Rachel Wilkinson
Teaching Dystopian Literature to a Consumer Class
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any students are struggling with more depression and anxiety than ever beore. These are characteristic dangers o the “consumer class” 1.7 billion people worldwide who are “characterized by diets o highly processed ood, desire or bigger houses, more and bigger cars, higher levels o debt, and liestyles devoted to the accumulation o non-essential goods” (Mayell). Mindless consumerism threatens physical, social, and psychological health; total abstinence, on the other hand, means starvation. How do we guide students to navigate such treacherous, shiting seas? I teach dystopian literature, which exaggerates our modern context so that we can challenge it. Providing or its readers a glimpse into a horriying but ully possible uture, Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World and M. T. Anderson’s Feed show how unrestrained industry oten relies on manipulation and herd mentality, an unspeakably grim encroachment on the individual. When the important thing is selling and buying, the individual becomes nothing more than consumer or worker. This is where it gets tricky: Young people love advertising, consuming, entertainment, and technology. ogy. I we attack these trappings o modern lie, we risk nurturing deensiveness. The challenge is to ocus on the dangers, demands, and opportunities common to the “consumer class” without alarmismdifcult terrain to navigate. It’s a matter o human nature, not stu: “man in using his reason to create the ultimate lie o pleasure has ceased to be human” (Greenblatt 97). Dystopian literature
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Brave New World and Feed to attune students’ sensibilities to consumerist culture.
such as Feed and Brave New World is to consuming as Frankenstein is to cloningtheoretical exploration and warning. Four important traits o modern consumerism that these two novels address are powerul advertising and industry, mindless consumption based on instant gratifcation, reliance on technology, and the resulting atrophy o language. English teachers can explore these important concepts with their students, as I explain below. Using these texts, we can meaningully discuss what it means to be responsible, aware, knowledgeable, and moral consumers.
Advertising and Industry: “A fantastic denial of humanity” Industry is driven by two things: supply and demand. Huxley’s Brave New World (BNW ) explores what happens when the supply side is sinister and revered. God has been replaced by a golden idol, Henry Ford, who was amously so ocused on proft and efciency that he sacrifced empathy, morality, and the health and happiness o his workers. Unortunately, pursuing economic wealth at the expense o ethical behavior is today a real occurrence, as the Enron and Mado scandals prove. Fathers, mothers, retireespeople are reduced to the role o dupable consumer as captains o industry thrive. Ford’s most important contribution to industry is, o course, the production line. Signifcantly, the frst two chapters o BNW take place entirely in The London Hatchery and Conditioning Centre where “the principle o mass production [is] at last applied to biology”
English Journal 99.3 (2010): 22–26
Copyright © 2010 by the National Council of Teachers of English. All rights reserved.
Rachel Wilkinson
(Huxley 7). As the Director says with a certain, justied arrogance, “What is an individual? . . . We can make a new one with the greatest o easeas many as we like” (148). This is an attack on Henry Ford’s mass-production model o consumerism. Individuals are not important members o loving amilies, but they are prized as consumers. While BNW explores supply, Feed explores demand. In Anderson’s dystopia, advertising is rampant. And it sells something amiliar: coolness. Apathetic and oblivious to the world around him, the teenaged Titus heeds the eed’s call: “Sometimes that made me eel kind o tired. It was like I kept buying these things to be cool, but cool was always fying just ahead o me, and I could never exactly catch up” (Anderson 279). Nor does he possess either the skills or the character to awaken to reality. Consuming goods and entertainment is all he knows to do. School™ doesn’t help; it’s subsidized by corporations: “Some o the big media congloms got together and gave all this money and bought the schools so that all o them could have computers and pizza or lunch and stu, which they gave or ree, and now we do stu in classes about how to work technology and how to nd bargains and what’s the best way to get a job and how to decorate our bedroom” (110). Because School™ is more about marketing than educational eort, academic rigor is less important than consuming. This is, again, not pure antasy. I remember the aculty meeting at a school where I used to teach: We were asked by our principal to “drink Coke,” which had just helped pay or a scoreboard or the ootball eld. Certainly, we do drink Coke: every day several machines provide hundreds o caeinated sodas, purchased by students who will nd themselves, just minutes later, too restless to work on a research paper. It’s not just sodas. Many drinks sold in caeterias exacerbate or perhaps even cause ADD and ADHD, which is linked to diculties in school (Berner). Lately, school caeteria ood has been in the headlines, criticized or being attening and enervating. Shouldn’t the ood help students concentrate? Shouldn’t it be nutritious? When what we sell in schools leads to hyperactivity and obesity, what messages do we send about our educational priorities? In another example, NCTE has long opposed the inclusion o Channel One in the classroom because o the “intrusions o commercial
television advertising.” Yet Channel One remains. As these stories prove, exaggerating schools into an economic instead o intellectual marketplace is just thatexaggeration, not ction.
