1 00:00:01,000 --> 00:00:06,000 This is Aldous Huxley, a man haunted by a vision of hell on earth. 2 00:00:06,000 --> 00:00:11,000 A searing social critic, Mr. Huxley, 27 years ago, wrote Brave New World, 3 00:00:11,000 --> 00:00:17,000 a novel that predicted that someday the entire world would live under a frightful dictatorship. 4 00:00:17,000 --> 00:00:24,000 Today, Mr. Huxley says that his fictional world of horror is probably just around the corner for all of us. 5 00:00:24,000 --> 00:00:27,000 We'll find out why in a moment. 6 00:00:30,000 --> 00:00:35,000 The Mike Wallace Interview, presented by the American Broadcasting Company, 7 00:00:35,000 --> 00:00:37,000 in association with the Fund for the Republic, 8 00:00:37,000 --> 00:00:44,000 brings you a special television series discussing the problems of survival and freedom in America. 9 00:00:44,000 --> 00:00:46,000 Good evening. I'm Mike Wallace. 10 00:00:46,000 --> 00:00:53,000 Tonight's guest, Aldous Huxley, is a man of letters as disturbing as he is distinguished. 11 00:00:53,000 --> 00:00:55,000 Born in England, now a resident of California, 12 00:00:55,000 --> 00:00:58,000 Mr. Huxley has written some of the most electric novels 13 00:00:58,000 --> 00:01:01,000 and social criticism of this century. 14 00:01:01,000 --> 00:01:05,000 He's just finished a series of essays called Enemies of Freedom, 15 00:01:05,000 --> 00:01:11,000 in which he outlines and defines some of the threats to our freedom in the United States. 16 00:01:11,000 --> 00:01:13,000 And Mr. Huxley, right off the bat, let me ask you this. 17 00:01:13,000 --> 00:01:20,000 As you see it, who and what are the enemies of freedom here in the United States? 18 00:01:20,000 --> 00:01:24,000 Well, I don't think you can say who in the United States. 19 00:01:24,000 --> 00:01:30,000 I don't think there are any sinister persons deliberately trying to rob people of their freedom. 20 00:01:30,000 --> 00:01:35,000 But I do think, first of all, that there are a number of impersonal forces 21 00:01:35,000 --> 00:01:40,000 which are pushing in the direction of less and less freedom. 22 00:01:40,000 --> 00:01:44,000 And I also think that there are a number of technological devices 23 00:01:44,000 --> 00:01:53,000 which anybody who wishes to use can use to accelerate this process of going away from freedom, of imposing control. 24 00:01:53,000 --> 00:01:57,000 What are these forces and these devices, Mr. Huxley? 25 00:01:57,000 --> 00:02:03,000 I should say that there are two main impersonal forces. 26 00:02:03,000 --> 00:02:09,000 The first of them is not exceedingly important in the United States at the present time, 27 00:02:09,000 --> 00:02:11,000 though very important in other countries. 28 00:02:11,000 --> 00:02:16,000 This is the force which in general terms can be called overpopulation, 29 00:02:16,000 --> 00:02:21,000 the mounting pressure of population pressing upon existing resources. 30 00:02:21,000 --> 00:02:25,000 This, of course, is an extraordinary thing. 31 00:02:25,000 --> 00:02:28,000 Something is happening which has never happened in the world's history before. 32 00:02:28,000 --> 00:02:33,000 I mean, let's just take a simple fact that between the time of the birth of Christ 33 00:02:33,000 --> 00:02:38,000 and the landing of the Mayflower, the population of the Earth doubled. 34 00:02:38,000 --> 00:02:42,000 It rose from 250 million to probably 500 million. 35 00:02:42,000 --> 00:02:48,000 Today, the population of the Earth is rising at such a rate that it will double in half a century. 36 00:02:48,000 --> 00:02:52,000 Well, why should overpopulation work to diminish our freedoms? 37 00:02:52,000 --> 00:02:54,000 Well, in a number of ways. 38 00:02:54,000 --> 00:02:59,000 I mean, the experts in the field, like Harrison Brown, for example, 39 00:02:59,000 --> 00:03:05,000 pointed out that in the underdeveloped countries actually the standard of living is at present falling, 40 00:03:05,000 --> 00:03:11,000 that people have less to eat and less goods per capita than they had 50 years ago. 41 00:03:11,000 --> 00:03:17,000 And as the position of these countries, the economic position, becomes more and more precarious, 42 00:03:17,000 --> 00:03:26,000 obviously the central government has to take over more and more responsibility for keeping the ship of state on an even keel. 43 00:03:26,000 --> 00:03:32,000 And then, of course, you're likely to get social unrest under such conditions, 44 00:03:32,000 --> 00:03:36,000 with again an intervention of the central government. 