BRAVE NEW WORLD REVISITED

ALDOUS HUXLEY EVERSION 4.0

BY

BLURB (BACK COVER) When the novel Brave New World first appeared, in 1932, its shocking analysis of a scientific dictatorship seemed a projection into the remote future. Today the science of thought control has raced far beyond the dreams of itler and !talin. "ethods for destroying individual freedom are being rapidly developed, and the pressures to adopt them are becoming increasingly po#erful. $o#, in one of the most important, fascinating, and frightening books of his career, %ldous u&ley scrutini'es these and other threats to humanity and demonstrates #hy #e may find it virtually impossible to resist them. With overpo#ering impact, this book is a challenge to complacency and a plea that mankind should educate itself for freedom before it is too late.

(opyright ) 19*+ by %ldous u&ley. ,rinted in the -nited !tates of %merica. %ll rights reserved. No part of t !" #oo$ %a& #' ("') or r'pro)(*') !+ a+& %a++'r , at"o'-'r ,!t o(t ,r!tt'+ p'r%!""!o+ '.*'pt !+ t ' *a"' of #r!'f /(otat!o+" '%#o)!') !+ *r!t!*a0 art!*0'" a+) r'-!',". .or information address arper / 0o#, ,ublishers, 1ncorporated, 29 3ast 33rd !treet, $e# 4ork, $.4. 15516. "ost of the material in this book #as published by Newsday under the title T40%$$4 7830 T 3 "1$9. Brave New World Revisited #as originally published by arper / :rothers in 19*+. .irst ,303$$1%; ;1:0%04 edition published 196* by arper / 0o#, ,ublishers, 1ncorporated, $e# 4ork. This book is sold subject to the (ondition that it shall not, by #ay of trade, be lent, re<sold, hired out, or other#ise disposed of #ithout the publisher=s consent, in any form of binding or cover other than that in #hich it is published. ;1:0%04 7. (7$>03!! (%T%;7> (%09 $-":30? 12345414

Co+t'+t" 1 11 111 18 8 Foreword Over-Population Quantity, Quality, Morality Over-Organization Propaganda in a Demo rati !o iety Propaganda "nder a Di tators#ip

81 811 8111 1@ @ @1 @11

$#e %rts o& !elling Brainwas#ing '#emi al Persuasion !u( ons ious Persuasion )ypnopaedia *du ation &or Freedom W#at 'an Be Done+ 6or',ar)

The soul of #it may become the very body of untruth. o#ever elegant and memorable, brevity can never, in the nature of things, do justice to all the facts of a comple& situation. 7n such a theme one can be brief only by omission and simplification. 7mission and simplification help us to understand << but help us, in many cases, to understand the #rong thingA for our comprehension may be only of the abbreviator=s neatly formulated notions, not of the vast, ramifying reality from #hich these notions have been so arbitrarily abstracted. :ut life is short and information endless? nobody has time for everything. 1n practice #e are generally forced to choose bet#een an unduly brief e&position and no e&position at all. %bbreviation is a necessary evil and the abbreviator=s business is to make the best of a job #hich, though intrinsically bad, is still better than nothing. e must learn to simplify, but not to the point of falsification. e must learn to concentrate upon the essentials of a situation, but #ithout ignoring too many of reality=s Bualifying side issues. 1n this #ay he may be able to tell, not indeed the #hole truth Cfor the #hole truth about almost any important subject is incompatible #ith brevityD, but considerably more than the dangerous Buarter<truths and half<truths #hich have al#ays been the current coin of thought. The subject of freedom and its enemies is enormous, and #hat 1 have #ritten is certainly too short to do it full justiceA but at least 1 have touched on many aspects of the problem. 3ach aspect may have been some#hat over<simplified in the e&positionA but these successive over<simplifications add up to a picture that, 1 hope, gives some hint of the vastness and comple&ity of the original. 7mitted from the picture Cnot as being unimportant, but merely for convenience and because 1 have discussed them on earlier occasionsD are the mechanical and military enemies of freedom << the #eapons and Ehard#areE #hich have so po#erfully strengthened the hands of the #orld=s rulers against their subjects, and the ever more ruinously costly preparations for ever more senseless and suicidal #ars. The chapters that follo# should be read against a background of thoughts about the ungarian uprising and its repression, about <bombs, about the cost of #hat every nation refers to as Edefense,E and about those endless columns of uniformed boys, #hite, black, bro#n, yello#, marching obediently to#ard the common grave. I. O-'r37op(0at!o+

1n 1931, #hen Brave New World #as being #ritten, 1 #as convinced that there #as still plenty of time. The completely organi'ed society, the scientific caste system, the abolition of free #ill by methodical conditioning, the servitude made acceptable by regular doses of chemically induced happiness, the orthodo&ies drummed in by nightly courses of sleep<teaching << these things #ere coming all right, but not in my time, not even in the time of my grandchildren. 1 forget the e&act date of the events recorded in Brave New World, but it #as some#here in the si&th or seventh century %... C%fter .ordD. We #ho #ere living in the second Buarter of the t#entieth century %.9. #ere the inhabitants, admittedly, of a gruesome kind of universeA but the nightmare of those depression years #as radically different from the nightmare of the future, described in Brave New World- 7urs #as a nightmare of too little orderA theirs, in the seventh century %..., of too much. 1n the process of passing from one e&treme to the other, there #ould be a long interval, so 1 imagined, during #hich the more fortunate third of the human race #ould make the best of both #orlds << the disorderly #orld of liberalism and the much too orderly :rave $e# World #here perfect efficiency left no room for freedom or personal initiative. T#enty<seven years later, in this third Buarter of the t#entieth century %.9., and long before the end of the first century %..., 1 feel a good deal less optimistic than 1 did #hen 1 #as #riting Brave New World- The prophecies made in 1931 are coming true much sooner than 1 thought they #ould. The blessed interval bet#een too little order and the nightmare of too much has not begun and sho#s no sign of beginning. 1n the West, it is true, individual men and #omen still enjoy a large measure of freedom. :ut even in those countries that have a tradition of democratic government, this freedom and even the desire for this freedom seem to be on the #ane. 1n the rest of the #orld freedom for individuals has already gone, or is manifestly about to go. The nightmare of total organi'ation, #hich 1 had situated in the seventh century %fter .ord, has emerged from the safe, remote future and is no# a#aiting us, just around the ne&t corner. >eorge 7r#ell=s ./01 #as a magnified projection into the future of a present that contained !talinism and an immediate past that had #itnessed the flo#ering of $a'ism. Brave New World #as #ritten before the rise of itler to supreme po#er in >ermany and #hen the 0ussian tyrant had not yet got into his stride. 1n 1931 systematic terrorism #as not the obsessive contemporary fact #hich it had become in 192+, and the future dictatorship of my imaginary #orld #as a good deal less brutal than the future dictatorship so brilliantly portrayed by 7r#ell. 1n the conte&t of 192+, ./01 seemed dreadfully convincing. :ut tyrants, after all, are mortal and circumstances change. 0ecent developments in 0ussia and recent advances in science and technology have robbed 7r#ell=s book of some of its gruesome verisimilitude. % nuclear #ar #ill, of course, make nonsense of everybody=s predictions. :ut, assuming for the moment that the >reat ,o#ers can someho# refrain from destroying us, #e can say that it no# looks as though the odds #ere more in favor of something like Brave New World than of something like ./011n the light of #hat #e have recently learned about animal behavior in general, and human behavior in particular, it has become clear that control through the punishment of undesirable behavior is less effective, in the long run, than control through the reinforcement of desirable behavior by re#ards, and that government through terror

#orks on the #hole less #ell than government through the non<violent manipulation of the environment and of the thoughts and feelings of individual men, #omen and children. ,unishment temporarily puts a stop to undesirable behavior, but does not permanently reduce the victim=s tendency to indulge in it. "oreover, the psycho<physical by<products of punishment may be just as undesirable as the behavior for #hich an individual has been punished. ,sychotherapy is largely concerned #ith the debilitating or anti<social conseBuences of past punishments. The society described in ./01 is a society controlled almost e&clusively by punishment and the fear of punishment. 1n the imaginary #orld of my o#n fable, pun< ishment is infreBuent and generally mild. The nearly perfect control e&ercised by the government is achieved by systematic reinforcement of desirable behavior, by many kinds of nearly non<violent manipulation, both physical and psychological, and by genetic standardi'ation. :abies in bottles and the centrali'ed control of reproduction are not perhaps impossibleA but it is Buite clear that for a long time to come #e shall remain a viviparous species breeding at random. .or practical purposes genetic standardi'ation may be ruled out. !ocieties #ill continue to be controlled post<natally << by punishment, as in the past, and to an ever increasing e&tent by the more effective methods of re#ard and scientific manipulation. 1n 0ussia the old<fashioned, ./01-style dictatorship of !talin has begun to give #ay to a more up<to<date form of tyranny. 1n the upper levels of the !oviets= hierarchical society the reinforcement of desirable behavior has begun to replace the older methods of control through the punishment of undesirable behavior. 3ngineers and scientists, teachers and administrators, are handsomely paid for good #ork and so moderately ta&ed that they are under a constant incentive to do better and so be more highly re#arded. 1n certain areas they are at liberty to think and do more or less #hat they like. ,unishment a#aits them only #hen they stray beyond their prescribed limits into the realms of ideology and politics. 1t is because they have been granted a measure of professional freedom that 0ussian teachers, scientists and technicians have achieved such remarkable successes. Those #ho live near the base of the !oviet pyramid enjoy none of the privileges accorded to the lucky or specially gifted minority. Their #ages are meager and they pay, in the form of high prices, a disproportionately large share of the ta&es. The area in #hich they can do as they please is e&tremely restricted, and their rulers control them more by punishment and the threat of punishment than through non<violent manipulation or the reinforcement of desirable behavior by re#ard. The !oviet system combines elements of ./01 #ith elements that are prophetic of #hat #ent on among the higher castes in Brave New World"ean#hile impersonal forces over #hich #e have almost no control seem to be pushing us all in the direction of the :rave $e# Worldian nightmareA and this impersonal pushing is being consciously accelerated by representatives of commercial and political organi'ations #ho have developed a number of ne# techniBues for manipulating, in the interest of some minority, the thoughts and feelings of the masses. The techniBues of manipulation #ill be discussed in later chapters. .or the moment let us confine our attention to those impersonal forces #hich are no# making the #orld so e&tremely unsafe for democracy, so very inhospitable to individual freedom. What are these forcesF %nd #hy has the nightmare, #hich 1 had projected into the seventh century %..., made so s#ift an advance in our directionF The ans#er to these Buestions must begin #here the

life of even the most highly civili'ed society has its beginnings << on the level of biology. 7n the first (hristmas 9ay the population of our planet #as about t#o hundred and fifty millions << less than half the population of modern (hina. !i&teen centuries later, #hen the ,ilgrim .athers landed at ,lymouth 0ock, human numbers had climbed to a little more than five hundred millions. :y the time of the signing of the 9eclaration of 1ndependence, #orld population had passed the seven hundred million mark. 1n 1931, #hen 1 #as #riting Brave New World, it stood at just under t#o billions. Today, only t#enty<seven years later, there are t#o billion eight hundred million of us. %nd tomorro# << #hatF ,enicillin, 99T and clean #ater are cheap commodities, #hose effects on public health are out of all proportion to their cost. 3ven the poorest government is rich enough to provide its subjects #ith a substantial measure of death control. :irth control is a very different matter. 9eath control is something #hich can be provided for a #hole people by a fe# technicians #orking in the pay of a benevolent government. :irth control depends on the co<operation of an entire people. 1t must be practiced by countless individuals, from #hom it demands more intelligence and #ill po#er than most of the #orld=s teeming illiterates possess, and C#here chemical or mechanical methods of contraception are usedD an e&penditure of more money than most of these millions can no# afford. "oreover, there are no#here any religious traditions in favor of unrestricted death, #hereas religious and social traditions in favor of unrestricted reproduction are #idespread. .or all these reasons, death control is achieved very easily, birth control is achieved #ith great difficulty. 9eath rates have therefore fallen in recent years #ith startling suddenness. :ut birth rates have either remained at their old high level or, if they have fallen, have fallen very little and at a very slo# rate. 1n conseBuence, human numbers are no# increasing more rapidly than at any time in the history of the species. "oreover, the yearly increases are themselves increasing. They increase regularly, according to the rules of compound interestA and they also increase irregularly #ith every application, by a technologically back#ard society of the principles of ,ublic ealth. %t the present time the annual increase in #orld population runs to about forty<three millions. This means that every four years mankind adds to its numbers the eBuivalent of the present population of the -nited !tates, every eight and a half years the eBuivalent of the present population of 1ndia. %t the rate of increase prevailing bet#een the birth of (hrist and the death of Gueen 3li'abeth 1, it took si&teen centuries for the population of the earth to double. %t the present rate it #ill double in less than half a century. %nd this fantastically rapid doubling of our numbers #ill be taking place on a planet #hose most desirable and productive areas are already densely populated, #hose soils are being eroded by the frantic efforts of bad farmers to raise more food, and #hose easily available mineral capital is being sBuandered #ith the reckless e&travagance of a drunken sailor getting rid of his accumulated pay. 1n the :rave $e# World of my fable, the problem of human numbers in their relation to natural resources had been effectively solved. %n optimum figure for #orld population had been calculated and numbers #ere maintained at this figure Ca little under t#o billions, if 1 remember rightlyD generation after generation. 1n the real contemporary #orld, the population problem has not been solved. 7n the contrary it is becoming graver and more formidable #ith every passing year. 1t is against this grim biological background that all the political, economic, cultural and psychological dramas of our time are being played out. %s the t#entieth century #ears on, as the ne# billions are added to

