The Politics Of Ecology (1962)

Audio (43min)

Aldous Huxley on the Politics of Ecology, lecture given 30th November 1962.

“It might be sensible to think less about the problem of landing a couple of astronauts on the moon and rather more about the problem of enabling three billion men, women, and children, who in less than forty years will be six billion, to lead a tolerably human existence without in the process ruining and befouling their planetary environment.”

“Prisoners of their culture, the masses, even in those countries where they are free to vote, are prevented by the basic postulates in terms in which they do their thinking and their feeling, from summarily decreeing an end to the collective paranoia that governs international relations.”

“Some day, let us hope, rulers and ruled will break out of the cultural prisons in which they are now confined.”

“To possess power is ipso facto to be tempted to abuse it."

Edited from the Psychedelic Salon Podcast