45 00:03:36,000 --> 00:03:45,000 So I think one sees here a pattern which seems to be pushing very strongly towards a totalitarian regime. 46 00:03:45,000 --> 00:03:54,000 And unfortunately, as in all these underdeveloped countries, the only highly organized political party is the Communist Party. 47 00:03:54,000 --> 00:04:04,000 It looks rather as though they will be the heirs to this unfortunate process, that they will step into the power, the position of power. 48 00:04:04,000 --> 00:04:11,000 Well, then ironically enough, one of the greatest forces against communism in the world, the Catholic Church, according to your thesis, 49 00:04:11,000 --> 00:04:17,000 would seem to be pushing us directly into the hands of the communists because they are against birth control. 50 00:04:17,000 --> 00:04:22,000 Well, I think this strange paradox probably is true. 51 00:04:22,000 --> 00:04:28,000 There is an extraordinary situation, actually. 52 00:04:28,000 --> 00:04:32,000 I mean, one has to look at it, of course, from a biological point of view. 53 00:04:32,000 --> 00:04:37,000 The whole essence of biological life on Earth is a question of balance. 54 00:04:37,000 --> 00:04:51,000 And what we have done is to practice death control in a most intensive manner without balancing this with birth control at the other end. 55 00:04:51,000 --> 00:04:59,000 Consequently, the birth rates remain as high as they were, and death rates have fallen substantially. 56 00:04:59,000 --> 00:05:03,000 All right, then. So much for the time being, anyway, for overpopulation. 57 00:05:03,000 --> 00:05:06,000 Another force that is diminishing our freedoms. 58 00:05:06,000 --> 00:05:15,000 Well, another force which I think is very strongly operative in this country is the force of what may be called overorganization. 59 00:05:15,000 --> 00:05:22,000 As technology becomes more and more complicated, it becomes necessary to have more and more elaborate organizations, 60 00:05:22,000 --> 00:05:25,000 more hierarchical organizations. 61 00:05:25,000 --> 00:05:31,000 And incidentally, the advance of technology has been accompanied by an advance in the science of organization. 62 00:05:31,000 --> 00:05:37,000 It's now possible to make organizations on a larger scale than it was ever possible before. 63 00:05:37,000 --> 00:05:46,000 And so that you have more and more people living their lives out as subordinates in these hierarchical systems controlled by bureaucracies, 64 00:05:46,000 --> 00:05:51,000 either the bureaucracies of big business or the bureaucracies of big government. 65 00:05:51,000 --> 00:06:04,000 Now, the devices that you were talking about, are there specific devices or methods of communication which diminish our freedoms in addition to overpopulation and overorganization? 66 00:06:04,000 --> 00:06:08,000 Well, there are certainly devices which can be used in this way. 67 00:06:08,000 --> 00:06:18,000 I mean, let us take a piece of very recent and very painful history is the propaganda used by Hitler, which was incredibly effective. 68 00:06:18,000 --> 00:06:21,000 I mean, what were Hitler's methods? 69 00:06:21,000 --> 00:06:31,000 Hitler used terror on the one kind, brute force on one hand, but he also used a very efficient form of propaganda, 70 00:06:31,000 --> 00:06:35,000 which he was using every modern device at that time. 71 00:06:35,000 --> 00:06:46,000 He didn't have TV, but he had the radio, which he used to the fullest extent, and was able to impose his will on an immense mass of people. 72 00:06:46,000 --> 00:06:49,000 I mean, the Germans were a highly educated people. 