the e&isting billions Cthere #ill be more than five and a half billions of us by the time my granddaughter is fiftyD, this biological background #ill advance, ever more insistently, ever more menacingly, to#ard the front and center of the historical stage. The problem of rapidly increasing numbers in relation to natural resources, to social stability and to the #ell<being of individuals << this is no# the central problem of mankindA and it #ill remain the central problem certainly for another century, and perhaps for several centuries thereafter. % ne# age is supposed to have begun on 7ctober 2, 19*H. :ut actually, in the present conte&t, all our e&uberant post<!putnik talk is irrelevant and even nonsensical. !o far as the masses of mankind are concerned, the coming time #ill not be the !pace %geA it #ill be the %ge of 7ver<population. We can parody the #ords of the old song and ask, Will the space that you=re so rich in ;ight a fire in the kitchen, 7r the little god of space turn the spit, spit, spitF The ans#er, it is obvious, is in the negative. % settlement on the moon may be of some military advantage to the nation that does the settling. :ut it #ill do nothing #hatever to make life more tolerable, during the fifty years that it #ill take our present population to double, for the earth=s undernourished and proliferating billions. %nd even if, at some future date, emigration to "ars should become feasible, even if any con< siderable number of men and #omen #ere desperate enough to choose a ne# life under conditions comparable to those prevailing on a mountain t#ice as high as "ount 3verest, #hat difference #ould that makeF 1n the course of the last four centuries Buite a number of people sailed from the 7ld World to the $e#. :ut neither their departure nor the returning flo# of food and ra# materials could solve the problems of the 7ld World. !imilarly the shipping of a fe# surplus humans to "ars Cat a cost, for transportation and development, of several million dollars a headD #ill do nothing to solve the problem of mounting population pressures on our o#n planet. -nsolved, that problem #ill render insoluble all our other problems. Worse still, it #ill create conditions in #hich individual freedom and the social decencies of the democratic #ay of life #ill become impossible, almost unthinkable. $ot all dictatorships arise in the same #ay. There are many roads to :rave $e# WorldA but perhaps the straightest and the broadest of them is the road #e are traveling today, the road that leads through gigantic numbers and accelerating increases. ;et us briefly revie# the reasons for this close correlation bet#een too many people, too rapidly multiplying, and the formulation of authoritarian philosophies, the rise of totalitarian systems of government. %s large and increasing numbers press more heavily upon available resources, the economic position of the society undergoing this ordeal becomes ever more precarious. This is especially true of those underdeveloped regions, #here a sudden lo#ering of the death rate by means of 99T, penicillin and clean #ater has not been accompanied by a corresponding fall in the birth rate. 1n parts of %sia and in most of (entral and !outh %merica populations are increasing so fast that they #ill double themselves in little more than t#enty years. 1f the production of food and manufactured articles, of houses, schools and teachers, could be increased at a greater rate than human numbers, it #ould be possible to improve the #retched lot of those #ho live in these underdeveloped and over<

populated countries. :ut unfortunately these countries lack not merely agricultural machinery and an industrial plant capable of turning out this machinery, but also the capital reBuired to create such a plant. (apital is #hat is left over after the primary needs of a population have been satisfied. :ut the primary needs of most of the people in underdeveloped countries are never fully satisfied. %t the end of each year almost nothing is left over, and there is therefore almost no capital available for creating the industrial and agricultural plant, by means of #hich the people=s needs might be satisfied. "oreover, there is, in all these underdeveloped countries, a serious shortage of the trained manpo#er #ithout #hich a modern industrial and agricultural plant cannot be operated. The present educational facilities are inadeBuateA so are the resources, financial and cultural, for improving the e&isting facilities as fast as the situation demands. "ean#hile the population of some of these underdeveloped countries is increasing at the rate of 3 per cent per annum. Their tragic situation is discussed in an important book, published in 19*H << $#e Ne2t )undred 3ears, by ,rofessors arrison :ro#n, Iames :onner and Iohn Weir of the (alifornia 1nstitute of Technology. o# is mankind coping #ith the problem of rapidly increasing numbersF $ot very successfully. EThe evidence suggests rather strongly that in most underdeveloped countries the lot of the average individual has #orsened appreciably in the last half century. ,eople have become more poorly fed. There are fe#er available goods per person. %nd practically every attempt to improve the situation has been nullified by the relentless pressure of continued population gro#th.E Whenever the economic life of a nation becomes precarious, the central government is forced to assume additional responsibilities for the general #elfare. 1t must #ork out elaborate plans for dealing #ith a critical situationA it must impose ever greater restrictions upon the activities of its subjectsA and if, as is very likely, #orsening economic conditions result in political unrest, or open rebellion, the central government must intervene to preserve public order and its o#n authority. "ore and more po#er is thus concentrated in the hands of the e&ecutives and their bureaucratic managers. :ut the nature of po#er is such that even those #ho have not sought it, but have had it forced upon them, tend to acBuire a taste for more. E;ead us not into temptation,E #e pray << and #ith good reasonA for #hen human beings are tempted too enticingly or too long, they generally yield. % democratic constitution is a device for preventing the local rulers from yielding to those particularly dangerous temptations that arise #hen too much po#er is concentrated in too fe# hands. !uch a constitution #orks pretty #ell #here, as in :ritain or the -nited !tates, there is a traditional respect for constitutional procedures. Where the republican or limited monarchical tradition is #eak, the best of constitutions #ill not prevent ambitious politicians from succumbing #ith glee and gusto to the temptations of po#er. %nd in any country #here numbers have begun to press heavily upon available resources, these temptations cannot fail to arise. 7ver<population leads to economic insecurity and social unrest. -nrest and insecurity lead to more control by central governments and an increase of their po#er. 1n the absence of a constitutional tradition, this increased po#er #ill probably be e&ercised in a dictatorial fashion. 3ven if (ommunism had never been invented, this #ould be likely to happen. :ut (ommunism has been invented. >iven this fact, the probability of over<population leading through unrest to dictatorship becomes a virtual certainty. 1t is a pretty safe bet that, t#enty years from no#, all the #orld=s over<populated and underdeveloped countries #ill be under

some form of totalitarian rule << probably by the (ommunist party. o# #ill this development affect the over<populated, but highly industriali'ed and still democratic countries of 3uropeF 1f the ne#ly formed dictatorships #ere hostile to them, and if the normal flo# of ra# materials from the underdeveloped countries #ere deliberately interrupted, the nations of the West #ould find themselves in a very bad #ay indeed. Their industrial system #ould break do#n, and the highly developed technology, #hich up till no# has permitted them to sustain a population much greater than that #hich could be supported by locally available resources, #ould no longer protect them against the conseBuences of having too many people in too small a territory. 1f this should happen, the enormous po#ers forced by unfavorable conditions upon central govern< ments may come to be used in the spirit of totalitarian dictatorship. The -nited !tates is not at present an over<populated country. 1f, ho#ever, the population continues to increase at the present rate C#hich is higher than that of 1ndia=s increase, though happily a good deal lo#er than the rate no# current in "e&ico or >uatemalaD, the problem of numbers in relation to available resources might #ell become troublesome by the beginning of the t#enty<first century. .or the moment overpopulation is not a direct threat to the personal freedom of %mericans. 1t remains, ho#ever, an indirect threat, a menace at one remove. 1f over<population should drive the underdeveloped countries into totalitarianism, and if these ne# dictatorships should ally themselves #ith 0ussia, then the military position of the -nited !tates #ould become less secure and the preparations for defense and retaliation #ould have to be intensified. :ut liberty, as #e all kno#, cannot flourish in a country that is permanently on a #ar footing, or even a near<#ar footing. ,ermanent crisis justifies permanent control of everybody and everything by the agencies of the central government. %nd permanent crisis is #hat #e have to e&pect in a #orld in #hich over<population is producing a state of things, in #hich dictatorship under (ommunist auspices becomes almost inevitable. II. 8(a+t!t&9 8(a0!t&9 :ora0!t& 1n the :rave $e# World of my fantasy eugenics and dysgenics #ere practiced systematically. 1n one set of bottles biologically superior ova, fertili'ed by biologically superior sperm, #ere given the best possible prenatal treatment and #ere finally decanted as :etas, %lphas and even %lpha ,luses. 1n another, much more numerous set of bottles, biologically inferior ova, fertili'ed by biologically inferior sperm, #ere subjected to the :okanovsky ,rocess Cninety<si& identical t#ins out of a single eggD and treated prenatally #ith alcohol and other protein poisons. The creatures finally decanted #ere almost subhumanA but they #ere capable of performing unskilled #ork and, #hen properly conditioned, detensioned by free and freBuent access to the opposite se&, constantly distracted by gratuitous entertainment and reinforced in their good behavior patterns by daily doses of soma, could be counted on to give no trouble to their superiors. 1n this second half of the t#entieth century #e do nothing systematic about our breedingA but in our random and unregulated #ay #e are not only over<populating our planet, #e are also, it #ould seem, making sure that these greater numbers shall be of biologically poorer Buality. 1n the bad old days children #ith considerable, or even #ith

slight, hereditary defects rarely survived. Today, thanks to sanitation, modern pharmacology and the social conscience, most of the children born #ith hereditary defects reach maturity and multiply their kind. -nder the conditions no# prevailing, every advance in medicine #ill tend to be offset by a corresponding advance in the survival rate of individuals cursed by some genetic insufficiency. 1n spite of ne# #onder drugs and better treatment Cindeed, in a certain sense, precisely because of these thingsD, the physical health of the general population #ill sho# no improvement, and may even deteriorate. %nd along #ith a decline of average healthiness there may #ell go a decline in average intelligence. 1ndeed, some competent authorities are convinced that such a decline has already taken place and is continuing. E-nder conditions that are both soft and unregulated,E #rites 9r. W. . !heldon, Eour best stock tends to be outbred by stock that is inferior to it in every respect. . . . 1t is the fashion in some academic circles to assure students that the alarm over differential birthrates is unfoundedA that these problems are merely economic, or merely educational, or merely religious, or merely cultural or something of the sort. This is ,ollyanna optimism. 0eproductive delinBuency is biological and basic.E %nd he adds that Enobody kno#s just ho# far the average 1G in this country Jthe -.!.%.K has declined since 1916, #hen Terman attempted to standardi'e the meaning of 1G 155.E 1n an underdeveloped and over<populated country, #here four<fifths of the people get less than t#o thousand calories a day and one<fifth enjoys an adeBuate diet, can democratic institutions arise spontaneouslyF 7r if they should be imposed from outside or from above, can they possibly surviveF %nd no# let us consider the case of the rich, industriali'ed and democratic society, in #hich, o#ing to the random but effective practice of dysgenics, 1G=s and physical vigor are on the decline. .or ho# long can such a society maintain its traditions of individual liberty and democratic governmentF .ifty or a hundred years from no# our children #ill learn the ans#er to this Buestion. "ean#hile #e find ourselves confronted by a most disturbing moral problem. We kno# that the pursuit of good ends does not justify the employment of bad means. :ut #hat about those situations, no# of such freBuent occurrence, in #hich good means have end results #hich turn out to be badF .or e&ample, #e go to a tropical island and #ith the aid of 99T #e stamp out malaria and, in t#o or three years, save hundreds of thousands of lives. This is obviously good. :ut the hundreds of thousands of human beings thus saved, and the millions #hom they beget and bring to birth, cannot be adeBuately clothed, housed, educated or even fed out of the island=s available resources. Guick death by malaria has been abolishedA but life made miserable by undernourishment and over<cro#ding is no# the rule, and slo# death by outright starvation threatens ever greater numbers. %nd #hat about the congenitally insufficient organisms, #hom our medicine and our social services no# preserve so that they may propagate their kindF To help the unfortunate is obviously good. :ut the #holesale transmission to our descendants of the results of unfavorable mutations, and the progressive contamination of the genetic pool from #hich the members of our species #ill have to dra#, are no less obviously bad. We are on the horns of an ethical dilemma, and to find the middle #ay #ill reBuire all our intelligence and all our good #ill.

III. O-'r3Or;a+!<at!o+ The shortest and broadest road to the nightmare of :rave $e# World leads, as 1 have pointed out, through over<population and the accelerating increase of human numbers << t#enty<eight hundred millions today, fifty<five hundred millions by the turn of the century, #ith most of humanity facing the choice bet#een anarchy and totalitarian control. :ut the increasing pressure of numbers upon available resources is not the only force propelling us in the direction of totalitarianism. This blind biological enemy of freedom is allied #ith immensely po#erful forces generated by the very advances in technology of #hich #e are most proud. Iustifiably proud, it may be addedA for these advances are the fruits of genius and persistent hard #ork, of logic, imagination and self< denial << in a #ord, of moral and intellectual virtues for #hich one can feel nothing but admiration. :ut the $ature of Things is such that nobody in this #orld ever gets anything for nothing. These ama'ing and admirable advances have had to be paid for. 1ndeed, like last year=s #ashing machine, they are still being paid for << and each installment is higher than the last. "any historians, many sociologists and psychologists have #ritten at length, and #ith a deep concern, about the price that Western man has had to pay and #ill go on paying for technological progress. They point out, for e&ample, that democracy can hardly be e&pected to flourish in societies #here political and economic po#er is being progressively concentrated and centrali'ed. :ut the progress of technology has led and is still leading to just such a concentration and centrali'ation of po#er. %s the machinery of mass production is made more efficient it tends to become more comple& and more e&pensive << and so less available to the enterpriser of limited means. "oreover, mass production cannot #ork #ithout mass distributionA but mass distribution raises problems #hich only the largest producers can satisfactorily solve. 1n a #orld of mass production and mass distribution the ;ittle "an, #ith his inadeBuate stock of #orking capital, is at a grave disadvantage. 1n competition #ith the :ig "an, he loses his money and finally his very e&istence as an independent producerA the :ig "an has gobbled him up. %s the ;ittle "en disappear, more and more economic po#er comes to be #ielded by fe#er and fe#er people. -nder a dictatorship the :ig :usiness, made possible by advancing technology and the conseBuent ruin of ;ittle :usiness, is controlled by the !tate << that is to say, by a small group of party leaders and the soldiers, policemen and civil servants #ho carry out their orders. 1n a capitalist democracy, such as the -nited !tates, it is controlled by #hat ,rofessor (. Wright "ills has called the ,o#er 3lite. This ,o#er 3lite directly employs several millions of the country=s #orking force in its factories, offices and stores, controls many millions more by lending them the money to buy its products, and, through its o#nership of the media of mass communication, influences the thoughts, the feelings and the actions of virtually everybody. To parody the #ords of Winston (hurchill, never have so many been manipulated so much by so fe#. We are far indeed from Iefferson=s ideal of a genuinely free society composed of a hierarchy of self< governing units << Ethe elementary republics of the #ards, the county republics, the !tate republics and the 0epublic of the -nion, forming a gradation of authorities.E We see, then, that modern technology has led to the concentration of economic and political po#er, and to the development of a society controlled Cruthlessly in the

totalitarian states, politely and inconspicuously in the democraciesD by :ig :usiness and :ig >overnment. :ut societies are composed of individuals and are good only insofar as they help individuals to reali'e their potentialities and to lead a happy and creative life. o# have individuals been affected by the technological advances of recent yearsF ere is the ans#er to this Buestion given by a philosopher<psychiatrist, 9r. 3rich .romm?
Our contemporary Western society, in spite of its material, intellectual and political progress, is increasingly less conducive to mental health, and tends to undermine the inner security, happiness, reason and the capacity for love in the individual; it tends to turn him into an automaton who pays for his human failure with increasing mental sickness, and with despair hidden under a frantic drive for work and so-called pleasure.

