Reflections on Brave New World IX: Out on the Res

Trey Smith

There is one aspect of Huxley's futuristic society that turns out not to be futuristic at all. Various indigenous groups are shuttled away from the "easy life" of the World State to live on less desirable land where they must struggle to survive. These special areas are called -- a term very familiar to Americans -- reservations.

If we look at the history of Indian Reservations in the US, we see the blueprint Huxley utilized in Brave New World. Whites would claim all the desirable land and then they would stick the various tribes on the lands nobody else wanted. Sometimes, later on, the land the tribes were imprisoned on became valuable and so they would be tossed off it and be forced onto other lands the Whites didn't want.

What made this process all the more painful is that the Great White Father (the government) demanded that the Indians farm their land, but this typically was a difficult task because a good deal of the land wasn't hospitable to farming! So, the people struggled to get by and legions of them were unable to survive the harsh conditions.

The treatment of the native peoples by the white invaders is a stain that still persists in this country even today. While American Indians have won many legal rights, many continue to be treated like second-class citizens. Unemployment on several reservations is chronically high, abject poverty is rampant and alcoholism/drug abuse is off the charts.

If Huxley's view of future society is even somewhat on target, all this means is that populations who now live their lives behind the eight ball will continue to be in the same position for generations to come.