73 00:06:49,000 --> 00:06:59,000 Well, we're aware of all this, but how do you equate Hitler's use of propaganda with the way that propaganda, if you will, is used, let us say, here in the United States? 74 00:06:59,000 --> 00:07:01,000 Are you suggesting that there is a parallel? 75 00:07:01,000 --> 00:07:11,000 Needless to say, it's not being used in this way now, but the point is, it seems to me, that there are methods at present available, 76 00:07:11,000 --> 00:07:18,000 methods superior in some respects to Hitler's methods, which could be used in a bad situation. 77 00:07:18,000 --> 00:07:25,000 I mean, what I feel very strongly is that we mustn't be caught by surprise by our own advancing technology. 78 00:07:25,000 --> 00:07:28,000 This has happened again and again in history. 79 00:07:28,000 --> 00:07:36,000 Technology has advanced, and this changes social conditions, and suddenly people have found themselves in a situation which they didn't foresee, 80 00:07:36,000 --> 00:07:39,000 and doing all sorts of things they didn't really want to do. 81 00:07:39,000 --> 00:07:41,000 Well, now, what do you mean? 82 00:07:41,000 --> 00:07:45,000 Do you mean that we develop our television, but we don't know how to use it correctly? 83 00:07:45,000 --> 00:07:46,000 Is that the point that you're making? 84 00:07:46,000 --> 00:07:50,000 Well, at present, the television, I think, is being used quite harmlessly. 85 00:07:50,000 --> 00:07:51,000 It's being used, I think. 86 00:07:51,000 --> 00:07:56,000 I would feel it's being used too much to distract everybody all the time. 87 00:07:56,000 --> 00:08:02,000 But, I mean, imagine, which must be the situation in all communist countries where the television, where it exists, 88 00:08:02,000 --> 00:08:05,000 is always saying the same thing the whole time. 89 00:08:05,000 --> 00:08:06,000 It's always driving along. 90 00:08:06,000 --> 00:08:09,000 It's not creating a wide front of distraction. 91 00:08:09,000 --> 00:08:14,000 It's creating a one-pointed drumming in of a single idea all the time. 92 00:08:14,000 --> 00:08:17,000 It's obviously an immensely powerful instrument. 93 00:08:17,000 --> 00:08:21,000 So you're talking about the potential misuse of the instrument? 94 00:08:21,000 --> 00:08:22,000 Exactly. 95 00:08:22,000 --> 00:08:26,000 We have, of course, all technology is in itself morally neutral. 96 00:08:26,000 --> 00:08:30,000 These are just powers which can either be used well or ill. 97 00:08:30,000 --> 00:08:31,000 It's the same thing with atomic energy. 98 00:08:31,000 --> 00:08:37,000 We can either use it to blow ourselves up, or we can use it as a substitute for the coal and the oil which are running out. 99 00:08:37,000 --> 00:08:41,000 You've even written about the use of drugs in this light. 100 00:08:41,000 --> 00:08:44,000 Well, now, this is a very interesting subject. 101 00:08:44,000 --> 00:08:55,000 I mean, in this book which you mentioned, this book of mine, Brave New World, I postulated a substance called Soma, which was a very versatile drug. 102 00:08:55,000 --> 00:08:59,000 It would make people feel happy in small doses. 103 00:08:59,000 --> 00:09:06,000 It would make them see visions in medium doses, and it would send them to sleep in large doses. 104 00:09:06,000 --> 00:09:10,000 Well, I don't think such a drug exists now, nor do I think it will ever exist. 105 00:09:10,000 --> 00:09:14,000 But we do have drugs which will do some of these things. 106 00:09:14,000 --> 00:09:24,000 And I think it's quite on the cards that we may have drugs which will profoundly change our mental states without doing us any harm. 107 00:09:24,000 --> 00:09:35,000 I mean, this is the pharmacological revolution which has taken place, that we have now powerful mind-changing drugs which, physiologically speaking, are almost costless. 108 00:09:35,000 --> 00:09:46,000 I mean, they are not like opium or like cocaine which do change the state of mind but leave terrible results, physiologically and morally. 109 00:09:46,000 --> 00:09:57,000 Mr. Huxley, in your new essays, you state that these various enemies of freedom are pushing us toward a real-life, brave new world, and you say that it's awaiting us just around the corner. 