Time and the Machine by Aldous Huxley, Research Paper Example

In Aldous Huxley’s Time and the Machine, he takes an introspective look at the function time in society. He opens the essay by noting that, “time, as we know it, is a very recent invention. The modern time-sense is hardly older than the United States. It is a by-product of industrialism – a sort of psychological analogue of synthetic perfumes and aniline dyes” (Huxley, 1). While Huxley comparing industrialism, and society’s obsession with time in the pursuit of industrial ideals, to “synthetic perfumes and aniline dyes” he is making reference to the fakeness of time and how arbitrary it is compared to the actual value it’s given by people. He goes on to critique this value referring to time as a “tyrant” and stating that humans are chronically aware of time, specifically following the ticking of clocks and following each second. Huxley states “we have to be. There are trains to be caught, clocks to be punched, tasks to be done in specified periods, records to be broken by fractions of a second, machines that set the pace and have to be kept up with” (Huxley, 1). While the idea that industrialism is a mirage and that society has become unnatural, too consumed with unreal urgency, competition and gaining capital, may seem a common place argument today, it must be acknowledged that Huxley wrote this essay in 1936. The idea that time is fake, unimportant, or just the byproduct of an industrial machine is a common theme in many science fiction plots and Huxley’s work can be attributed to the inspiration for a large body of literary works. The following look at the literary techniques Huxley utilizes in Time and the Machine to communicate this argument, as well as take a deeper look into the argument itself.

One of the benefits of literature is that it allows the reader to travel through time, specifically to reflect on periods where life was different. Often, as these periods involve the lives of our ancestors the themes hold nostalgia importance and people have the tendency to feel as though there is some ancient wisdom associated with these periods and the people in them. This is part of the reason why historic pieces of literature often have a greater level of appeal from readers, and hold more credibility due to the necessity of the author to do research and remain true to the period. Huxley uses this favor readers tend to have for the past is utilized to support his message when he states that, “our awareness of the smallest unit of time is so obsessive, that a specific time like 8:17 A.M. can have substantial importance to us, while it could never hold any value to our ancestors” (Huxley, 1). Here Huxely points out how times are changing through a direct comparison to the past. In many ways Huxely’s text is counter-cultural and significant because it rebels against the systematic, monotonous structure of society and he also confronts the issue of industrialism. His argument is as political as it is philosophical.

Taylor’s Expunging Father Time, the author notes that Huxley’s view of time is one where time is envisioned as a cage trapping the consciousness of man. He states that, “thought, or the greater consciousness of man, is enslaved by time, which, although originally dictated by some greater power, has become driven by a manmade machine” (Taylor 41). The author is accurate with his interpretation of Huxley, as in Time and the Machine, Aldous Huxley even states, “time is our tyrant,” arguing that the chronic obsession with every given minute and second applied to the urgency that comes with having to meet deadlines and make appointments, or the obsessions that comes with wanting to break a particular record by just a fraction of a second, makes it impossible for individuals to break free from this obligation to time, no matter how artificial it may truly be (Huxley, 1). When Huxley refers to time as a tyrant, he is essentially saying man is ruled by time. He goes on to point out how tight schedules dominate the daily lives of all westerners. He specifically emphasizes the western way of life in contrast to eastern ideals, pointing out that in the “orient” there is a completely different concept of time. This piece by Huxley is of significant literary importance because the concept is the basis for counter–cultural drives and ideals. Literary works like On the Road, and Catcher in the Rye, as well as many of Huxley’s writings like Brave New World, The Genius and the Goddess. Essentially all of these books seek to connect human beings to something deeper and more introspective than what they are deal with on a daily basis in traditional society. Huxley in Time and the Machine, seeks to connect his readers to something cosmic and natural. This can be seen in how Taylor cites Huxley when he says “thus, since Huxley believed that “[t]here is no greater obstacle to God than time” (Perennial 189), man must break free from time—the clock, the archetypal machine of modern society, must be destroyed. For Huxley, the novel forms the hammer that is to smash this infernal time machine (and the worldview that it represents)” (Taylor, 41). When Taylor suggests that Huxley seeks to smash the Time machine and its world view, he is acknowledging that along with the time machine comes a culture to which Huxley is taking a counter-opposite stance. This is how Huxley’s work, but this essay in particular represent the essence of all countercultural ideologies seen in most modern art and literature.

