Aldous Huxley on politics, mind control, etc, from 1958

[I-mon]

excellent interview, after Mr. Huxley published some essays called "Enemies of Freedom":



http://tw.youtube.com/watch?v=scN70fd1rSc&eurl=http://www.infowars.com/?p=5250

"WALLACE: Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Now the devices that you were talking about, are there specific devices or er… methods of communication which diminish our freedoms in addition to overpopulation and overorganization?

HUXLEY: Well, there are certainly devices which can be used in this way. I mean, let us er… take after all, a piece of very recent and very painful history is the propaganda used by Hitler, which was incredibly effective.

I mean, what were Hitler’s methods? Hitler used terror on the one kind, brute force on the one hand, but he also used a very efficient form of propaganda, which er… he was using every modern device at that time. 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. I mean, the Germans were a highly educated people.

WALLACE: Well, we’re aware of all this, but how do we equate Hitler’s use of propaganda with the way that propaganda, if you will, is used let us say here in the United States. Are you suggesting that there is a parallel?

HUXLEY: Needless to say it is not being used this way now, but, er… the point is, it seems to me, that there are methods at present available, methods superior in some respects to Hitler’s method, which could be used in a bad situation. I mean, what I feel very strongly is that we mustn’t be caught by surprise by our own advancing technology.

This has happened again and again in history with technology’s advance and this changes social condition, and suddenly people have found themselves in a situation which they didn’t foresee and doing all sorts of things they really didn’t want to do.

WALLACE: And well, what… what do you mean? Do you mean that we develop our television but we don’t know how to use it correctly, is that the point that you’re making?

HUXLEY: Well, at the present the television, I think, is being used quite harmlessly; it’s being used, I think, I would feel, it’s being used too much to distract everybody all the time. But, I mean, imagine which must be the situation in all communist countries where the television, where it exists, is always saying the same things the whole time; it’s always driving along.

It’s not creating a wide front of distraction it’s creating a one-pointed, er… drumming in of a single idea, all the time. It’s obviously an immensely powerful instrument."


..."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.

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.

I mean, I think, this is the danger that actually people may be, in some ways, happy under the new regime, but that they will be happy in situations where they oughtn’t to be happy.

WALLACE: Well, let me ask you this. You’re talking about a world that could take place within the confines of a totalitarian state. Let’s become more immediate, more urgent about it. We believe, anyway, that we live in democracy here in the United States. Do you believe that this Brave New World that you talk about, er… could, let’s say in the next quarter century, the next century, could come here to our shores?

HUXLEY: I think it could. I mean, er… that’s why I feel it so extremely important here and now, to start thinking about these problems. Not to let ourselves be taken by surprise by the… the new advances in technology. I mean the… for example, in the regard to the use of the… of the drugs.

We know, there is enough evidence now for us to be able, on the basis of this evidence and using certain amount of creative imagination, to foresee the kind of uses which could be made by people of bad will with these things and to attempt to forestall this, 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. I mean, after all, the price of freedom is eternal vigilance.

WALLACE: You write in Enemies of Freedom, you write specifically about the United States. You say this, writing about American political campaigns you say, “All that is needed is money and a candidate who can be coached to look sincere; political principles and plans for specific action have come to lose most of their importance. The personality of the candidate, the way he is projected by the advertising experts, are the things that really matter.”

HUXLEY: Well, this is the… during the last campaign, there was a great deal of this kind of statement by the advertising managers of the campaign parties. This idea that the candidates had to be merchandised as though they were so-called two-faced and that you had to depend entirely on the personality.

I mean, personality is important, but there are certainly people with an extremely amiable personality, particularly on TV, who might not necessarily be very good in political… positions of political trust.

WALLACE: Well, do you feel that men like Eisenhower, Stevenson, Nixon, with knowledge aforethought were trying to pull the wool over the eyes of the American public?

HUXLEY: No, but they were being advised by powerful advertising agencies who were making campaigns of a quite different kind from what had been made before. and I think we shall see probably, er… all kinds of new devices coming into the picture. I mean, for example, this thing which got a good deal of publicity last autumn, subliminal projection.

I mean, as it stands, this thing, I think is of no menace to us at the moment, but I was talking the other day to one of the people who has done most experimental work in the… psychological laboratory with this, was saying precisely this, that it is not at the moment a danger, but once you’ve established the principle that something works, you can be absolutely sure that the technology of it is going to improve steadily.

And I mean his view of the subject was that, well, maybe they will use it up to some extent in the 1960 campaign, but they will probably use it a good deal and much more effectively in the 1964 campaign because this is the kind of rate at which technology advances.

WALLACE: And we’ll be persuaded to vote for a candidate that we do not know that we are being persuaded to vote for.

HUXLEY: Exactly, I mean this is the rather alarming picture that you’re being persuaded below the level of choice and reason.

WALLACE: In regard to advertising, which you mentioned just a little ago, in your writing, particularly in “Enemies of Freedom,” you attack Madison Avenue, which controls most of our television and radio advertising, newspaper advertising and so forth. Why do you consistently attack the advertising agencies…

HUXLEY: Well, no I… I think that, er… advertisement plays a very necessary role, but the danger it seems to me in a democracy is this… I mean what does a democracy depend on? A democracy depends on the individual voter making an intelligent and rational choice for what he regards as his enlightened self-interest, in any given circumstance.

But what these people are doing, I mean what both, for their particular purposes, for selling goods and the dictatorial propagandists are for doing, is to try to bypass the rational side of man and to appeal directly to these unconscious forces below the surfaces so that you are, in a way, making nonsense of the whole democratic procedure, which is based on conscious choice on rational ground."

[qiphlow]

check out a book called the shock doctrine by naomi klein for a look at "persuasion" tactics on an economic level. i'm reading it now, and it's quite the eye-opener.

[internalenthusiast]

thanks for the tape of huxley. i'd never seen him on tape, though of course i've read some of his stuff. mostly many years ago when i was in high school and college.

this interview took place in my early childhood.

what an interesting history lesson. and as with all good history lessons, one can learn from it.

thanks again...

qiphlow, coincidentally, i just heard of shock doctrine yesterday. i'll try to check it out.

[Muad'dib]

There is another great book that came out in the 50's I think, called the Hidden persuaders, about convincing people to consume products on a scale that allows our economy to expand and what mechanisms are used to do so. In point of fact, the Japanese economic recovery after the war was based on a very focused campaign to get housewives to purchase all sorts of things they did not need. One of the first locations in Tokyo to be rebuilt was Ginza, the high end shopping district. One of the first products manufactured was beds, which were then sold door to door, telling people it was "healthier" to sleep raised of the ground.

[qiphlow]

qiphlow, coincidentally, i just heard of shock doctrine yesterday. i'll try to check it out.

my uncle bought it for me. only halfway through chapter 2, and i highly recommend it.

[Darth Rock&Roll]

with the education standards of today and the ubiquity of the internet, old methods of propaganda are failing left and right.

people can fact check on their own and there are numerous sources that can be cited and it is a simple affair to repudiate anything any politician says now a days.

I think that as the old thinking dies away and the old men fall out of view and from power, there will be a generational change that will happen.

ww2 saw the advent of television and the cold war saw that medium as a vehicle for more propaganda, but now, people just ain't buying what their government has to say anymore and if nothing else, people no longer blindly trust their governments. Well, accepting the 'stupid' portion of society.

[qiphlow]

i think that our govt. realizes this. that's why they're just doing whatever the hell they want and public opinion be damned.