Instant Gratifcation: “A hard master” In BNW, those elements that most challenge and dene us have been extirpated; purpose is replaced with hedonism, substance with artice, and awareness with oblivion: “One believes things because one has been conditioned to believe them” (Huxley 234). The people are expected to have whatever they want, Instant gratifcation or, more precisely, want thrives on mindlessness. whatever they have. They are happy. But they have no choice: “they get what they want, and they never want what they can’t get. . . . They’re so conditioned that they practically can’t help behaving as they ought to behave” (220). That’s what keeps the economy strong: “Industrial civilization is only possible when there’s no sel-denial. Sel-indulgence up to the very limits imposed by hygiene and economics. Otherwise, the wheels stop turning” (237). As a result o this instant gratication, people are unable to think or themselves, because there’s no time or refection and nothing but desire. Instant gratication thrives on mindlessness. Anderson’s dystopia envisions children and adults so ully hooked up that inormation and advertisements pour directly into their brains. Titus, the teenaged protagonist, is aimless and unintentional in his decisions, waiting or instructions rom the eed to tell him what to say, do, and think: “[I]t knows everything you want and hope or, sometimes beore you even know what those things are. It can tell you how to get them, and help you make buying decisions that are hard. Everything we think and eel is taken in by the corporations . . . all you have to do is want something and there’s a chance it will be yours” (48). People are so dependent on these transmissions that education, awareness, and language decay. In both BNW and Feed, it is nearly impossible not to be assimilated because no space lies between wanting and having. There’s simply no time or anything to deepen. Again, this is not a ar cry rom modern society. Concentration is getting harder, in
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Teaching Dystopian Literature t o a Consumer Class
part due to the Internet. The BBC recently reported that our attention spans can be as short as nine seconds when we’re surfng the Web (“Turning”). We skim rather than read, which mirrors how we think: “In the quiet spaces opened up by the sustained, undistracted reading o a book, or by any other act o contemplation, or that matter, we make our own associations, draw our own inerences and analogies, oster our own ideas. Deep reading . . . is indistinguishable rom deep thinking” (Carr). Not only are abilities to read and think changing, but how we interact with each other is, too. Instead o waiting days, weeks, or months or letters, we are updated instantly with text messages. Students receive countless updates on rumors and relationships every hour on their cell phones. I asked my juniors how many times they check their texts during school: “I don’t think you can count it.” “It’s 11 a.m. and I’ve already checked it, like, 20 times.” “Seriously, during the day, it’s like a million times.” “At least 50, 60 times a daythat’s not an exaggerated number.” My school, by the way, has a “no cell phone” policy.
Reliance on Technology: “An ever intenser boredom” In BNW, people are generally unable to perorm even small tasks or themselves. They’ve given those tasks to the machines. John the Savage, however, maintains his independence and rees himsel rom the oppressively thoughtless and hedonistic society. He cannot assimilate. Raised in a world without machines, where lie is hard and not always pretty and where the value o a man is based on strength, courage, skill, and other characteristics absent in his new home, John reuses the lie o idleness and pleasure. This young “savage” sees the weakness inherent in the society where “nothing costs enough” (Huxley 239). He seeks meaning and depth and fnally retreats to a place outside the decadence: “Ater those weeks o idleness in London, with nothing to do, whenever he wanted anything, but to press a switch or turn a handle, it was pure delight to be doing something that demanded skill and patience” (247). He had atrophied in the land o easy living. Only his outsider status allows him to understand what the natives never do. Reliance on technology is typical o modern dystopias. In Feed, Titus cannot imagine lie with-
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out machinery. When a hacker disrupts Titus’s transmission, he panics in his reedom. He alls into a coma and, when he awakens in the hospital, his reliance on the eed is so strong that it is his second or third impulse to open his eyes. First, he tries to get his bearings rom the eed: “Everything in my head was quiet. It was ucked” (Anderson 44). He’s like a boat without a pilot, “the sails were up, and the rudder was, well, whatever rudders are, but there was no one on board to look at the horizon” (49). The expulsion does not last long. He is quickly reassimilated, dependent once again on his eed or inormation, understanding, and desire. Again, this is not merely science fction. In his article “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” Nicholas Carr notes, “Over the past ew years I’ve had an uncomortable sense that someone, or something, has been tinkering with my brain, remapping the neural circuitry, reprogramming the memory. . . . I’m not thinking the way I used to think.” The article cites the evidence that thought is being traded or efciency: “When we read online . . . , we tend to become ‘mere decoders o inormation.’ Our ability to interpret text, to make the rich mental connections that orm when we read deeply and without distraction, remains largely disengaged.” We’ve all seen indications that students’ lives are dominated by technology. One student said to me years ago, when I challenged him to turn o his televi sion, “I there were no TV, what would I do with my time?” I’m not suggesting that we are so ully assimilated by technology that we cannot operate without it, but we certainly would not recognize our lives devoid o it.
