How we cite our quotes: Citations follow this format: (Chapter.Part.Paragraph)
Quote #10
"The Nine Years' War, the great Economic Collapse. There was a choice between World Control and destruction. Between stability and…"
[…]
"Liberalism, of course, was dead of anthrax, but all the same you couldn't do things by force."
[…]
"Government's an affair of sitting, not hitting. You rule with the brains and the buttocks, never with the fists." (3.164-170)
Mustapha draws a line between violence and non-physical control, but is there really a difference? He argues that one is more effective, but is one more acceptable than the other?
Quote #11
"Now—such is progress—the old men work, the old men copulate, the old men have no time, no leisure from pleasure, not a moment to sit down and think—or if ever by some unlucky chance such a crevice of time should yawn in the solid substance of their distractions, there is always soma, delicious soma, half a gramme for a half-holiday, a gramme for a week-end, two grammes for a trip to the gorgeous East, three for a dark eternity on the moon; returning whence they find themselves on the other side of the crevice, safe on the solid ground of daily labour and distraction, scampering from feely to feely, from girl to pneumatic girl, from Electromagnetic Golf course to…" (3.239)
It seems as though soma is such an effective instrument of control because of its ability to distract. Any institution's power is threatened by the discontent of those it subjugates, so the World Controllers have eliminated discontent altogether.
Quote #12
To have dealings with members of the lower castes was always, for Bernard, a most distressing experience. For whatever the cause (and the current gossip about the alcohol in his blood-surrogate may very likely—for accidents will happen—have been true) Bernard's physique was hardly better than that of the average Gamma. He stood eight centimetres short of the standard Alpha height and was slender in proportion. Contact with members of the lower castes always reminded him painfully of this physical inadequacy.
[…]
"Hurry up!" said Bernard irritably. One of them glanced at him. Was that a kind of bestial derision that he detected in those blank grey eyes? "Hurry up!" he shouted more loudly, and there was an ugly rasp in his voice. (4.2.3-5)
Bernard isn't satisfied with his intellectual superiority. For him, power is threatened by physical inadequacy. Of course, the only threat to his authority is his own doubt. Confidence—it's a tricky business.