110 00:09:57,000 --> 00:10:07,000 First of all, can you detail for us what life in this brave new world which you fear so much, or what life might be like? 111 00:10:07,000 --> 00:10:18,000 Well, to start with, I think this kind of the dictatorship of the future, I think will be very unlike the dictatorships which we've been familiar with in the immediate past. 112 00:10:18,000 --> 00:10:27,000 I mean, take another book prophesying the future, which was a very remarkable book, George Orwell's 1984. 113 00:10:27,000 --> 00:10:40,000 Well, this book was written at the height of the Stalinist regime and just after the Hitler regime, and there he foresaw a dictatorship using entirely the methods of terror, the methods of physical violence. 114 00:10:40,000 --> 00:10:50,000 Now, I think what is going to happen in the future is that dictators will find, as the old saying goes, that you can do everything with bayonets except sit on them. 115 00:10:50,000 --> 00:11:09,000 But if you want to preserve your power indefinitely, you have to get the consent of the ruled, and this they will do partly by drugs, as I foresaw in Brave New World, partly by these new techniques of propaganda. 116 00:11:09,000 --> 00:11:26,000 They will do it by bypassing the sort of rational side of man and appealing to his subconscious and his deeper emotions, and his physiology even, and so making him actually love his slavery. 117 00:11:26,000 --> 00:11:36,000 I mean, I think this is the danger, that actually people may be in some ways happy under the new regime, but they will be happy in situations where they oughtn't to be happy. 118 00:11:36,000 --> 00:11:45,000 But let me ask you this. You're talking about a world that could take place within the confines of a totalitarian state. 119 00:11:45,000 --> 00:11:53,000 Let's become more immediate, more urgent about it. We believe, anyway, that we live in democracy here in the United States. 120 00:11:53,000 --> 00:12:05,000 Do you believe that this brave new world that you talk about could, let's say in the next quarter century, the next century, could come here to our shores? 121 00:12:05,000 --> 00:12:20,000 I think it could. I mean, that's why I feel it's so extremely important here and now to start thinking about these problems, not to let ourselves be taken by surprise by the new advances in technology. 122 00:12:20,000 --> 00:12:33,000 I mean, for example, in regard to the use of the drugs, we know there's enough evidence now for us to be able, on the basis of this evidence and using a certain amount of creative imagination, 123 00:12:33,000 --> 00:12:43,000 to foresee the kind of uses which could be made by people of bad will with these things, and to attempt to forestall this. 124 00:12:43,000 --> 00:12:52,000 And in the same way, I think with these other methods of propaganda, we can foresee and we can do a good deal to forestall. 125 00:12:52,000 --> 00:12:56,000 I mean, after all, the price of freedom is eternal vigilance. 126 00:12:57,000 --> 00:13:01,000 You write in Enemies of Freedom, you write specifically about the United States. 127 00:13:01,000 --> 00:13:04,000 You say this, writing about American political campaigns. 128 00:13:05,000 --> 00:13:10,000 You say, all that is needed is money and a candidate who can be coached to look sincere. 129 00:13:11,000 --> 00:13:16,000 Political principles and plans for specific action have come to lose most of their importance. 130 00:13:16,000 --> 00:13:22,000 The personality of the candidate, the way he is projected by the advertising experts, are the things that really matter. 131 00:13:23,000 --> 00:13:34,000 Well, this is, during the last campaign, there was a great deal of this kind of statement by the advertising managers of the campaign parties, 132 00:13:35,000 --> 00:13:40,000 this idea that the candidates had to be merchandised as though they were soap or toothpaste, 133 00:13:40,000 --> 00:13:44,000 and that you had to depend entirely on the personality. 