7ur Eincreasing mental sicknessE may find e&pression in neurotic symptoms. These symptoms are conspicuous and e&tremely distressing. :ut Elet us be#are,E says 9r. .romm, Eof defining mental hygiene as the prevention of symptoms. !ymptoms as such are not our enemy, but our friendA #here there are symptoms there is conflict, and conflict al#ays indicates that the forces of life #hich strive for integration and happiness are still fighting.E The really hopeless victims of mental illness are to be found among those #ho appear to be most normal. E"any of them are normal because they are so #ell adjusted to our mode of e&istence, because their human voice has been silenced so early in their lives, that they do not even struggle or suffer or develop symptoms as the neurotic does.E They are normal not in #hat may be called the absolute sense of the #ordA they are normal only in relation to a profoundly abnormal society. Their perfect adjustment to that abnormal society is a measure of their mental sickness. These millions of abnormally normal people, living #ithout fuss in a society to #hich, if they #ere fully human beings, they ought not to be adjusted, still cherish Ethe illusion of individuality,E but in fact they have been to a great e&tent deindividuali'ed. Their conformity is developing into something like uniformity. :ut Euniformity and freedom are incompatible. -niformity and mental health are incompatible too. . . . "an is not made to be an automaton, and if he becomes one, the basis for mental health is destroyed.E 1n the course of evolution nature has gone to endless trouble to see that every individual is unlike every other individual. We reproduce our kind by bringing the father=s genes into contact #ith the mother=s. These hereditary factors may be combined in an al< most infinite number of #ays. ,hysically and mentally, each one of us is uniBue. %ny culture #hich, in the interests of efficiency or in the name of some political or religious dogma, seeks to standardi'e the human individual, commits an outrage against man=s biological nature. !cience may be defined as the reduction of multiplicity to unity. 1t seeks to e&plain the endlessly diverse phenomena of nature by ignoring the uniBueness of particular events, concentrating on #hat they have in common and finally abstracting some kind of Ela#,E in terms of #hich they make sense and can be effectively dealt #ith. .or e&amples, apples fall from the tree and the moon moves across the sky. ,eople had been observing these facts from time immemorial. With >ertrude !tein they #ere convinced that an apple is an apple is an apple, #hereas the moon is the moon is the moon. 1t remained for 1saac $e#ton to perceive #hat these very dissimilar phenomena had in common, and to formulate a theory of gravitation in terms of #hich certain aspects of the behavior of apples, of the heavenly bodies and indeed of everything else in the

physical universe could be e&plained and dealt #ith in terms of a single system of ideas. 1n the same spirit the artist takes the innumerable diversities and uniBuenesses of the outer #orld and his o#n imagination and gives them meaning #ithin an orderly system of plastic, literary or musical patterns. The #ish to impose order upon confusion, to bring harmony out of dissonance and unity out of multiplicity is a kind of intellectual instinct, a primary and fundamental urge of the mind. Within the realms of science, art and philosophy the #orkings of #hat 1 may call this EWill to 7rderE are mainly beneficent. True, the Will to 7rder has produced many premature syntheses based upon insufficient evidence, many absurd systems of metaphysics and theology, much pedantic mistaking of notions for realities, of symbols and abstractions for the data of immediate e&perience. :ut these errors, ho#ever regrettable, do not do much harm, at any rate directly << though it sometimes happens that a bad philosophical system may do harm indirectly, by being used as a justification for senseless and inhuman actions. 1t is in the social sphere, in the realm of politics and economics, that the Will to 7rder becomes really dangerous. ere the theoretical reduction of unmanageable multiplicity to comprehensible unity becomes the practical reduction of human diversity to subhuman uniformity, of freedom to servitude. 1n politics the eBuivalent of a fully developed scientific theory or philosophical system is a totalitarian dictatorship. 1n economics, the eBuivalent of a beautifully composed #ork of art is the smoothly running factory in #hich the #orkers are perfectly adjusted to the machines. The Will to 7rder can make tyrants out of those #ho merely aspire to clear up a mess. The beauty of tidiness is used as a justification for despotism. 7rgani'ation is indispensableA for liberty arises and has meaning only #ithin a self<regulating community of freely cooperating individuals. :ut, though indispensable, organi'ation can also be fatal. Too much organi'ation transforms men and #omen into automata, suffocates the creative spirit and abolishes the very possibility of freedom. %s usual, the only safe course is in the middle, bet#een the e&tremes of laissez-&aire at one end of the scale and of total control at the other. 9uring the past century the successive advances in technology have been accompanied by corresponding advances in organi'ation. (omplicated machinery has had to be matched by complicated social arrangements, designed to #ork as smoothly and efficiently as the ne# instruments of production. 1n order to fit into these organi'ations, individuals have had to deindivid<uali'e themselves, have had to deny their native diversity and conform to a standard pattern, have had to do their best to become automata. The dehumani'ing effects of over<organi'ation are reinforced by the dehumani'ing effects of over<population. 1ndustry, as it e&pands, dra#s an ever greater proportion of humanity=s increasing numbers into large cities. :ut life in large cities is not conducive to mental health Cthe highest incidence of schi'ophrenia, #e are told, occurs among the s#arming inhabitants of industrial slumsDA nor does it foster the kind of responsible freedom #ithin small self<governing groups, #hich is the first condition of a genuine democracy. (ity life is anonymous and, as it #ere, abstract. ,eople are related to one another, not as total personalities, but as the embodiments of economic functions or, #hen they are not at #ork, as irresponsible seekers of entertainment. !ubjected to this kind of life, individuals tend to feel lonely and insignificant. Their e&istence ceases to have any point or meaning.

:iologically speaking, man is a moderately gregarious, not a completely social animal << a creature more like a #olf, let us say, or an elephant, than like a bee or an ant. 1n their original form human societies bore no resemblance to the hive or the ant heapA they #ere merely packs. (ivili'ation is, among other things, the process by #hich primitive packs are transformed into an analogue, crude and mechanical, of the social in< sects= organic communities. %t the present time the pressures of over<population and technological change are accelerating this process. The termitary has come to seem a reali'able and even, in some eyes, a desirable ideal. $eedless to say, the ideal #ill never in fact be reali'ed. % great gulf separates the social insect from the not too gregarious, big<brained mammalA and even though the mammal should do his best to imitate the insect, the gulf #ould remain. o#ever hard they try, men cannot create a social organism, they can only create an organi'ation. 1n the process of trying to create an organism they #ill merely create a totalitarian despotism. Brave New World presents a fanciful and some#hat ribald picture of a society, in #hich the attempt to recreate human beings in the likeness of termites has been pushed almost to the limits of the possible. That #e are being propelled in the direction of :rave $e# World is obvious. :ut no less obvious is the fact that #e can, if #e so desire, refuse to co<operate #ith the blind forces that are propelling us. .or the moment, ho#ever, the #ish to resist does not seem to be very strong or very #idespread. %s "r. William Whyte has sho#n in his remarkable book, $#e Organization Man, a ne# !ocial 3thic is replacing our traditional ethical system << the system in #hich the individual is primary. The key #ords in this !ocial 3thic are Eadjustment,E Eadaptation,E Esocially orientated behavior,E Ebelongingness,E EacBuisition of social skills,E Eteam #ork,E Egroup living,E Egroup loyalty,E Egroup dynamics,E Egroup thinking,E Egroup creativity.E 1ts basic assumption is that the social #hole has greater #orth and significance than its individual parts, that inborn biological differences should be sacrificed to cultural uniformity, that the rights of the collectivity take precedence over #hat the eighteenth century called the 0ights of "an. %ccording to the !ocial 3thic, Iesus #as completely #rong in asserting that the !abbath #as made for man. 7n the contrary, man #as made for the !abbath, and must sacrifice his inherited idiosyncrasies and pretend to be the kind of standardi'ed good mi&er that organi'ers of group activity regard as ideal for their purposes. This ideal man is the man #ho displays Edynamic conformityE Cdelicious phraseLD and an intense loyalty to the group, an unflagging desire to subordinate himself, to belong. %nd the ideal man must have an ideal #ife, highly gregarious, infinitely adaptable and not merely re< signed to the fact that her husband=s first loyalty is to the (orporation, but actively loyal on her o#n account. E e for >od only,E as "ilton said of %dam and 3ve, Eshe for >od in him.E %nd in one important respect the #ife of the ideal organi'ation man is a good deal #orse off than our .irst "other. !he and %dam #ere permitted by the ;ord to be completely uninhibited in the matter of Eyouthful dalliance.E $or turned, 1 #een, %dam from his fair spouse, nor 3ve the rites "ysterious of connubial love refused. Today, according to a #riter in the )arvard Business Review, the #ife of the man #ho is trying to live up to the ideal proposed by the !ocial 3thic, Emust not demand too

much of her husband=s time and interest. :ecause of his single<minded concentration on his job, even his se&ual activity must be relegated to a secondary place.E The monk makes vo#s of poverty, obedience and chastity. The organi'ation man is allo#ed to be rich, but promises obedience CEhe accepts authority #ithout resentment, he looks up to his superiorsE<< Mussolini #a sempre ragione4 and he must be prepared, for the greater glory of the organi'ation that employs him, to fors#ear even conjugal love. 1t is #orth remarking that, in ./01, the members of the ,arty are compelled to conform to a se&ual ethic of more than ,uritan severity. 1n Brave New World, on the other hand, all are permitted to indulge their se&ual impulses #ithout let or hindrance. The society described in 7r#ell=s fable is a society permanently at #ar, and the aim of its rulers is first, of course, to e&ercise po#er for its o#n delightful sake and, second, to keep their subjects in that state of constant tension #hich a state of constant #ar demands of those #ho #age it. :y crusading against se&uality the bosses are able to maintain the reBuired tension in their follo#ers and at the same time can satisfy their lust for po#er in a most gratifying #ay. The society described in Brave New World is a #orld<state, in #hich #ar has been eliminated and #here the first aim of the rulers is at all costs to keep their subjects from making trouble. This they achieve by Camong other methodsD legali'< ing a degree of se&ual freedom Cmade possible by the abolition of the familyD that practically guarantees the :rave $e# Worlders against any form of destructive Cor creativeD emotional tension. 1n ./01 the lust for po#er is satisfied by inflicting painA in Brave New World, by inflicting a hardly less humiliating pleasure. The current !ocial 3thic, it is obvious, is merely a justification after the fact of the less desirable conseBuences of over<organi'ation. 1t represents a pathetic attempt to make a virtue of necessity, to e&tract a positive value from an unpleasant datum. 1t is a very unrealistic, and therefore very dangerous, system of morality. The social #hole, #hose value is assumed to be greater than that of its component parts, is not an organism in the sense that a hive or a termitary may be thought of as an organism. 1t is merely an organi'ation, a piece of social machinery. There can be no value e&cept in relation to life and a#areness. %n organi'ation is neither conscious nor alive. 1ts value is instrumental and derivative. 1t is not good in itselfA it is good only to the e&tent that it promotes the good of the individuals #ho are the parts of the collective #hole. To give organi'ations precedence over persons is to subordinate ends to means. What happens #hen ends are subordinated to means #as clearly demonstrated by itler and !talin. -nder their hideous rule personal ends #ere subordinated to organi'ational means by a mi&ture of violence and propaganda, systematic terror and the systematic manipulation of minds. 1n the more efficient dictatorships of tomorro# there #ill probably be much less violence than under itler and !talin. The future dictator=s subjects #ill be painlessly regimented by a corps of highly trained social engineers. EThe challenge of social engineering in our time,E #rites an enthusiastic advocate of this ne# science, Eis like the challenge of technical engineering fifty years ago. 1f the first half of the t#entieth century #as the era of the technical engineers, the second half may #ell be the era of the social engineersE << and the t#enty<first century, 1 suppose, #ill be the era of World (ontrollers, the scientific caste system and :rave $e# World. To the Buestion 5uis ustodiet ustodeal -- Who #ill mount guard over our guardians, #ho #ill engineer the engineersF << the ans#er is a bland denial that they need any supervision. There seems to be a touching belief among certain ,h.9.=s in sociology that ,h.9.=s in sociology #ill never be corrupted by po#er.

