to the completely revolutionary role that he plays in their society. This comes in three parts.
- By perfecting mass production, Ford made the world of the World State possible. That sort of society could never work with craftsmen working on each individual project. Now with mass production, everything can be streamlined and made on an assembly line. Even humans are now mass-produced and decanted.
- Ford's mass production innovations made for an increase in consumerism. The Model T, the first car made by the Ford Motor Company, was one of the first goods that was really available to everyone. However, it wasn't just the Model T that was transformative. A few years later the Model A was released, which allowed further customization of things like color. Suddenly, consumerism could be combined with mass production.
- In the personhood of Henry Ford the founders of the World State found a mind that provided them with plenty of propaganda. Famously, Henry Ford said that 'History is bunk,' which in many ways served as the sort of teaching necessary for the World State's leaders to lead the masses away from questioning their judgment and instead just focusing on their own happiness.
Ford vs. Freud
There is one other point of note worth mentioning. At one point in the book, it is revealed that Ford calls himself Freud when speaking on psychological matters. This is a reference to Sigmund Freud, the father of psychoanalysis and in many ways one of the most influential psychologists in history. Just as Ford was causing waves with his mass production of cars, Freud was creating his own disturbances with the role that the human mind plays behind the scenes. The society of Brave New World made a great deal of use of what he had pioneered. Much of this work was focused on the field of dreams. As a result, hypnopaedic learning, or learning accomplished while asleep, plays a central role in the book as a form of conditioning.
Lesson Summary
In this lesson we looked at the role of Henry Ford in the novel Brave New World. Ford was dead long before the events of the book (which takes places hundreds of years in the future), but his presence is still felt through the use of not only his practices such as mass production, but also the role of his goods in the rise of consumerism. In fact, the phrase Oh Ford has replaced other utterances that used to refer to God. Additionally, his philosophical views are also central to allowing the World State to come to power, as are the psychological views of Sigmund Freud, which also feature prominently.