134 00:13:45,000 --> 00:13:50,000 I mean, the personality is important, but there are certainly people with an extremely amiable personality, 135 00:13:51,000 --> 00:13:58,000 particularly on TV, who might not necessarily be very good in positions of political trust. 136 00:13:59,000 --> 00:14:03,000 Well, do you feel that men like Eisenhower, Stevenson, Nixon, with knowledge of forethought, 137 00:14:04,000 --> 00:14:07,000 were trying to pull the wool over the eyes of the American public? 138 00:14:07,000 --> 00:14:17,000 No, but they were being advised by powerful advertising agencies who were making campaigns of a quite different kind 139 00:14:18,000 --> 00:14:19,000 from what had been made before. 140 00:14:20,000 --> 00:14:27,000 And I think we shall see, probably, all kinds of new devices coming into the picture. 141 00:14:27,000 --> 00:14:34,000 I mean, for example, this thing which got a good deal of publicity last autumn, a subliminal projection. 142 00:14:35,000 --> 00:14:40,000 I mean, as it stands, this thing, I think, is of no menace for us at the moment. 143 00:14:41,000 --> 00:14:49,000 But I was talking the other day to one of the people who has done most experimental work in the psychological laboratory with this, 144 00:14:49,000 --> 00:14:57,000 who was saying precisely this, that it is not at the moment a danger, but once you've established a principle that something works, 145 00:14:58,000 --> 00:15:02,000 you can be absolutely sure that the technology of it is going to improve steadily. 146 00:15:02,000 --> 00:15:10,000 And I mean, his view of the subject was that, well, maybe they will use it to some extent in the 1960 campaign, 147 00:15:11,000 --> 00:15:15,000 but they will probably use it a good deal and much more effectively in the 1964 campaign, 148 00:15:15,000 --> 00:15:18,000 because this is the kind of rate at which technology advances. 149 00:15:18,000 --> 00:15:23,000 And we'll be persuaded to vote for a candidate that we do not know that we are being persuaded to vote for. 150 00:15:23,000 --> 00:15:29,000 Exactly. I mean, this is the rather alarming feature, that you're being persuaded below the level of choice and reason. 151 00:15:30,000 --> 00:15:36,000 In regard to advertising, which you mentioned just a little ago, in your writing, particularly in Enemies of Freedom, 152 00:15:37,000 --> 00:15:43,000 you attack Madison Avenue, which controls most of our television and radio, advertising, newspaper advertising and so forth. 153 00:15:43,000 --> 00:15:47,000 Why do you consistently attack the advertising agencies? 154 00:15:47,000 --> 00:15:55,000 Well, no, I think that advertisement plays a very necessary role, but the danger, it seems to me, in a democracy is this. 155 00:15:56,000 --> 00:16:04,000 I mean, what does a democracy depend on? A democracy depends on the individual voter making an intelligent and rational choice 156 00:16:05,000 --> 00:16:08,000 for what he regards as his enlightened self-interest in any given circumstance. 157 00:16:08,000 --> 00:16:17,000 But what these people are doing, I mean, what both for their particular purposes, the selling goods and the dictatorial propagandists are doing, 158 00:16:18,000 --> 00:16:25,000 is to try to bypass the rational side of man and to appeal directly to these unconscious forces below the surface, 159 00:16:26,000 --> 00:16:34,000 so that you are, in a way, making nonsense of the whole democratic procedure which is based on conscious choice on rational grounds. 160 00:16:34,000 --> 00:16:42,000 Of course, well, maybe you have just answered this next question, because in your essay you write about television commercials, 161 00:16:43,000 --> 00:16:51,000 not just political commercials, but television commercials as such, and how, as you put it, today's children walk around singing beer commercials and toothpaste commercials, 162 00:16:51,000 --> 00:16:57,000 and then you link this phenomenon in some way with the dangers of a dictatorship. 163 00:16:57,000 --> 00:17:00,000 Now, could you spell out the connection, or how do you feel that you have done so sufficiently? 