;ike !ir >alahad=s, their strength is as the strength of ten because their heart is pure << and their heart is pure because they are scientists and have taken si& thousand hours of social studies. %las, higher education is not necessarily a guarantee of higher virtue, or higher political #isdom. %nd to these misgivings on ethical and psychological grounds must be added misgivings of a purely scientific character. (an #e accept the theories on #hich the social engineers base their practice, and in terms of #hich they justify their manipulations of human beingsF .or e&ample, ,rofessor 3lton "ayo tells us categori< cally that Eman=s desire to be continuously associated in #ork #ith his fello#s is a strong, if not the strongest human characteristic.E This, 1 #ould say, is manifestly untrue. !ome people have the kind of desire described by "ayoA others do not. 1t is a matter of tem< perament and inherited constitution. %ny social organi'ation based upon the assumption that EmanE C#hoever EmanE may beD desires to be continuously associated #ith his fello#s #ould be, for many individual men and #omen, a bed of ,rocrustes. 7nly by being amputated or stretched upon the rack could they be adjusted to it. %gain, ho# romantically misleading are the lyrical accounts of the "iddle %ges #ith #hich many contemporary theorists of social relations adorn their #orksL E"embership in a guild, manorial estate or village protected medieval man throughout his life and gave him peace and serenity.E ,rotected him from #hat, #e may ask. (ertainly not from remorseless bullying at the hands of his superiors. %nd along #ith all that Epeace and serenityE there #as, throughout the "iddle %ges, an enormous amount of chronic frustration, acute unhappiness and a passionate resentment against the rigid, hierarchical system that permitted no vertical movement up the social ladder and, for those #ho #ere bound to the land, very little hori'ontal movement in space. The impersonal forces of over<population and over<organi'ation, and the social engineers #ho are trying to direct these forces, are pushing us in the direction of a ne# medieval system. This revival #ill be made more acceptable than the original by such :rave<$e#< Worldian amenities as infant conditioning, sleep<teaching and drug<induced euphoriaA but, for the majority of men and #omen, it #ill still be a kind of servitude. IV. 7ropa;a+)a !+ a D'%o*rat!* So*!'t& EThe doctrines of 3urope,E Iefferson #rote, E#ere that men in numerous associations cannot be restrained #ithin the limits of order and justice, e&cept by forces physical and moral #ielded over them by authorities independent of their #ill. . . . We Cthe founders of the ne# %merican democracyD believe that man #as a rational animal, endo#ed by nature #ith rights, and #ith an innate sense of justice, and that he could be restrained from #rong, and protected in right, by moderate po#ers, confided to persons of his o#n choice and held to their duties by dependence on his o#n #ill.E To post< .reudian ears, this kind of language seems touchingly Buaint and ingenuous. uman beings are a good deal less rational and innately just than the optimists of the eighteenth century supposed. 7n the other hand they are neither so morally blind nor so hopelessly unreasonable as the pessimists of the t#entieth #ould have us believe. 1n spite of the 1d and the -nconscious, in spite of endemic neurosis and the prevalence of lo# 1G=s, most

men and #omen are probably decent enough and sensible enough to be trusted #ith the direction of their o#n destinies. 9emocratic institutions are devices for reconciling social order #ith individual freedom and initiative, and for making the immediate po#er of a country=s rulers subject to the ultimate po#er of the ruled. The fact that, in Western 3urope and %merica, these devices have #orked, all things considered, not too badly is proof enough that the eighteenth<century optimists #ere not entirely #rong. >iven a fair chance, human beings can govern themselves, and govern themselves better, though perhaps #ith less mechanical efficiency, than they can be governed by Eauthorities independent of their #ill.E >iven a fair chance, 1 repeatA for the fair chance is an indispensable prereBuisite. $o people that passes abruptly from a state of subservience under the rule of a despot to the completely unfamiliar state of political independence can be said to have a fair chance of making democratic institutions #ork. %gain, no people in a precarious economic condition has a fair chance of being able to govern itself democratically. ;iberalism flourishes in an atmosphere of prosperity and declines as declining prosperity makes it necessary for the government to intervene ever more freBuently and drastically in the affairs of its subjects. 7ver<population and over<organi'ation are t#o conditions #hich, as 1 have already pointed out, deprive a society of a fair chance of making democratic institutions #ork effectively. We see, then, that there are certain historical, economic, demographic and technological conditions #hich make it very hard for Iefferson=s rational animals, endo#ed by nature #ith inalienable rights and an innate sense of justice, to e&ercise their reason, claim their rights and act justly #ithin a democratically organi'ed society. We in the West have been supremely fortunate in having been given our fair chance of making the great e&periment in self<government. -nfortunately it no# looks as though, o#ing to recent changes in our circumstances, this infinitely precious fair chance #ere being, little by little, taken a#ay from us. %nd this, of course, is not the #hole story. These blind impersonal forces are not the only enemies of individual liberty and democratic institutions. There are also forces of another, less abstract character, forces that can be deliberately used by po#er<seeking individuals #hose aim is to establish partial or complete control over their fello#s. .ifty years ago, #hen 1 #as a boy, it seemed completely self<evident that the bad old days #ere over, that torture and massacre, slavery, and the persecution of heretics, #ere things of the past. %mong people #ho #ore top hats, traveled in trains, and took a bath every morning such horrors #ere simply out of the Buestion. %fter all, #e #ere living in the t#entieth century. % fe# years later these people #ho took daily baths and #ent to church in top hats #ere committing atrocities on a scale undreamed of by the benighted %fricans and %siatics. 1n the light of recent history it #ould be foolish to suppose that this sort of thing cannot happen again. 1t can and, no doubt, it #ill. :ut in the immediate future there is some reason to believe that the punitive methods of ./01 #ill give place to the reinforcements and manipulations of Brave New WorldThere are t#o kinds of propaganda << rational propaganda in favor of action that is consonant #ith the enlightened self<interest of those #ho make it and those to #hom it is addressed, and non<rational propaganda that is not consonant #ith anybody=s enlightened self<interest, but is dictated by, and appeals to, passion. Where the actions of individuals are concerned there are motives more e&alted than enlightened self<interest, but #here collective action has to be taken in the fields of politics and economics, enlightened self<

interest is probably the highest of effective motives. 1f politicians and their constituents al#ays acted to promote their o#n or their country=s long<range self<interest, this #orld #ould be an earthly paradise. %s it is, they often act against their o#n interests, merely to gratify their least creditable passionsA the #orld, in conseBuence, is a place of misery. ,ropaganda in favor of action that is consonant #ith enlightened self<interest appeals to reason by means of logical arguments based upon the best available evidence fully and honestly set forth. ,ropaganda in favor of action dictated by the impulses that are belo# self<interest offers false, garbled or incomplete evidence, avoids logical argument and seeks to influence its victims by the mere repetition of catch#ords, by the furious denunciation of foreign or domestic scapegoats, and by cunningly associating the lo#est passions #ith the highest ideals, so that atrocities come to be perpetrated in the name of >od and the most cynical kind of Realpoliti6 is treated as a matter of religious principle and patriotic duty. 1n Iohn 9e#ey=s #ords, Ea rene#al of faith in common human nature, in its potentialities in general, and in its po#er in particular to respond to reason and truth, is a surer bul#ark against totalitarianism than a demonstration of material success or a devout #orship of special legal and political forms.E The po#er to respond to reason and truth e&ists in all of us. :ut so, unfortunately, does the tendency to respond to unreason and falsehood << particularly in those cases #here the falsehood evokes some enjoyable emotion, or #here the appeal to unreason strikes some ans#ering chord in the primitive, subhuman depths of our being. 1n certain fields of activity men have learned to respond to reason and truth pretty consistently. The authors of learned articles do not appeal to the passions of their fello# scientists and technologists. They set forth #hat, to the best of their kno#ledge, is the truth about some particular aspect of reality, they use reason to e&plain the facts they have observed and they support their point of vie# #ith arguments that appeal to reason in other people. %ll this is fairly easy in the fields of physical science and technology. 1t is much more difficult in the fields of politics and religion and ethics. ere the relevant facts often elude us. %s for the meaning of the facts, that of course depends upon the particular system of ideas, in terms of #hich you choose to interpret them. %nd these are not the only difficulties that confront the rational truth< seeker. 1n public and in private life, it often happens that there is simply no time to collect the relevant facts or to #eigh their significance. We are forced to act on insufficient evidence and by a light considerably less steady than that of logic. With the best #ill in the #orld, #e cannot al#ays be completely truthful or consistently rational. %ll that is in our po#er is to be as truthful and rational as circumstances permit us to be, and to respond as #ell as #e can to the limited truth and imperfect reasonings offered for our consideration by others. E1f a nation e&pects to be ignorant and free,E said Iefferson, Eit e&pects #hat never #as and never #ill be. . . . The people cannot be safe #ithout information. Where the press is free, and every man able to read, all is safe.E %cross the %tlantic another passionate believer in reason #as thinking about the same time, in almost precisely similar terms. ere is #hat Iohn !tuart "ill #rote of his father, the utilitarian philoso< pher, Iames "ill? E!o complete #as his reliance upon the influence of reason over the minds of mankind, #henever it is allo#ed to reach them, that he felt as if all #ould be gained, if the #hole population #ere able to read, and if all sorts of opinions #ere allo#ed to be addressed to them by #ord or in #riting, and if by the suffrage they could

nominate a legislature to give effect to the opinions they had adopted.E %ll is sa&e, all would (e gained7 7nce more #e hear the note of eighteenth<century optimism. Iefferson, it is true, #as a realist as #ell as an optimist. e kne# by bitter e&perience that the freedom of the press can be shamefully abused. E$othing,E he declared, Ecan no# be believed #hich is seen in a ne#spaper.E %nd yet, he insisted Cand #e can only agree #ith himD, E#ithin the pale of truth, the press is a noble institution, eBually the friend of science and civil liberty.E "ass communication, in a #ord, is neither good nor badA it is simply a force and, like any other force, it can be used either #ell or ill. -sed in one #ay, the press, the radio and the cinema are indispensable to the survival of democracy. -sed in another #ay, they are among the most po#erful #eapons in the dictator=s armory. 1n the field of mass communications as in almost every other field of enterprise, technological progress has hurt the ;ittle "an and helped the :ig "an. %s lately as fifty years ago, every democratic country could boast of a great number of small journals and local ne#spapers. Thousands of country editors e&pressed thousands of independent opinions. !ome#here or other almost anybody could get almost anything printed. Today the press is still legally freeA but most of the little papers have disappeared. The cost of #ood<pulp, of modern printing machinery and of syndicated ne#s is too high for the ;ittle "an. 1n the totalitarian 3ast there is political censorship, and the media of mass communication are controlled by the !tate. 1n the democratic West there is economic censorship and the media of mass communication are controlled by members of the ,o#er 3lite. (ensorship by rising costs and the concentration of communication po#er in the hands of a fe# big concerns is less objectionable than !tate o#nership and government propagandaA but certainly it is not something of #hich a Ieffersonian democrat could possibly approve. 1n regard to propaganda the early advocates of universal literacy and a free press envisaged only t#o possibilities? the propaganda might be true, or it might be false. They did not foresee #hat in fact has happened, above all in our Western capitalist democracies << the development of a vast mass communications industry, concerned in the main neither #ith the true nor the false, but #ith the unreal, the more or less totally irrelevant. 1n a #ord, they failed to take into account man=s almost infinite appetite for distractions. 1n the past most people never got a chance of fully satisfying this appetite. They might long for distractions, but the distractions #ere not provided. (hristmas came but once a year, feasts #ere Esolemn and rare,E there #ere fe# readers and very little to read, and the nearest approach to a neighborhood movie theater #as the parish church, #here the performances, though freBuent, #ere some#hat monotonous. .or conditions even remotely comparable to those no# prevailing #e must return to imperial 0ome, #here the populace #as kept in good humor by freBuent, gratuitous doses of many kinds of entertainment << from poetical dramas to gladiatorial fights, from recitations of 8irgil to all<out bo&ing, from concerts to military revie#s and public e&ecutions. :ut even in 0ome there #as nothing like the non<stop distraction no# provided by ne#spapers and maga'ines, by radio, television and the cinema. 1n Brave New World non<stop distractions of the most fascinating nature Cthe feelies, orgy<porgy, centrifugal bumble<puppyD are deliberately used as instruments of policy, for the purpose of preventing people from paying too much attention to the realities of the social and political situation. The other #orld of religion is different from the other #orld of entertainmentA but they resemble one another in being most decidedly Enot of this #orld.E :oth are distractions and, if

lived in too continuously, both can become, in "ar&=s phrase, Ethe opium of the peopleE and so a threat to freedom. 7nly the vigilant can maintain their liberties, and only those #ho are constantly and intelligently on the spot can hope to govern themselves effectively by democratic procedures. % society, most of #hose members spend a great part of their time, not on the spot, not here and no# and in the calculable future, but some#here else, in the irrelevant other #orlds of sport and soap opera, of mythology and metaphysical fantasy, #ill find it hard to resist the encroachments of those #ho #ould manipulate and control it. 1n their propaganda today=s dictators rely for the most part on repetition, suppression and rationali'ation << the repetition of catch#ords #hich they #ish to be accepted as true, the suppression of facts #hich they #ish to be ignored, the arousal and rationali'ation of passions #hich may be used in the interests of the ,arty or the !tate. %s the art and science of manipulation come to be better understood, the dictators of the future #ill doubtless learn to combine these techniBues #ith the non<stop distractions #hich, in the West, are no# threatening to dro#n in a sea of irrelevance the rational propaganda essential to the maintenance of individual liberty and the survival of demo< cratic institutions. V. 7ropa;a+)a U+)'r a D!*tator" !p %t his trial after the !econd World War, itler=s "inister for %rmaments, %lbert !peer, delivered a long speech in #hich, #ith remarkable acuteness, he described the $a'i tyranny and analy'ed its methods. E itler=s dictatorship,E he said, Ediffered in one fundamental point from all its predecessors in history. 1t #as the first dictatorship in the present period of modern technical development, a dictatorship #hich made complete use of all technical means for the domination of its o#n country. Through technical devices like the radio and the loud<speaker, eighty million people #ere deprived of independent thought. 1t #as thereby possible to subject them to the #ill of one man. . . . 3arlier dictators needed highly Bualified assistants even at the lo#est level << men #ho could think and act independently. The totalitarian system in the period of modern technical development can dispense #ith such menA thanks to modern methods of communication, it is possible to mechani'e the lo#er leadership. %s a result of this there has arisen the ne# type of the uncritical recipient of orders.E 1n the :rave $e# World of my prophetic fable, technology had advanced far beyond the point it had reached in itler=s dayA conseBuently the recipients of orders #ere far less critical than their $a'i counterparts, far more obedient to the order<giving elite. "oreover, they had been genetically standardi'ed and postnatally conditioned to perform their subordinate functions, and could therefore be depended upon to behave almost as predictably as machines. %s #e shall see in a later chapter, this conditioning of Ethe lo#er leadershipE is already going on under the (ommunist dictatorships. The (hinese and the 0ussians are not relying merely on the indirect effects of advancing technologyA they are #orking directly on the psycho<physical organisms of their lo#er leaders, subjecting minds and bodies to a system of ruthless and, from all accounts, highly effective conditioning. E"any a man,E said !peer, Ehas been haunted by the nightmare that one day