Atrophy of Language: “Always diminishing” Although BNW does not directly address language entropy, Feed questions technology’s impact on independent thought. George Orwell investigated how language aects thought in Nineteen EightyFour. In “The Principles o Newspeak,” a history o Oceania notes that “the expression o unorthodox opinions, above a very low level, was well-nigh impossible. . . . It would have been possible, or example, to say Big Brother is ungood. But this statement, which to an orthodox ear merely conveyed a sel-evident absurdity, could not have been
Rachel Wilkinson
sustained by reasoned argument, because the necessary words were not available” (Orwell 309; emphasis in original). I’ve been astonished over the years to learn that many students see this type o malevolent governmental control as laughablecomically evil. They doubt an outside orce could wield this kind o control. They may be on to something. In Feed, the language atrophies as a result o laziness and ignorance, not by at. Like BNW ’s John the Savage, Titus’s girlriend Violet is not assimilated. She understands that when “you have the eed all your lie, you’re brought up to not think about things. . . . Because o the eed, we’re raising a nation o idiots. Ignorant, sel-centered idiots” (Anderson 113). One symptom o Titus’s ignorance is that he cannot nd words or what he wants to say. As a result, he knows only to articulate what he wants to buy, wear, or watch because the eed is ocused solely on advertising, entertainment, and consumption. Consequently, Titus both consumes and is consumed. Fortunately, I don’t think language entropy happens exactly as Anderson predicted. But it happens. Writing or The Atlantic, Carr nds himsel thinking dierently because “media are not just passive channels o inormation. They supply the stu o thought, but they also shape the process o thought. And what the Net seems to be doing is chipping away my capacity or concentration and contemplation.” The immediate access o inormation on the Internet reduces the need to seek and delve. Everything is available: blogs, articles, novels, study guidesall without primacy and without hierarchy. On the Internet, inormation no longer has to wend its way past editors into a book or journal, so students don’t always understand that an article on a database yields more qualitative inormation than a plot summary on SparkNotes. This results in students asking why they can’t just read the SparkNotes instead o the assigned novel. I concede: i all the students are getting rom reading is plot and themeand not the subtle orce o beautiul prosethey have a point. For another example o language losing power and reliability, challenge students to delete like rom their vocabulary. Some nd it impossible to speak. They cannot nd the words to say exactly what they mean. Like allows them to launch their words near a target without even hoping or a bull’s-eye. Inexact, un-
trustworthy, and faccid language ails to orm and inorm internal landscapes. Approximate becomes “like, good enough.”
Discussion Starters Dystopian visions can help students deconstruct their contexts, which is crucial now more than ever. Unrestrained, the worst o the “consumer class” habits devastate the environment, deter critical thinking, disable language, and, some say, contribute to The immediate access of terrorism in developing information on the countries (“Diamond”). The Internet reduces the need BBC’s documentary Shopolto seek and delve. ogy highlights some addiEverything is available: tional truths about our blogs, articles, novels, consumerist, pleasure-seeking society. The documenstudy guidesall tary notes that what we buy without primacy and denes how we see ourwithout hierarchy. selves, our liestyles, our peer groups, and our moods (Shah). In a real way, consumerism aects how we see and interact with the world. As educators, we should help students question and challenge the social orces that are inorming their habits, decisions, and personalities. I use a variety o discussion starters to get students thinking about consumerist culture beore we read BNW and Feed : 1. 2.
3. 4. 5. 6.