164 00:17:01,000 --> 00:17:09,000 Well, I mean, here, this whole question of children, I think, is a terribly important one, because the children are quite clearly much more suggestible than the average grown-up. 165 00:17:09,000 --> 00:17:22,000 And, again, suppose that, for one reason or another, all the propaganda was in the hands of one or very few agencies. 166 00:17:22,000 --> 00:17:31,000 You would have an extraordinarily powerful force playing on these children, who, after all, are going to grow up and be adults quite soon. 167 00:17:32,000 --> 00:17:38,000 I do think that this is not an immediate threat, but it remains a possible threat. 168 00:17:39,000 --> 00:17:47,000 You said something to the effect in your essay that the children of Europe used to be called cannon fodder, and here in the United States they are television and radio fodder. 169 00:17:47,000 --> 00:17:57,000 Well, after all, you can read in the trade journals the most lyrical accounts of how necessary it is to get hold of the children, 170 00:17:57,000 --> 00:18:00,000 because then they will be loyal brand buyers later on. 171 00:18:00,000 --> 00:18:10,000 But, I mean, again, you just translate this into political terms, the dictator says they will be loyal ideology buyers when they're grown up. 172 00:18:10,000 --> 00:18:22,000 We hear so much about brainwashing as used by the communists. Do you see any brainwashing other than that, which we've just been talking about, that is used here in the United States? Other forms of brainwashing? 173 00:18:22,000 --> 00:18:34,000 Not in the form that has been used in China and in Russia, because this is essentially the application of propaganda methods, the most violent kind, to individuals. 174 00:18:35,000 --> 00:18:39,000 It's not a shotgun method like the advertising method. 175 00:18:39,000 --> 00:18:50,000 It's a way of getting hold of the person and playing both on his physiology and his psychology until he really breaks down, and then you can implant a new idea in his head. 176 00:18:50,000 --> 00:18:55,000 I mean, the descriptions of the methods are really blood-curdling when you read them. 177 00:18:55,000 --> 00:19:04,000 And not only the methods applied to political prisoners, but the methods applied, for example, to the training of the young communist administrators and missionaries. 178 00:19:04,000 --> 00:19:13,000 They receive an incredibly tough kind of training, which may cause about 25% of them to break down or commit suicide, 179 00:19:13,000 --> 00:19:18,000 but produces 75% of completely one-pointed fanatics. 180 00:19:18,000 --> 00:19:23,000 The question, of course, that keeps coming back to my mind is this. 181 00:19:23,000 --> 00:19:30,000 Obviously, politics in themselves are not evil. Television is not in itself evil. Atomic energy is not evil. 182 00:19:30,000 --> 00:19:34,000 And yet, you seem to fear that it will be used in an evil way. 183 00:19:34,000 --> 00:19:39,000 Why is it that the right people will not, in your estimation, use them? 184 00:19:39,000 --> 00:19:46,000 Why is it that the wrong people will use these various devices and for the wrong motives? 185 00:19:46,000 --> 00:19:53,000 Well, I think one of the reasons is that these are all instruments for obtaining power. 186 00:19:53,000 --> 00:20:00,000 And obviously, the passion for power is one of the most moving passions that exist in man. 187 00:20:00,000 --> 00:20:07,000 And after all, all democracies are based on the proposition that power is very dangerous 188 00:20:07,000 --> 00:20:14,000 and that it's extremely important not to let any one man or any one small group have too much power for too long a time. 189 00:20:14,000 --> 00:20:19,000 After what are the British and American constitutions except devices for limiting power? 190 00:20:19,000 --> 00:20:29,000 And all these new devices are extremely efficient instruments for the imposition of power by small groups over larger masses. 191 00:20:29,000 --> 00:20:36,000 Well, you ask this question yourself in Enemies of Freedom. I'll put your own question back to you. 192 00:20:36,000 --> 00:20:48,000 You ask this. In an age of accelerating overpopulation, of accelerating overorganization, and ever more efficient means of mass communication, 193 00:20:48,000 --> 00:20:55,000 how can we preserve the integrity and reassert the value of the human individual? 