nations might be dominated by technical means. That nightmare #as almost reali'ed in itler=s totalitarian system.E %lmost, but not Buite. The $a'is did not have time << and perhaps did not have the intelligence and the necessary kno#ledge << to brain#ash and condition their lo#er leadership. This, it may be, is one of the reasons #hy they failed. !ince itler=s day the armory of technical devices at the disposal of the #ould<be dictator has been considerably enlarged. %s #ell as the radio, the loudspeaker, the moving picture camera and the rotary press, the contemporary propagandist can make use of television to broadcast the image as #ell as the voice of his client, and can record both image and voice on spools of magnetic tape. Thanks to technological progress, :ig :rother can no# be almost as omnipresent as >od. $or is it only on the technical front that the hand of the #ould<be dictator has been strengthened. !ince itler=s day a great deal of #ork has been carried out in those fields of applied psychology and neurology #hich are the special province of the propagandist, the indoctrinator and the brain#asher. 1n the past these specialists in the art of changing people=s minds #ere empiricists. :y a method of trial and error they had #orked out a number of techniBues and procedures, #hich they used very effectively #ithout, ho#ever, kno#ing precisely #hy they #ere effective. Today the art of mind<control is in the process of becoming a science. The practitioners of this science kno# #hat they are doing and #hy. They are guided in their #ork by theories and hypotheses solidly established on a massive foundation of e&perimental evidence. Thanks to the ne# insights and the ne# techniBues made possible by these insights, the nightmare that #as Eall but reali'ed in itler=s totalitarian systemE may soon be completely reali'able. :ut before #e discuss these ne# insights and techniBues let us take a look at the nightmare that so nearly came true in $a'i >ermany. What #ere the methods used by itler and >oebbels for Edepriving eighty million people of independent thought and subjecting them to the #ill of one manEF %nd #hat #as the theory of human nature upon #hich those terrifyingly successful methods #ere basedF These Buestions can be ans#ered, for the most part, in itler=s o#n #ords. %nd #hat remarkably clear and astute #ords they areL When he #rites about such vast abstractions as 0ace and istory and ,rovidence, itler is strictly unreadable. :ut #hen he #rites about the >erman masses and the methods he used for dominating and directing them, his style changes. $onsense gives place to sense, bombast to a hard<boiled and cynical lucidity. 1n his philosophical lucubrations itler #as either cloudily daydreaming or reproducing other people=s half< baked notions. 1n his comments on cro#ds and propaganda he #as #riting of things he kne# by firsthand e&perience. 1n the #ords of his ablest biographer, "r. %lan :ullock, E itler #as the greatest demagogue in history.E Those #ho add, Eonly a demagogue,E fail to appreciate the nature of political po#er in an age of mass politics. %s he himself said, ETo be a leader means to be able to move the masses.E itler=s aim #as first to move the masses and then, having pried them loose from their traditional loyalties and moralities, to impose upon them C#ith the hypnoti'ed consent of the majorityD a ne# authoritarian order of his o#n devising. E itler,E #rote ermann 0auschning in 1939, Ehas a deep respect for the (atholic church and the Iesuit orderA not because of their (hristian doc< trine, but because of the =machinery= they have elaborated and controlled, their hierarchical system, their e&tremely clever tactics, their kno#ledge of human nature and their #ise use of human #eaknesses in ruling over believers.E 3cclesiasticism #ithout (hristianity, the discipline of a monastic rule, not for >od=s sake or in order to achieve

personal salvation, but for the sake of the !tate and for the greater glory and po#er of the demagogue turned ;eader << this #as the goal to#ard #hich the systematic moving of the masses #as to lead. ;et us see #hat itler thought of the masses he moved and ho# he did the moving. The first principle from #hich he started #as a value judgment? the masses are utterly contemptible. They are incapable of abstract thinking and uninterested in any fact outside the circle of their immediate e&perience. Their behavior is determined, not by kno#ledge and reason, but by feelings and unconscious drives. 1t is in these drives and feelings that Ethe roots of their positive as #ell as their negative attitudes are implanted.E To be successful a propagandist must learn ho# to manipulate these instincts and emotions. EThe driving force #hich has brought about the most tremendous revolutions on this earth has never been a body of scientific teaching #hich has gained po#er over the masses, but al#ays a devotion #hich has inspired them, and often a kind of hysteria #hich has urged them into action. Whoever #ishes to #in over the masses must kno# the key that #ill open the door of their hearts.E . . . 1n post<.reudian jargon, of their unconscious. itler made his strongest appeal to those members of the lo#er middle classes #ho had been ruined by the inflation of 1923, and then ruined all over again by the depression of 1929 and the follo#ing years. EThe massesE of #hom he speaks #ere these be#ildered, frustrated and chronically an&ious millions. To make them more masslike, more homogeneously subhuman, he assembled them, by the thousands and the tens of thousands, in vast halls and arenas, #here individuals could lose their personal identity, even their elementary humanity, and be merged #ith the cro#d. % man or #oman makes direct contact #ith society in t#o #ays? as a member of some familial, professional or religious group, or as a member of a cro#d. >roups are capable of being as moral and intelligent as the individuals #ho form themA a cro#d is chaotic, has no purpose of its o#n and is capable of anything e&cept intelligent action and realistic thinking. %ssembled in a cro#d, people lose their po#ers of reasoning and their capacity for moral choice. Their suggestibility is increased to the point #here they cease to have any judgment or #ill of their o#n. They become very e&citable, they lose all sense of individual or collective responsibility, they are subject to sudden accesses of rage, enthusiasm and panic. 1n a #ord, a man in a cro#d behaves as though he had s#allo#ed a large dose of some po#erful into&icant. e is a victim of #hat 1 have called Eherd<poisoning.E ;ike alcohol, herd<poison is an active, e&traverted drug. The cro#d<into&icated individual escapes from responsibility, intelligence and morality into a kind of frantic, animal mindlessness. 9uring his long career as an agitator, itler had studied the effects of herd<poison and had learned ho# to e&ploit them for his o#n purposes. e had discovered that the orator can appeal to those Ehidden forcesE #hich motivate men=s actions, much more effectively than can the #riter. 0eading is a private, not a collective activity. The #riter speaks only to individuals, sitting by themselves in a state of normal sobriety. The orator speaks to masses of individuals, already #ell primed #ith herd<poison. They are at his mercy and, if he kno#s his business, he can do #hat he likes #ith them. %s an orator, itler kne# his business supremely #ell. e #as able, in his o#n #ords, Eto follo# the lead of the great mass in such a #ay that from the living emotion of his hearers the apt #ord #hich he needed #ould be suggested to him and in its turn this #ould go straight to

the heart of his hearers.E 7tto !trasser called him Ea loud<speaker, proclaiming the most secret desires, the least admissible instincts, the sufferings and personal revolts of a #hole nation.E T#enty years before "adison %venue embarked upon E"otivational 0esearch,E itler #as systematically e&ploring and e&ploiting the secret fears and hopes, the cravings, an&ieties and frustrations of the >erman masses. 1t is by manipulating Ehidden forcesE that the advertising e&perts induce us to buy their #ares << a toothpaste, a brand of cigarettes, a political candidate. %nd it is by appealing to the same hidden forces << and to others too dangerous for "adison %venue to meddle #ith << that itler induced the >erman masses to buy themselves a .uehrer, an insane philosophy and the !econd World War. -nlike the masses, intellectuals have a taste for rationality and an interest in facts. Their critical habit of mind makes them resistant to the kind of propaganda that #orks so #ell on the majority. %mong the masses Einstinct is supreme, and from instinct comes faith. . . . While the healthy common folk instinctively close their ranks to form a community of the peopleE Cunder a ;eader, it goes #ithout sayingD Eintellectuals run this #ay and that, like hens in a poultry yard. With them one cannot make historyA they cannot be used as elements composing a community.E 1ntellectuals are the kind of people #ho demand evidence and are shocked by logical inconsistencies and fallacies. They regard over<simplification as the original sin of the mind and have no use for the slogans, the unBualified assertions and s#eeping generali'ations #hich are the propagandist=s stock in trade. E%ll effective propaganda,E itler #rote, Emust be confined to a fe# bare necessities and then must be e&pressed in a fe# stereotyped formulas.E These stereotyped formulas must be constantly repeated, for Eonly constant repetition #ill finally succeed in imprinting an idea upon the memory of a cro#d.E ,hilosophy teaches us to feel uncertain about the things that seem to us self<evident. ,ropaganda, on the other hand, teaches us to accept as self<evident matters about #hich it #ould be reasonable to suspend our judgment or to feel doubt. The aim of the demagogue is to create social coherence under his o#n leadership. :ut, as :ertrand 0ussell has pointed out, Esystems of dogma #ithout empirical foundations, such as scholasticism, "ar&ism and fascism, have the advantage of producing a great deal of social coherence among their disciples.E The demagogic propagandist must therefore be consistently dogmatic. %ll his statements are made #ithout Bualification. There are no grays in his picture of the #orldA everything is either diabolically black or celestially #hite. 1n itler=s #ords, the propagandist should adopt Ea systematically one<sided attitude to#ards every problem that has to be dealt #ith.E e must never admit that he might be #rong or that people #ith a different point of vie# might be even partially right. 7pponents should not be argued #ithA they should be attacked, shouted do#n, or, if they become too much of a nuisance, liBuidated. The morally sBueamish intellectual may be shocked by this kind of thing. :ut the masses are al#ays convinced that Eright is on the side of the active aggressor.E !uch, then, #as itler=s opinion of humanity in the mass. 1t #as a very lo# opinion. Was it also an incorrect opinionF The tree is kno#n by its fruits, and a theory of human nature #hich inspired the kind of techniBues that proved so horribly effective must contain at least an element of truth. 8irtue and intelligence belong to human beings as individuals freely associating #ith other individuals in small groups. !o do sin and stupidity. :ut the subhuman mindlessness to #hich the demagogue makes his appeal, the moral imbecility on #hich he relies #hen he goads his victims into action, are

characteristic not of men and #omen as individuals, but of men and #omen in masses. "indlessness and moral idiocy are not characteristically human attributesA they are symptoms of herd<poisoning. 1n all the #orld=s higher religions, salvation and enlightenment are for individuals. The kingdom of heaven is #ithin the mind of a person, not #ithin the collective mindlessness of a cro#d. (hrist promised to be present #here t#o or three are gathered together. e did not say anything about being present #here thousands are into&icating one another #ith herd<poison. -nder the $a'is enormous numbers of people #ere compelled to spend an enormous amount of time marching in serried ranks from point % to point : and back again to point %. EThis keeping of the #hole population on the march seemed to be a senseless #aste of time and energy. 7nly much later,E adds ermann 0auschning, E#as there revealed in it a subtle intention based on a #ell<judged adjustment of ends and means. "arching diverts men=s thoughts. "arching kills thought. "arching makes an end of individuality. "arching is the indispensable magic stroke performed in order to accustom the people to a mechanical, Buasi<ritualistic activity until it becomes second nature.E .rom his point of vie# and at the level #here he had chosen to do his dreadful #ork, itler #as perfectly correct in his estimate of human nature. To those of us #ho look at men and #omen as individuals rather than as members of cro#ds, or of regimented collectives, he seems hideously #rong. 1n an age of accelerating over< population, of accelerating over<organi'ation and ever more efficient means of mass communication, ho# can #e preserve the integrity and reassert the value of the human individualF This is a Buestion that can still be asked and perhaps effectively ans#ered. % generation from no# it may be too late to find an ans#er and perhaps impossible, in the stifling collective climate of that future time, even to ask the Buestion. VI. T ' Art" of S'00!+; The survival of democracy depends on the ability of large numbers of people to make realistic choices in the light of adeBuate information. % dictatorship, on the other hand, maintains itself by censoring or distorting the facts, and by appealing, not to reason, not to enlightened self<interest, but to passion and prejudice, to the po#erful Ehidden forces,E as itler called them, present in the unconscious depths of every human mind. 1n the West, democratic principles are proclaimed and many able and conscientious publicists do their best to supply electors #ith adeBuate information and to persuade them, by rational argument, to make realistic choices in the light of that information. %ll this is greatly to the good. :ut unfortunately propaganda in the Western democracies, above all in %merica, has t#o faces and a divided personality. 1n charge of the editorial department there is often a democratic 9r. Iekyll << a propagandist #ho #ould be very happy to prove that Iohn 9e#ey had been right about the ability of human nature to respond to truth and reason. :ut this #orthy man controls only a part of the machinery of mass communication. 1n charge of advertising #e find an anti<democratic, because anti<rational, "r. yde << or rather a 9r. yde, for yde is no# a ,h.9. in psychology and has a master=s degree as #ell in the social sciences. This 9r. yde #ould be very unhappy indeed if everybody al#ays lived up to Iohn 9e#ey=s faith in human