Is lie easy or us today? Is it too easy? Give examples o how people escape rom everyday lie. Is it necessary to do so? Why or why not? Is our nation too ocused on consumerism? Explain. What have you bought this week? Why? Do you need these things? Do you own any clothes, electronics, etc. that you rarely or never use? Why? Read and respond to Hillary Mayell’s “As Consumerism Spreads, Earth Suers, Study Says.” What, i anything, surprised you? How might we solve some o these issues? Are you concerned? Why or why not?
During the reading, I bring in current songs or satiric mock ads rom Adbusters magazine to ensure that class discussions are lively; television programs,
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Teaching Dystopian Literature to a Consumer Class
such as Family Guy and The Simpsons, which will need to be previewed or appropriate content; and documentaries, such as Super Size Me and The Corporation. To me, this is more than just pedagogy, so I’ve also started a daily carbon emissions website with a blog that addresses consumer and environmental issues (http://www.salamanderpoints.com). I also assign meaningul writings: Walk outside at night to watch the stars or an hour; write about it. Walk around the mall and people-watch; don’t buy anything. Learn about propaganda techniques and analyze commercials; what are they really selling? The list is almost endless, but the important thing is to identiy challenges and look or solutions to lie in the “consumer class.” Do not simply condemn modern lie. Students are eager to make an impact; we should call on them to act.
Conclusion Teaching BNW and Feed is my avorite part o the year because I get a chance to talk to students about their real lives and how they can make meaningul changes. These dystopias are not just science ction; Huxley was a satirist, and he took seriously his duty o refecting the faws and imperections o a society beset by industrialization. In his biography o Huxley, Stephen Jay Greenblatt wrote that the novel “is primarily concerned not with what will happen in the uture but what is happening to mankind now” (96). Huxley was attacking a present, immediate danger o overdependence on technology and consumerism in the hope that “by heightening our awareness o the demonic circles in which we ourselves are trapped” (Greenblatt 117), we can become more ully human. He elt he was only moral when he wrote (Montagu vi), attacking society’s vices and paths with the tenderness o a would-
be savior. For his part, Anderson introduced his YA satire with the poem “Anthem or St. Cecili a’s Day” rom W. H. Auden that speaks sadly o children, “so gay against the greater silences / O dreadul things you did . . .” Both authors warn us against ourselves. Ultimately, as teachers, we must model or students lives that are not merely satiated but wildly meaningul. Works Cited Anderson, M. T. Feed. 2002. Cambridge: Candlewick, 2004. Print. Berner, Karen. “ADHD: 7 Suspect Food Additives.” The Daily Green. 12 Sept. 2007. Web. 4 Oct. 2008.
. Carr, Nicholas. “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” The Atlantic. July/Aug. 2008. Web. 27 Mar. 2009. . Diamond, Jared. “What’s Your Consumption Factor?” New York Times. 2 Jan. 2008. Web. 6 Jan. 2008. . Greenblatt, Stephen Jay. Three Modern Satirists: Waugh, Orwell and Huxley. London: Yale UP, 1965. 75–117. Print. Huxley, Aldous. Brave New World. 1932. New York: Harper, 1998. Print. Mayell, Hillary. “As Consumerism Spreads, Earth Suers, Study Says.” National Geographic. 12 Jan. 2004. Web. 31 Mar. 2009. . Montagu, Ashley. Introduction. Brave New World. By Aldous Huxley. Avon: Cardavon, 1974. Print. NCTE. “NCTE Position Statement: Resolution on Advertising in the Classroom.” 1992. Web. 24 Mar. 2009. . Orwell, George. “The Principles o Newspeak.” Nineteen Eighty Four. 1949. New York: Signet, 1977. Print. Shah, Anup. “Creating the Consumer.” Global Issues. 14 May 2003. Web. 30 Mar. 2009. . “Turning Into Digital Goldsh.” BBCNews. 22 Feb. 2002. Web. 31 Mar. 2009. .
Rachel Wilkinson is a teacher at Loyola Blakefeld High School and at the University o Maryland–Baltimore County. She also blogs regularly about sustainability, consumerism, and the new local movement on salamanderpoints.com. She may be reached at [email protected].
RE ADW RIT ET HI NK CON NE CTI ON
Lisa Storm Fink, RWT
“Decoding The Matrix: Exploring Dystopian Characteristics through Film” urther explores dystopian works. At its core The Matrix is a dystopian work with many o the same characteristics ound in dystopian novels such as Fahrenheit 451, 1984, and Brave New World. In this lesson, students are introduced to the defnition and characteristics o a dystopian work by watching video clips rom The Matrix and other dystopian flms. http:// www.readwritethink.org/lessons/lesson_view.asp?id=926
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