In George Woodcock’s text Dawn and the darkest hour: a study of Aldous Huxley, he assess the importance of Huxley’s work over the course of his life and breaks down the key theme in his work to be an emphasis mysticism, specifically the need for man to reconnect with a spiritual aspect of existence. Woodcock describes it as Huxley making a claim for the importance of theocentric beliefs and behaviour. Woodcock states that Huxley is “insisting that mysticism is ‘the only proved method for transforming personality; and afterwards telling us that ‘Society can never be greatly improved until such time as most of its members choose to become theocentric saints” (Woodcock, 188). Here Woodcock does a good job of verbalizing the objective of Huxley’s argument about time, mainly that obsession with time distracts man from present realities that were once known to him like the natural law of nature and God. Woodcock is correct in making this revelation about Huxley’s promotion of nature and spirituality over factors like industrialism and urbanism. When pointing out how urbanization, industrialism and the obsession with time it imposes on people, have significantly influenced man’s capacity to connect with nature, Huxley states that, one can live and go through their life never aware of the magnitude of the movement of the sun on a daily basis. Huxley goes on to note that they can live their lives without “ever seeing the moon and stars. Broadway and Piccadilly are our Milky Way; out constellations are outlined in neon tubes. Even changes of season affect the townsman very little” (Huxely, 1). Here Huxley makes it very clear what the cost is of allowing one’s self to be isolated from living a genuine life connected to nature. He uses the example of weather to point out how, for the most part, changes in weather conditions have little impact on people because they establish artificial societies which safeguard them from feeling in real connection or association with the natural world around them. In fact, Huxley actually refers to these individuals as, inhabitants of the artificial universe. He further notes that the residents of this town have been “walled off from the world of nature,” but he states if they can liberate themselves from this prison dedicated to keeping time, they will find “time is cosmic outside those walls is more grounded in connection with the sun, moon, and stars, time is cosmic and moves with the motion of sun and stars. Within, it is an affair of revolving wheels and is measured in seconds and minutes – at its longest, in eight-hour days and six-day weeks. We have a new consciousness; but it has been purchased at the expense of the old consciousness.

In his text Aldious Huxley, Donald Watt provides a much more descriptive interpretation of the prison which man creates for himself through an obsession with time. He maintains the same concept of man being divided from nature, but does it in a more explicative way stating that Huxley, “depicts the human race as abandoning its vivaprous habits and propagating by means of germ cells surgically removed from the body and fertilized in the laboratories (so that the embryo developed in a bottle and is decanted instead of born” (Watt 198). Watt’s use of the word decant to describe the way in which people are born in Huxley’s view of the world is meant to describe the relocating of people from one location to another. He is essentially making reference to what Woodcock identifies as Huxley’s core theme, the separation of human beings from nature. Watt uses the image of a laboratory to represent industrialization. Combining, Watt and Woodcock’s metaphors with Huxley’s actual argument, if the embryos are in bottles, then the walls of those bottles represent time, and outside of the walls of that bottle is cosmic time.

The real value in Huxley’s text, Time and the Machine, is not in the way he communicates his argument, or even in argument itself, but in what the argument implies for human kind as a whole. Huxley is proposing that there is ancient wisdom in the mysteries kept by nature. His essay argues that through a better understanding of the natural order of things, people can have a better understanding of themselves and their place in the universe. Within the conflict of Time and the Machine is the industrial person. This allows Huxley to makes a contrast between industrial people and pre-industrial people. On the topic of industrial people, Huxley notes that, “of natural, cosmic time, as it is measured out by sun and moon, we are for the most part almost wholly unconscious. Pre-industrial people know time in its daily, monthly and seasonal rhythms” (Huxley, 1). By pointing out that pre-industrial people have an understanding of seasonal rhythm, he is implying that industrial people are off beat. This further suggests that industrial people are always running out of time. They always need more time and they are never on time, just early or late for artificial events that hold no bearing in the natural world. Huxley goes on to point out the advantage of the pre-industrial era before industry imposed false standards of time on the world, stating that, “they conscious of things like sunrise, sunset and the full moon, as well as the new solstice and the new equinox” (Huxley, 1). The author makes reference to autumn summer and spring and points out how old religions, such as Catholic Christianity and those that came before it insist on a daily and seasonal rhythm. Huxley points out that the pre-industrial man is incapable of forgetting the movement of the cosmos and its connection with natural time and the natural order of things (Huxley, 1). Here Huxley implies that man has lost hold of something that is a natural part of him but most importantly, is ancient and inherent in the way of all things. Huxely uses language like rhythm, and sunset, and full moon, solstice, summer and spring to evoke a feeling of nature and natural features. When he combines these terms from nature with a term like rhythm, it implies that the reader can be in sync with nature and thus the universe. This is such a powerful piece by Huxley because the notion he presents is powerful in itself.

Conclusion

In sum, what is unique about the way Huxley presents his arguments is that he does so in plain English but through lucid clear and concise thoughts. The reader gets the impression that Huxley and speaking directly from his own inner most position and he is stating outright exactly what is on his mind. The argument itself is applicable to all humans, even when Huxley points out that the western concept of time does not exist in the eastern world, he is still making the eastern world relevant within the dialogue by comparison. The bulk of Huxley’s argument against time is the primary theme of many science fiction works. The first work that comes to mind when reading this particular piece, is The Matrix. The idea that people are distracted and trapped within an artificial universes by their obsession with time, both seems to be an over-the-top plot of science fiction and a completely relevant and believable synopsis of society today. The factor that most validates Huxley’s piece as a credible work is the fact that technology is growing exponentially in collaboration with globalization which has resulted in all of Huxley’s comments on society and its obsession with time becoming more prevalent today than ever before. In truth, it is inevitable for the situation to get even more out of control as time passes. The most simplified breakdown of the moral Huxley seeks to get across in Time and the Machine, is that every once in a while we all need to stop and smell the roses.

Work Cited

Huxley, Aldous. The olive tree: and other essays. Chatto & Windus, 1936.

Taylor, Stephanie Abigail. “Expunging Father Time: The Search for TemporalTranscendence in the Novels of Aldous Huxley and Tom Robbins.”Masters Theses (2009): 63.

Watt, Donald, ed. Aldous Huxley. Routledge, 2013.

Woodcock, George. “Dawn and the darkest hour: a study of Aldous Huxley”. Vol. 350.

Black Rose Books Ltd., 2007.