nature. Truth and reason are Iekyll=s affair, not his. yde is a motivation analyst, and his business is to study human #eaknesses and failings, to investigate those unconscious desires and fears by #hich so much of men=s conscious thinking and overt doing is determined. %nd he does this, not in the spirit of the moralist #ho #ould like to make people better, or of the physician #ho #ould like to improve their health, but simply in order to find out the best #ay to take advantage of their ignorance and to e&polit their irrationality for the pecuniary benefit of his employers. :ut after all, it may be argued, Ecapitalism is dead, consumerism is kingE << and consumerism reBuires the services of e&pert salesmen versed in all the arts Cincluding the more insidious artsD of persuasion. -nder a free enterprise system commercial propaganda by any and every means is absolutely indispensable. :ut the indispensable is not necessarily the desirable. What is demonstrably good in the sphere of economics may be far from good for men and #omen as voters or even as human beings. %n earlier, more moralistic generation #ould have been profoundly shocked by the bland cynicism of the motivation analysts. Today #e read a book like "r. 8ance ,ackard=s $#e )idden Persuaders, and are more amused than horrified, more resigned than indignant. >iven .reud, given :ehaviorism, given the mass producer=s chronically desperate need for mass consumption, this is the sort of thing that is only to be e&pected. :ut #hat, #e may ask, is the sort of thing that is to be e&pected in the futureF %re yde=s activities compatible in the long run #ith Iekyll=sF (an a campaign in favor of rationality be successful in the teeth of another and even more vigorous campaign in favor of irrationalityF These are Buestions #hich, for the moment, 1 shall not attempt to ans#er, but shall leave hanging, so to speak, as a backdrop to our discussion of the methods of mass persuasion in a technologically advanced democratic society. The task of the commercial propagandist in a democracy is in some #ays easier and in some #ays more difficult than that of a political propagandist employed by an established dictator or a dictator in the making. 1t is easier inasmuch as almost everyone starts out #ith a prejudice in favor of beer, cigarettes and icebo&es, #hereas almost nobody starts out #ith a prejudice in favor of tyrants. 1t is more difficult inasmuch as the commercial propagandist is not permitted, by the rules of his particular game, to appeal to the more savage instincts of his public. The advertiser of dairy products #ould dearly love to tell his readers and listeners that all their troubles are caused by the machinations of a gang of godless international margarine manufacturers, and that it is their patriotic duty to march out and burn the oppressors= factories. This sort of thing, ho#ever, is ruled out, and he must be content #ith a milder approach. :ut the mild approach is less e&citing than the approach through verbal or physical violence. 1n the long run, anger and hatred are self<defeating emotions. :ut in the short run they pay high dividends in the form of psychological and even Csince they release large Buantities of adrenalin and noradrenalinD physiological satisfaction. ,eople may start out #ith an initial prejudice against tyrantsA but #hen tyrants or #ould<be tyrants treat them to adrenalin<releasing propaganda about the #ickedness of their enemies << particularly of enemies #eak enough to be persecuted << they are ready to follo# him #ith enthusiasm. 1n his speeches itler kept repeating such #ords as Ehatred,E Eforce,E Eruthless,E Ecrush,E EsmashEA and he #ould accompany these violent #ords #ith even more violent gestures. e #ould yell, he #ould scream, his veins #ould s#ell, his face #ould turn purple. !trong emotion Cas every actor and dramatist kno#sD is in the highest degree contagious. 1nfected by the

malignant fren'y of the orator, the audience #ould groan and sob and scream in an orgy of uninhibited passion. %nd these orgies #ere so enjoyable that most of those #ho had e&perienced them eagerly came back for more. %lmost all of us long for peace and freedomA but very fe# of us have much enthusiasm for the thoughts, feelings and actions that make for peace and freedom. (onversely almost nobody #ants #ar or tyrannyA but a great many people find an intense pleasure in the thoughts, feelings and actions that make for #ar and tyranny. These thoughts, feelings and actions are too dangerous to be e&ploited for commercial purposes. %ccepting this handicap, the advertising man must do the best he can #ith the less into&icating emotions, the Buieter forms of irrationality. 3ffective rational propaganda becomes possible only #hen there is a clear understanding, on the part of all concerned, of the nature of symbols and of their relations to the things and events symboli'ed. 1rrational propaganda depends for its effectiveness on a general failure to understand the nature of symbols. !imple<minded people tend to eBuate the symbol #ith #hat it stands for, to attribute to things and events some of the Bualities e&pressed by the #ords in terms of #hich the propagandist has chosen, for his o#n purposes, to talk about them. (onsider a simple e&ample. "ost cosmetics are made of lanolin, #hich is a mi&ture of purified #ool fat and #ater beaten up into an emulsion. This emulsion has many valuable properties? it penetrates the skin, it does not become rancid, it is mildly antiseptic and so forth. :ut the commercial propagandists do not speak about the genuine virtues of the emulsion. They give it some picturesBuely voluptuous name, talk ecstatically and misleadingly about feminine beauty and sho# pictures of gorgeous blondes nourishing their tissues #ith skin food. EThe cosmetic manufacturers,E one of their number has #ritten, Eare not selling lanolin, they are selling hope.E .or this hope, this fraudulent implication of a promise that they #ill be transfigured, #omen #ill pay ten or t#enty times the value of the emulsion #hich the propagandists have so skilfully related, by means of misleading symbols, to a deep<seated and almost universal feminine #ish << the #ish to be more attractive to members of the opposite se&. The principles underlying this kind of propaganda are e&tremely simple. .ind some common desire, some #idespread unconscious fear or an&ietyA think out some #ay to relate this #ish or fear to the product you have to sellA then build a bridge of verbal or pictorial symbols over #hich your customer can pass from fact to compensatory dream, and from the dream to the illusion that your product, #hen purchased, #ill make the dream come true. EWe no longer buy oranges, #e buy vitality. We do not buy just an auto, #e buy prestige.E %nd so #ith all the rest. 1n toothpaste, for e&ample, #e buy, not a mere cleanser and antiseptic, but release from the fear of being se&ually repulsive. 1n vodka and #hisky #e are not buying a protoplasmic poison #hich in small doses, may depress the nervous system in a psychologically valuable #ayA #e are buying friendliness and good fello#ship, the #armth of 9ingley 9ell and the brilliance of the "ermaid Tavern. With our la&atives #e buy the health of a >reek god, the radiance of one of 9iana=s nymphs. With the monthly best seller #e acBuire culture, the envy of our less literate neighbors and the respect of the sophisticated. 1n every case the motivation analyst has found some deep<seated #ish or fear, #hose energy can be used to move the consumer to part #ith cash and so, indirectly, to turn the #heels of industry. !tored in the minds and bodies of countless individuals, this potential energy is released by, and transmitted along, a line of symbols carefully laid out so as to bypass rationality and obscure the real issue. !ometimes the symbols take effect by being disproportionately impressive,

haunting and fascinating in their o#n right. 7f this kind are the rites and pomps of religion. These Ebeauties of holinessE strengthen faith #here it already e&ists and, #here there is no faith, contribute to conversion. %ppealing, as they do, only to the aesthetic sense, they guarantee neither the truth nor the ethical value of the doctrines #ith #hich they have been, Buite arbitrarily, associated. %s a matter of plain historical fact, the beauties of holiness have often been matched and indeed surpassed by the beauties of unholiness. -nder itler, for e&ample, the yearly $uremberg rallies #ere masterpieces of ritual and theatrical art. E1 had spent si& years in !t. ,etersburg before the #ar in the best days of the old 0ussian ballet,E #rites !ir $evile enderson, the :ritish ambassador to itler=s >ermany, Ebut for grandiose beauty 1 have never seen any ballet to compare #ith the $uremberg rally.E 7ne thinks of Meats << Ebeauty is truth, truth beauty.E %las, the identity e&ists only on some ultimate, supramundane level. 7n the levels of politics and theology, beauty is perfectly compatible #ith nonsense and tyranny. Which is very fortunateA for if beauty #ere incompatible #ith nonsense and tyranny, there #ould be precious little art in the #orld. The masterpieces of painting, sculpture and architecture #ere produced as religious or political propaganda, for the greater glory of a god, a government or a priesthood. :ut most kings and priests have been despotic and all religions have been riddled #ith superstition. >enius has been the servant of tyranny and art has advertised the merits of the local cult. Time, as it passes, separates the good art from the bad metaphysics. (an #e learn to make this separation, not after the event, but #hile it is actually taking placeF That is the Buestion. 1n commercial propaganda the principle of the disproportionately fascinating symbol is clearly understood. 3very propagandist has his %rt 9epartment, and attempts are constantly being made to beautify the billboards #ith striking posters, the advertising pages of maga'ines #ith lively dra#ings and photographs. There are no masterpiecesA for masterpieces appeal only to a limited audience, and the commercial propagandist is out to captivate the majority. .or him, the ideal is a moderate e&cellence. Those #ho like this not too good, but sufficiently striking, art may be e&pected to like the products #ith #hich it has been associated and for #hich it symbolically stands. %nother disproportionately fascinating symbol is the !inging (ommercial. !inging (ommercials are a recent inventionA but the !inging Theological and the !inging 9evotional << the hymn and the psalm << are as old as religion itself. !inging "ilitaries, or marching songs, are coeval #ith #ar, and !inging ,atriotics, the precursors of our national anthems, #ere doubtless used to promote group solidarity, to emphasi'e the dis< tinction bet#een EusE and Ethem,E by the #andering bands of paleolithic hunters and food gatherers. To most people music is intrinsically attractive. "oreover, melodies tend to ingrain themselves in the listener=s mind. % tune #ill haunt the memory during the #hole of a lifetime. ere, for e&ample, is a Buite uninteresting statement or value judgment. %s it stands nobody #ill pay attention to it. :ut no# set the #ords to a catchy and easily remembered tune. 1mmediately they become #ords of po#er. "oreover, the #ords #ill tend automatically to repeat themselves every time the melody is heard or spontaneously remembered. 7rpheus has entered into an alliance #ith ,avlov << the po#er of sound #ith the conditioned refle&. .or the commercial propagandist, as for his colleagues in the fields of politics and religion, music possesses yet another advantage. $onsense #hich it #ould be shameful for a reasonable being to #rite, speak or hear spoken can be sung or listened to by that same rational being #ith pleasure and even #ith a kind of intellectual

conviction. (an #e learn to separate the pleasure of singing or of listening to song from the all too human tendency to believe in the propaganda #hich the song is putting overF That again is the Buestion. Thanks to compulsory education and the rotary press, the propagandist has been able, for many years past, to convey his messages to virtually every adult in every civili'ed country. Today, thanks to radio and television, he is in the happy position of being able to communicate even #ith unschooled adults and not yet literate children. (hildren, as might be e&pected, are highly susceptible to propaganda. They are ignorant of the #orld and its #ays, and therefore completely unsuspecting. Their critical faculties are undeveloped. The youngest of them have not yet reached the age of reason and the older ones lack the e&perience on #hich their ne#<found rationality can effectively #ork. 1n 3urope, conscripts used to be playfully referred to as Ecannon fodder.E Their little brothers and sisters have no# become radio fodder and television fodder. 1n my childhood #e #ere taught to sing nursery rhymes and, in pious households, hymns. Today the little ones #arble the !inging (ommercials. Which is better << E0heingold is my beer, the dry beer,E or E ey diddle<diddle, the cat and the fiddleEF E%bide #ith meE or E4ou=ll #onder #here the yello# #ent, #hen you brush your teeth #ith ,epsodentEF Who kno#sF E1 don=t say that children should be forced to harass their parents into buying products they=ve seen advertised on television, but at the same time 1 cannot close my eyes to the fact that it=s being done every day.E !o #rites the star of one of the many programs beamed to a juvenile audience. E(hildren,E he adds, Eare living, talking records of #hat #e tell them every day.E %nd in due course these living, talking records of television commercials #ill gro# up, earn money and buy the products of industry. EThink,E #rites "r. (lyde "iller ecstatically, Ethink of #hat it can mean to your firm in profits if you can condition a million or ten million children, #ho #ill gro# up into adults trained to buy your product, as soldiers are trained in advance #hen they hear the trigger #ords, .or#ard "archLE 4es, just think of itL %nd at the same time remember that the dictators and the #ould<be dictators have been thinking about this sort of thing for years, and that millions, tens of millions, hundreds of millions of children are in process of gro#ing up to buy the local despot=s ideological product and, like #ell<trained soldiers, to respond #ith appropriate behavior to the trigger #ords implanted in those young minds by the despot=s propagandists. !elf<government is in inverse ratio to numbers. The larger the constituency, the less the value of any particular vote. When he is merely one of millions, the individual elector feels himself to be impotent, a negligible Buantity. The candidates he has voted into office are far a#ay, at the top of the pyramid of po#er. Theoretically they are the servants of the peopleA but in fact it is the servants #ho give orders and the people, far off at the base of the great pyramid, #ho must obey. 1ncreasing population and advancing technology have resulted in an increase in the number and comple&ity of organi'ations, an increase in the amount of po#er concentrated in the hands of officials and a corre< sponding decrease in the amount of control e&ercised by electors, coupled #ith a decrease in the public=s regard for democratic procedures. %lready #eakened by the vast impersonal forces at #ork in the modern #orld, democratic institutions are no# being undermined from #ithin by the politicians and their propagandists. uman beings act in a great variety of irrational #ays, but all of them seem to be

capable, if given a fair chance, of making a reasonable choice in the light of available evidence. 9emocratic institutions can be made to #ork only if all concerned do their best to impart kno#ledge and to encourage rationality. :ut today, in the #orld=s most po#erful democracy, the politicians and their propagandists prefer to make nonsense of democratic procedures by appealing almost e&clusively to the ignorance and irrationality of the electors. E:oth parties,E #e #ere told in 19*6 by the editor of a leading business journal, E#ill merchandi'e their candidates and issues by the same methods that business has developed to sell goods. These include scientific selection of appeals and planned repetition. . . . 0adio spot announcements and ads #ill repeat phrases #ith a planned intensity. :illboards #ill push slogans of proven po#er. . . . (andidates need, in addition to rich voices and good diction, to be able to look =sincerely= at the T8 camera.E The political merchandisers appeal only to the #eaknesses of voters, never to their potential strength. They make no attempt to educate the masses into becoming fit for self<governmentA they are content merely to manipulate and e&ploit them. .or this pur< pose all the resources of psychology and the social sciences are mobili'ed and set to #ork. (arefully selected samples of the electorate are given Eintervie#s in depth.E These intervie#s in depth reveal the unconscious fears and #ishes most prevalent in a given so< ciety at the time of an election. ,hrases and images aimed at allaying or, if necessary, enhancing these fears, at satisfying these #ishes, at least symbolically, are then chosen by the e&perts, tried out on readers and audiences, changed or improved in the light of the information thus obtained. %fter #hich the political campaign is ready for the mass communicators. %ll that is no# needed is money and a candidate #ho can be coached to look Esincere.E -nder the ne# dispensation, political principles and plans for specific action have come to lose most of their importance. The personality of the candidate and the #ay he is projected by the advertising e&perts are the things that really matter. 1n one #ay or another, as vigorous he<man or kindly father, the candidate must be glamorous. e must also be an entertainer #ho never bores his audience. 1nured to television and radio, that audience is accustomed to being distracted and does not like to be asked to concentrate or make a prolonged intellectual effort. %ll speeches by the entertainer<candidate must therefore be short and snappy. The great issues of the day must be dealt #ith in five minutes at the most << and preferably Csince the audience #ill be eager to pass on to something a little livelier than inflation or the <bombD in si&ty seconds flat. The nature of oratory is such that there has al#ays been a tendency among politicians and clergymen to over<simplify comple& issues. .rom a pulpit or a platform even the most conscientious of speakers finds it very difficult to tell the #hole truth. The methods no# being used to merchandise the political candidate as though he #ere a deo< dorant positively guarantee the electorate against ever hearing the truth about anything. VII. Bra!+,a" !+; 1n the t#o preceding chapters 1 have described the techniBues of #hat may be called #holesale mind<manipulation, as practiced by the greatest demagogue and the most successful salesmen in recorded history. :ut no human problem can be solved by #holesale methods alone. The shotgun has its place, but so has the hypodermic syringe.