194 00:20:55,000 --> 00:21:01,000 You put the question. Now here's your chance to answer it, Mr. Huxley. 195 00:21:01,000 --> 00:21:05,000 Well, this is obviously, first of all, it's a question of education. 196 00:21:05,000 --> 00:21:11,000 I think it's terribly important to insist on individual values. 197 00:21:11,000 --> 00:21:20,000 I mean, what is, there is a tendency as, you probably read a book by White, The Organization Man, 198 00:21:20,000 --> 00:21:27,000 a very interesting, valuable book, I think, where he speaks about the new type of group morality, group ethic, 199 00:21:27,000 --> 00:21:32,000 which speaks about the group as though the group were somehow more important than the individual. 200 00:21:32,000 --> 00:21:41,000 But this seems, as far as I'm concerned, to be in contradiction with what we know about the genetical makeup of human beings, 201 00:21:41,000 --> 00:21:49,000 that every human being is unique. And it is, of course, on this genetical basis that the whole idea of the value of freedom is based. 202 00:21:49,000 --> 00:21:55,000 And I think it's extremely important for us to stress this in all our educational life. 203 00:21:55,000 --> 00:22:03,000 And I would say it's also very important to teach people to be on their guard against the sort of verbal booby traps 204 00:22:03,000 --> 00:22:09,000 into which they're always being led, to analyze the kind of things that are said to them. 205 00:22:09,000 --> 00:22:17,000 Well, I think there is this whole educational side, and I think there are many more things that one could do to strengthen people 206 00:22:17,000 --> 00:22:20,000 and to make them more aware of what was being done. 207 00:22:20,000 --> 00:22:22,000 You're a prophet of decentralization. 208 00:22:22,000 --> 00:22:29,000 Well, yes, if this is feasible, it's one of the tragedies, it seems to me. 209 00:22:29,000 --> 00:22:33,000 I mean, many people have been talking about the importance of decentralization. 210 00:22:33,000 --> 00:22:43,000 In order to give back to the voter a sense of direct power, I mean, the voter in an enormous electorate feels quite impotent, 211 00:22:43,000 --> 00:22:45,000 and his vote seems to count for nothing. 212 00:22:45,000 --> 00:22:54,000 This is not true where the electorate is small and where he is dealing with a group which he can manage and understand. 213 00:22:54,000 --> 00:23:04,000 And if one can, as Jefferson, after all, suggested, break up the units into smaller and smaller units, 214 00:23:04,000 --> 00:23:08,000 and so get a real self-governing democracy. 215 00:23:08,000 --> 00:23:14,000 Well, that was all very well in Jefferson's day, but how can we revamp our economic system and decentralize, 216 00:23:14,000 --> 00:23:23,000 and at the same time meet militarily and economically the tough challenge of a country like Soviet Russia? 217 00:23:23,000 --> 00:23:30,000 Well, I think the answer to that is that it seems to me that industrial production is of two kinds. 218 00:23:30,000 --> 00:23:36,000 I mean, there are some kinds of industrial production which obviously need the most tremendously high centralization, 219 00:23:36,000 --> 00:23:39,000 like the making of automobiles, for example. 220 00:23:39,000 --> 00:23:46,000 But there are many other kinds where you could decentralize quite easily and probably quite economically, 221 00:23:46,000 --> 00:23:51,000 and that you would then have this kind of decentralized life. 222 00:23:51,000 --> 00:24:00,000 After all, you begin to see it now if you travel through the south, this decentralized textile industry which is springing up there. 223 00:24:00,000 --> 00:24:07,000 Mr. Huxley, let me ask you this, quite seriously. Is freedom necessary? 224 00:24:07,000 --> 00:24:10,000 As far as I'm concerned, it is, yes. 225 00:24:10,000 --> 00:24:13,000 Why? Is it necessary for a productive society? 226 00:24:13,000 --> 00:24:18,000 Yes, I should say it is. I mean, a genuinely productive society. 227 00:24:18,000 --> 00:24:22,000 I mean, I think you could produce plenty of goods without much freedom, 228 00:24:22,000 --> 00:24:32,000 but I think the whole sort of creative life of man is ultimately impossible without a considerable measure of individual freedom. 229 00:24:32,000 --> 00:24:39,000 The initiative, creation, all these things which we value, and I think value properly, 230 00:24:39,000 --> 00:24:43,000 are impossible without a large measure of freedom. 231 00:24:43,000 --> 00:24:51,000 Well, Mr. Huxley, take a look again at the country which is in the stance of our opponent any way it would seem to be there. 232 00:24:51,000 --> 00:24:58,000 Soviet Russia. It is strong and getting stronger economically, militarily. 233 00:24:58,000 --> 00:25:04,000 At the same time, it's developing its art forms pretty well. 234 00:25:04,000 --> 00:25:11,000 It seems not unnecessarily to squelch the creative urge among its people, 235 00:25:11,000 --> 00:25:13,000 and yet it is not a free society. 236 00:25:13,000 --> 00:25:17,000 It's not a free society, but here is something very interesting, 237 00:25:17,000 --> 00:25:24,000 that those members of the society, like the scientists who are doing the creative work, 238 00:25:24,000 --> 00:25:26,000 are given far more freedom than anybody else. 239 00:25:26,000 --> 00:25:34,000 I mean, it's a privileged aristocratic society, in which, provided that they don't poke their noses into political affairs, 240 00:25:34,000 --> 00:25:41,000 these people are given a great deal of prestige, a considerable amount of freedom, and a lot of money. 241 00:25:41,000 --> 00:25:47,000 I mean, this is a very interesting fact about the new Soviet regime. 242 00:25:47,000 --> 00:25:55,000 And I think what we're going to see is a people on the whole with very little freedom, 243 00:25:55,000 --> 00:26:03,000 but with an oligarchy on top, enjoying a considerable measure of freedom and a very high standard of living. 244 00:26:03,000 --> 00:26:08,000 And the people down below, the epsilons down below, enjoying very little. 245 00:26:08,000 --> 00:26:12,000 And you think that that kind of situation can long endure? 246 00:26:12,000 --> 00:26:18,000 I think it can certainly endure much longer than a situation in which everybody is kept down. 247 00:26:18,000 --> 00:26:24,000 I mean, they can certainly get their technological and scientific results on such a basis. 248 00:26:24,000 --> 00:26:33,000 Well, the next time that I talk to you then, perhaps we should investigate further the possibility of the establishment of that kind of a society, 249 00:26:33,000 --> 00:26:38,000 where the drones work for the queen bees up above. 250 00:26:38,000 --> 00:26:43,000 Well, yes, but I must say I still believe in democracy. 251 00:26:43,000 --> 00:26:53,000 If we can make the best of the creative activities of the people on top, plus those of the people on the bottom, so much the better. 252 00:26:53,000 --> 00:26:58,000 Mr. Huxley, I surely thank you for spending this half hour with us, and I wish you Godspeed, sir. 253 00:26:58,000 --> 00:27:00,000 Thank you. 254 00:27:00,000 --> 00:27:06,000 Aldous Huxley finds himself these days in a peculiar and disturbing position. 255 00:27:06,000 --> 00:27:13,000 A quarter of a century after prophesying an authoritarian state in which people were reduced to Cyprus, 256 00:27:13,000 --> 00:27:16,000 he can point at Soviet Russia and say, I told you so. 257 00:27:16,000 --> 00:27:29,000 The crucial question, as he sees it now, is whether the so-called free world is shortly going to give Mr. Huxley the further dubious satisfaction of saying the same thing about us. 258 00:27:29,000 --> 00:27:32,000 Stay tuned for a preview of next week's interview. 259 00:27:32,000 --> 00:27:34,000 Until then, Mike Wallace, good night. 260 00:27:34,000 --> 00:27:35,000 Good night. 261 00:27:35,000 --> 00:27:37,000 Good night. 262 00:27:37,000 --> 00:27:41,000 Good night. 263 00:27:41,000 --> 00:27:42,000 Good night. 264 00:27:42,000 --> 00:28:11,980 Thank you. 265 00:28:12,000 --> 00:28:41,980 Thank you.