1n the chapters that follo# 1 shall describe some of the more effective techniBues for ma< nipulating not cro#ds, not entire publics, but isolated individuals. 1n the course of his epoch<making e&periments on the conditioned refle&, 1van ,avlov observed that, #hen subjected to prolonged physical or psychic stress, laboratory animals e&hibit all the symptoms of a nervous breakdo#n. 0efusing to cope any longer #ith the intolerable situation, their brains go on strike, so to speak, and either stop #orking altogether Cthe dog loses consciousnessD, or else resort to slo#do#ns and sabotage Cthe dog behaves unrealistically, or develops the kind of physical symptoms #hich, in a human being, #e #ould call hystericalD. !ome animals are more resistant to stress than others. 9ogs possessing #hat ,avlov called a Estrong e&citatoryE constitution break do#n much more Buickly than dogs of a merely ElivelyE Cas opposed to a choleric or agitatedD temperament. !imilarly E#eak inhibitoryE dogs reach the end of their tether much sooner than do Ecalm imperturbableE dogs. :ut even the most stoical dog is unable to resist indefinitely. 1f the stress to #hich he is subjected is sufficiently intense or sufficiently prolonged, he #ill end by breaking do#n as abjectly and as completely as the #eakest of his kind. ,avlov=s findings #ere confirmed in the most distressing manner, and on a very large scale, during the t#o World Wars. %s the result of a single catastrophic e&perience, or of a succession of terrors less appalling but freBuently repeated, soldiers develop a number of disabling psychophysical symptoms. Temporary unconsciousness, e&treme agitation, lethargy, functional blindness or paralysis, completely unrealistic responses to the challenge of events, strange reversals of lifelong patterns of behavior << all the symptoms, #hich ,avlov observed in his dogs, reappeared among the victims of #hat in the .irst World War #as called Eshell shock,E in the !econd, Ebattle fatigue.E 3very man, like every dog, has his o#n individual limit of endurance. "ost men reach their limit after about thirty days of more or less continuous stress under the conditions of modern combat. The more than averagely susceptible succumb in only fifteen days. The more than averagely tough can resist for forty<five or even fifty days. !trong or #eak, in the long run all of them break do#n. %ll, that is to say, of those #ho are initially sane. .or, ironically enough, the only people #ho can hold up indefinitely under the stress of modern #ar are psychotics. 1ndividual insanity is immune to the conseBuences of collective insanity. The fact that every individual has his breaking point has been kno#n and, in a crude unscientific #ay, e&ploited from time immemorial. 1n some cases man=s dreadful inhumanity to man has been inspired by the love of cruelty for its o#n horrible and fascinating sake. "ore often, ho#ever, pure sadism #as tempered by utilitarianism, theology or reasons of state. ,hysical torture and other forms of stress #ere inflicted by la#yers in order to loosen the tongues of reluctant #itnessesA by clergymen in order to punish the unorthodo& and induce them to change their opinionsA by the secret police to e&tract confessions from persons suspected of being hostile to the government. -nder itler, torture, follo#ed by mass e&termination, #as used on those biological heretics, the Ie#s. .or a young $a'i, a tour of duty in the 3&termination (amps #as Cin immler=s #ordsD Ethe best indoctrination on inferior beings and the subhuman races.E >iven the obsessional Buality of the anti<!emitism #hich itler had picked up as a young man in the slums of 8ienna, this revival of the methods employed by the oly 7ffice against heretics and #itches #as inevitable. :ut in the light of the findings of ,avlov and of the

kno#ledge gained by psychiatrists in the treatment of #ar neuroses, it seems a hideous and grotesBue anachronism. !tresses amply sufficient to cause a complete cerebral breakdo#n can be induced by methods #hich, though hatefully inhuman, fall short of physical torture. Whatever may have happened in earlier years, it seems fairly certain that torture is not e&tensively used by the (ommunist police today. They dra# their inspiration, not from the 1nBuisitor or the !! man, but from the physiologist and his methodically condi< tioned laboratory animals. .or the dictator and his policemen, ,avlov=s findings have important practical implications. 1f the central nervous system of dogs can be broken do#n, so can the central nervous system of political prisoners. 1t is simply a matter of applying the right amount of stress for the right length of time. %t the end of the treatment, the prisoner #ill be in a state of neurosis or hysteria, and #ill be ready to confess #hatever his captors #ant him to confess. :ut confession is not enough. % hopeless neurotic is no use to anyone. What the intelligent and practical dictator needs is not a patient to be institutionali'ed, or a victim to be shot, but a convert #ho #ill #ork for the (ause. Turning once again to ,avlov, he learns that, on their #ay to the point of final breakdo#n, dogs become more than normally suggestible. $e# behavior patterns can easily be installed #hile the dog is at or near the limit of its cerebral endurance, and these ne# behavior patterns seem to be ineradicable. The animal in #hich they have been implanted cannot be deconditionedA that #hich it has learned under stress #ill remain an integral part of its make<up. ,sychological stresses can be produced in many #ays. 9ogs become disturbed #hen stimuli are unusually strongA #hen the interval bet#een a stimulus and the customary response is unduly prolonged and the animal is left in a state of suspenseA #hen the brain is confused by stimuli that run counter to #hat the dog has learned to e&pectA #hen stimuli make no sense #ithin the victim=s established frame of reference. .urthermore, it has been found that the deliberate induction of fear, rage or an&iety markedly heightens the dog=s suggestibility. 1f these emotions are kept at a high pitch of intensity for a long enough time, the brain goes Eon strike.E When this happens, ne# behavior patterns may be installed #ith the greatest of ease. %mong the physical stresses that increase a dog=s suggestibility are fatigue, #ounds and every form of sickness. .or the #ould<be dictator these findings possess important practical implications. They prove, for e&ample, that itler #as Buite right in maintaining that mass meetings at night #ere more effective than mass meetings in the daytime. 9uring the day, he #rote, Eman=s #ill po#er revolts #ith highest energy against any attempt at being forced under another=s #ill and another=s opinion. 1n the evening, ho#ever, they succumb more easily to the dominating force of a stronger #ill.E ,avlov #ould have agreed #ith himA fatigue increases suggestibility. CThat is #hy, among other reasons, the commercial sponsors of television programs prefer the evening hours and are ready to back their preference #ith hard cash.D 1llness is even more effective than fatigue as an intensifier of suggestibility. 1n the past, sickrooms #ere the scene of countless religious conversions. The scientifically trained dictator of the future #ill have all the hospitals in his dominions #ired for sound and eBuipped #ith pillo# speakers. (anned persuasion #ill be on the air t#enty<four hours a day, and the more important patients #ill be visited by political soul<savers and

mind<changers just as, in the past, their ancestors #ere visited by priests, nuns and pious laymen. The fact that strong negative emotions tend to heighten suggestibility and so facilitate a change of heart had been observed and e&ploited long before the days of ,avlov. %s 9r. William !argant has pointed out in his enlightening book, Battle &or t#e Mind, Iohn Wesley=s enormous success as a preacher #as based upon an intuitive understanding of the central nervous system. e #ould open his sermon #ith a long and detailed description of the torments to #hich, unless they under#ent conversion, his hearers #ould undoubtedly be condemned for all eternity. Then, #hen terror and an agoni'ing sense of guilt had brought his audience to the verge, or in some cases over the verge, of a complete cerebral breakdo#n, he #ould change his tone and promise salvation to those #ho believed and repented. :y this kind of preaching, Wesley converted thousands of men, #omen and children. 1ntense, prolonged fear broke them do#n and produced a state of greatly intensified suggestibility. 1n this state they #ere able to accept the preacher=s theological pronouncements #ithout Buestion. %fter #hich they #ere reintegrated by #ords of comfort, and emerged from their ordeal #ith ne# and generally better behavior patterns ineradicably implanted in their minds and nervous systems. The effectiveness of political and religious propaganda depends upon the methods employed, not upon the doctrines taught. These doctrines may be true or false, #holesome or pernicious << it makes little or no difference. 1f the indoctrination is given in the right #ay at the proper stage of nervous e&haustion, it #ill #ork. -nder favorable conditions, practically everybody can be converted to practically anything. We possess detailed descriptions of the methods used by the (ommunist police for dealing #ith political prisoners. .rom the moment he is taken into custody, the victim is subjected systematically to many kinds of physical and psychological stress. e is badly fed, he is made e&tremely uncomfortable, he is not allo#ed to sleep for more than a fe# hours each night. %nd all the time he is kept in a state of suspense, uncertainty and acute apprehension. 9ay after day << or rather night after night, for these ,avlovian policemen understand the value of fatigue as an intensifier of suggestibility << he is Buestioned, often for many hours at a stretch, by interrogators #ho do their best to frighten, confuse and be#ilder him. %fter a fe# #eeks or months of such treatment, his brain goes on strike and he confesses #hatever it is that his captors #ant him to confess. Then, if he is to be converted rather than shot, he is offered the comfort of hope. 1f he #ill but accept the true faith, he can yet be saved << not, of course, in the ne&t life Cfor, officially, there is no ne&t lifeD, but in this. !imilar but rather less drastic methods #ere used during the Morean War on military prisoners. 1n their (hinese camps the young Western captives #ere systematically subjected to stress. Thus, for the most trivial breaches of the rules, offenders #ould be summoned to the commandant=s office, there to be Buestioned, bro#beaten and publicly humiliated. %nd the process #ould be repeated, again and again, at any hour of the day or night. This continuous harassment produced in its victims a sense of be#ilderment and chronic an&iety. To intensify their sense of guilt, prisoners #ere made to #rite and re#rite, in ever more intimate detail, long autobiographical accounts of their shortcomings. %nd after having confessed their o#n sins, they #ere reBuired to confess the sins of their companions. The aim #as to create #ithin the camp a nightmarish society, in #hich everybody #as spying on, and informing against, everyone

else. To these mental stresses #ere added the physical stresses of malnutrition, discomfort and illness. The increased suggestibility thus induced #as skilfully e&ploited by the (hinese, #ho poured into these abnormally receptive minds large doses of pro< (ommunist and anti<capitalist literature. These ,avlovian techniBues #ere remarkably successful. 7ne out of every seven %merican prisoners #as guilty, #e are officially told, of grave collaboration #ith the (hinese authorities, one out of three of technical collaboration. 1t must not be supposed that this kind of treatment is reserved by the (ommunists e&clusively for their enemies. The young field #orkers, #hose business it #as, during the first years of the ne# regime, to act as (ommunist missionaries and organi'ers in (hina=s innumerable to#ns and villages #ere made to take a course of indoctrination far more intense than that to #hich any prisoner of #ar #as ever subjected. 1n his '#ina under 'ommunism 0. ;. Walker describes the methods by #hich the party leaders are able to fabricate out of ordinary men and #omen the thousands of selfless fanatics reBuired for spreading the (ommunist gospel and for enforcing (ommunist policies. -nder this system of training, the human ra# material is shipped to special camps, #here the trainees are completely isolated from their friends, families and the outside #orld in general. 1n these camps they are made to perform e&hausting physical and mental #orkA they are never alone, al#ays in groupsA they are encouraged to spy on one anotherA they are reBuired to #rite self<accusatory autobiographiesA they live in chronic fear of the dreadful fate that may befall them on account of #hat has been said about them by in< formers or of #hat they themselves have confessed. 1n this state of heightened suggestibility they are given an intensive course in theoretical and applied "ar&ism << a course in #hich failure to pass e&aminations may mean anything from ignominious e&pulsion to a term in a forced labor camp or even liBuidation. %fter about si& months of this kind of thing, prolonged mental and physical stress produces the results #hich ,avlov=s findings #ould lead one to e&pect. 7ne after another, or in #hole groups, the trainees break do#n. $eurotic and hysterical symptoms make their appearance. !ome of the victims commit suicide, others Cas many, #e are told, as 25 per cent of the totalD develop a severe mental illness. Those #ho survive the rigors of the conversion process emerge #ith ne# and ineradicable behavior patterns. %ll their ties #ith the past << friends, family, traditional decencies and pieties << have been severed. They are ne# men, re< created in the image of their ne# god and totally dedicated to his service. Throughout the (ommunist #orld tens of thousands of these disciplined and devoted young men are being turned out every year from hundreds of conditioning centers. What the Iesuits did for the 0oman (hurch of the (ounter 0eformation, these products of a more scientific and even harsher training are no# doing, and #ill doubtless continue to do, for the (ommunist parties of 3urope, %sia and %frica. 1n politics ,avlov seems to have been an old<fashioned liberal. :ut, by a strange irony of fate, his researches and the theories he based upon them have called into e&istence a great army of fanatics dedicated heart and soul, refle& and nervous system, to the destruction of old<fashioned liberalism, #herever it can be found. :rain#ashing, as it is no# practiced, is a hybrid techniBue, depending for its effectiveness partly on the systematic use of violence, partly on skilful psychological manipulation. 1t represents the tradition of ./01 on its #ay to becoming the tradition of Brave New World- -nder a long<established and #ell<regulated dictatorship our current

methods of semiviolent manipulation #ill seem, no doubt, absurdly crude. (onditioned from earliest infancy Cand perhaps also biologically predestinedD, the average middle< or lo#er<caste individual #ill never reBuire conversion or even a refresher course in the true faith. The members of the highest caste #ill have to be able to think ne# thoughts in response to ne# situationsA conseBuently their training #ill be much less rigid than the training imposed upon those #hose business is not to reason #hy, but merely to do and die #ith the minimum of fuss. These upper<caste individuals #ill be members, still, of a #ild species << the trainers and guardians, themselves only slightly conditioned, of a breed of completely domesticated animals. Their #ildness #ill make it possible for them to become heretical and rebellious. When this happens, they #ill have to be either liBuidated, or brain#ashed back into orthodo&y, or Cas in Brave New World4 e&iled to some island, #here they can give no further trouble, e&cept of course to one another. :ut universal infant conditioning and the other techniBues of manipulation and control are still a fe# generations a#ay in the future. 7n the road to the :rave $e# World our rulers #ill have to rely on the transitional and provisional techniBues of brain#ashing. VIII. C '%!*a0 7'r"(a"!o+ 1n the :rave $e# World of my fable there #as no #hisky, no tobacco, no illicit heroin, no bootlegged cocaine. ,eople neither smoked, nor drank, nor sniffed, nor gave themselves injections. Whenever anyone felt depressed or belo# par, he #ould s#allo# a tablet or t#o of a chemical compound called soma. The original soma, from #hich 1 took the name of this hypothetical drug, #as an unkno#n plant Cpossibly %s lepias aeida4 used by the ancient %ryan invaders of 1ndia in one of the most solemn of their religious rites. The into&icating juice e&pressed from the stems of this plant #as drunk by the priests and nobles in the course of an elaborate ceremony. 1n the 8edic hymns #e are told that the drinkers of soma #ere blessed in many #ays. Their bodies #ere strengthened, their hearts #ere filled #ith courage, joy and enthusiasm, their minds #ere enlightened and in an immediate e&perience of eternal life they received the assurance of their immortality. :ut the sacred juice had its dra#backs. !oma #as a dangerous drug << so dangerous that even the great sky<god, 1ndra, #as sometimes made ill by drinking it. 7rdinary mortals might even die of an overdose. :ut the e&perience #as so transcendently blissful and enlightening that soma drinking #as regarded as a high privilege. .or this privilege no price #as too great. The soma of Brave New World had none of the dra#backs of its 1ndian original. 1n small doses it brought a sense of bliss, in larger doses it made you see visions and, if you took three tablets, you #ould sink in a fe# minutes into refreshing sleep. %nd all at no physiological or mental cost. The :rave $e# Worlders could take holidays from their black moods, or from the familiar annoyances of everyday life, #ithout sacrificing their health or permanently reducing their efficiency. 1n the :rave $e# World the soma habit #as not a private viceA it #as a political institution, it #as the very essence of the ;ife, ;iberty and ,ursuit of appiness guaranteed by the :ill of 0ights. :ut this most precious of the subjects= inalienable privileges #as at the same time one of the most po#erful instruments of rule in the

dictator=s armory. The systematic drugging of individuals for the benefit of the !tate Cand incidentally, of course, for their o#n delightD #as a main plank in the policy of the World (ontrollers. The daily soma ration #as an insurance against personal maladjustment, social unrest and the spread of subversive ideas. 0eligion, Marl "ar& declared, is the opium of the people. 1n the :rave $e# World this situation #as reversed. 7pium, or rather soma, #as the people=s religion. ;ike religion, the drug had po#er to console and compensate, it called up visions of another, better #orld, it offered hope, strengthened faith and promoted charity. :eer, a poet has #ritten, . . .does more than "ilton can To justify >od=s #ays to man. %nd let us remember that, compared #ith soma, beer is a drug of the crudest and most unreliable kind. 1n this matter of justifying >od=s #ays to man, soma is to alcohol as alcohol is to the theological arguments of "ilton. 1n 1931, #hen 1 #as #riting about the imaginary synthetic by means of #hich future generations #ould be made both happy and docile, the #ell<kno#n %merican biochemist, 9r. 1rvine ,age, #as preparing to leave >ermany, #here he had spent the three preceding years at the Maiser Wilhelm 1nstitute, #orking on the chemistry of the brain. E1t is hard to understand,E 9r. ,age has #ritten in a recent article, E#hy it took so long for scientists to get around to investigating the chemical reactions in their o#n brains. 1 speak,E he adds, Efrom acute personal e&perience. When 1 came home in 1931 . . . 1 could not get a job in this field Cthe field of brain chemistryD or stir a ripple of interest in it.E Today, t#enty<seven years later, the non<e&istent ripple of 1931 has become a tidal #ave of biochemical and psychopharmacological research. The en'ymes #hich regulate the #orkings of the brain are being studied. Within the body, hitherto unkno#n chemical substances such as adrenochrome and serotonin Cof #hich 9r. ,age #as a co<discovererD have been isolated and their far<reaching effects on our mental and physical functions are no# being investigated. "ean#hile ne# drugs are being synthesi'ed << drugs that reinforce or correct or interfere #ith the actions of the various chemicals, by means of #hich the nervous system performs its daily and hourly miracles as the controller of the body, the instrument and mediator of consciousness. .rom our present point of vie#, the most interesting fact about these ne# drugs is that they temporarily alter the chemistry of the brain and the associated state of the mind #ithout doing any permanent damage to the organism as a #hole. 1n this respect they are like soma << and profoundly unlike the mind< changing drugs of the past. .or e&ample, the classical tranBuilli'er is opium. :ut opium is a dangerous drug #hich, from neolithic times do#n to the present day, has been making addicts and ruining health. The same is true of the classical euphoric, alcohol << the drug #hich, in the #ords of the ,salmist, Emaketh glad the heart of man.E :ut unfortunately alcohol not only maketh glad the heart of manA it also, in e&cessive doses, causes illness and addiction, and has been a main source, for the last eight or ten thousand years, of crime, domestic unhappiness, moral degradation and avoidable accidents. %mong the classical stimulants, tea, coffee and matN are, thank goodness, almost completely harmless. They are also very #eak stimulants. -nlike these Ecups that cheer but not inebriate,E cocaine is a very po#erful and a very dangerous drug. Those #ho make use of it must pay for their ecstasies, their sense of unlimited physical and mental

po#er, by spells of agoni'ing depression, by such horrible physical symptoms as the sensation of being infested by myriads of cra#ling insects and by paranoid delusions that may lead to crimes of violence. %nother stimulant of more recent vintage is amphetamine, better kno#n under its trade name of :en'edrine. %mphetamine #orks very effectively << but #orks, if abused, at the e&pense of mental and physical health. 1t has been reported that, in Iapan, there are no# about one million amphetamine addicts. 7f the classical vision<producers the best kno#n are the peyote of "e&ico and the south#estern -nited !tates and 'anna(is sativa, consumed all over the #orld under such names as hashish, bhang, kif and marihuana. %ccording to the best medical and anthro< pological evidence, peyote is far less harmful than the White "an=s gin or #hisky. 1t permits the 1ndians #ho use it in their religious rites to enter paradise, and to feel at one #ith the beloved community, #ithout making them pay for the privilege by anything #orse than the ordeal of having to che# on something #ith a revolting flavor and of feeling some#hat nauseated for an hour or t#o. 'anna(is sativa is a less innocuous drug << though not nearly so harmful as the sensation<mongers #ould have us believe. The "edical (ommittee, appointed in 1922 by the "ayor of $e# 4ork to investigate the problem of marihuana, came to the conclusion, after careful investigation, that 'anna(is sativa is not a serious menace to society, or even to those #ho indulge in it. 1t is merely a nuisance. .rom these classical mind<changes #e pass to the latest products of psychopharmacological research. "ost highly publici'ed of these are the three ne# tranBuilli'ers, reserpine, chlorproma'ine and meprobamate. %dministered to certain classes of psychotics, the first t#o have proved to be remarkably effective, not in curing mental illnesses, but at least in temporarily abolishing their more distressing symptoms. "eprobamate Calias "ilto#nD produces similar effects in persons suffering from various forms of neurosis. $one of these drugs is perfectly harmlessA but their cost, in terms of physical health and mental efficiency, is e&traordinarily lo#. 1n a #orld #here nobody gets anything for nothing tranBuilli'ers offer a great deal for very little. "ilto#n and chlorproma'ine are not yet somaA but they come fairly near to being one of the aspects of that mythical drug. They provide temporary relief from nervous tension #ithout, in the great majority of cases, inflicting permanent organic harm, and #ithout causing more than a rather slight impairment, #hile the drug is #orking, of intellectual and physical efficiency. 3&cept as narcotics, they are probably to be preferred to the barbiturates, #hich blunt the mind=s cutting edge and, in large doses, cause a number of undesirable psychophysical symptoms and may result in a full<blo#n addiction. 1n ;!9<2* Clysergic acid diethylamideD the pharmacologists have recently created another aspect of soma << a perception<improver and vision<producer that is, physiologically speaking, almost costless. This e&traordinary drug, #hich is effective in doses as small as fifty or even t#enty<five millionths of a gram, has po#er Clike peyoteD to transport people into the other #orld. 1n the majority of cases, the other #orld to #hich ;!9<2* gives access is heavenlyA alternatively it may be purgatorial or even infernal. :ut, positive, or negative, the lysergic acid e&perience is felt by almost everyone #ho undergoes it to be profoundly significant and enlightening. 1n any event, the fact that minds can be changed so radically at so little cost to the body is altogether astonishing. !oma #as not only a vision<producer and a tranBuilli'erA it #as also Cand no doubt impossiblyD a stimulant of mind and body, a creator of active euphoria as #ell as of the

negative happiness that follo#s the release from an&iety and tension. The ideal stimulant << po#erful but innocuous << still a#aits discovery. %mphetamine, as #e have seen, #as far from satisfactoryA it e&acted too high a price for #hat it gave. % more promising candidate for the role of soma in its third aspect is 1pronia'id, #hich is no# being used to lift depressed patients out of their misery, to enliven the apathetic and in general to increase the amount of available psychic energy. !till more promising, according to a distinguished pharmacologist of my acBuaintance, is a ne# compound, still in the testing stage, to be kno#n as 9eaner. 9eaner is an amino< alcohol and is thought to increase the production of acetyl<choline #ithin the body, and thereby to increase the activity and effectiveness of the nervous system. The man #ho takes the ne# pill needs less sleep, feels more alert and cheerful, thinks faster and better << and all at ne&t to no organic cost, at any rate in the short run. 1t sounds almost too good to be true. We see then that, though soma does not yet e&ist Cand #ill probably never e&istD, fairly good substitutes for the various aspects of soma have already been discovered. There are no# physiologically cheap tranBuilli'ers, physiologically cheap vision< producers and physiologically cheap stimulants. That a dictator could, if he so desired, make use of these drugs for political purposes is obvious. e could ensure himself against political unrest by changing the chemistry of his subjects= brains and so making them content #ith their servile condition. e could use tranBuilli'ers to calm the e&cited, stimulants to arouse enthusiasm in the indifferent, halluciants to distract the attention of the #retched from their miseries. :ut ho#, it may be asked, #ill the dictator get his subjects to take the pills that #ill make them think, feel and behave in the #ays he finds desirableF 1n all probability it #ill be enough merely to make the pills available. Today alcohol and tobacco are available, and people spend considerably more on these very unsatisfactory euphorics, pseudo< stimulants and sedatives than they are ready to spend on the education of their children. 7r consider the barbiturates and the tranBuilli'ers. 1n the -nited !tates these drugs can be obtained only on a doctor=s prescription. :ut the demand of the %merican public for something that #ill make life in an urban<industrial environment a little more tolerable is so great that doctors are no# #riting prescriptions for the various tranBuilli'ers at the rate of forty<eight millions a year. "oreover, a majority of these prescriptions are refilled. % hundred doses of happiness are not enough? send to the drugstore for another bottle << and, #hen that is finished, for another. . . . There can be no doubt that, if tranBuilli'ers could be bought as easily and cheaply as aspirin, they #ould be consumed, not by the billions, as they are at present, but by the scores and hundreds of billions. %nd a good, cheap stimulant #ould be almost as popular. -nder a dictatorship pharmacists #ould be instructed to change their tune #ith every change of circumstances. 1n times of national crisis it #ould be their business to push the sale of stimulants. :et#een crises, too much alertness and energy on the part of his subjects might prove embarrassing to the tyrant. %t such times the masses #ould be urged to buy tranBuilli'ers and vision<producers. -nder the influence of these soothing syrups they could be relied upon to give their master no trouble. %s things no# stand, the tranBuilli'ers may prevent some people from giving enough trouble, not only to their rulers, but even to themselves. Too much tension is a diseaseA but so is too little. There are certain occasions #hen #e oug#t to be tense, #hen

an e&cess of tranBuillity Cand especially of tranBuillity imposed from the outside, by a chemicalD is entirely inappropriate. %t a recent symposium on meprobamate, in #hich 1 #as a participant, an eminent biochemist playfully suggested that the -nited !tates government should make a free gift to the !oviet people of fifty billion doses of this most popular of the tranBuilli'ers. The joke had a serious point to it. 1n a contest bet#een t#o populations, one of #hich is being constantly stimulated by threats and promises, constantly directed by one<pointed propaganda, #hile the other is no less constantly being distracted by television and tranBuilli'ed by "ilto#n, #hich of the opponents is more likely to come out on topF %s #ell as tranBuilli'ing, hallucinating and stimulating, the soma of my fable had the po#er of heightening suggestibility, and so could be used to reinforce the effects of governmental propaganda. ;ess effectively and at a higher physiological cost, several drugs already in the pharmacopoeia can be used for the same purpose. There is scopolamine, for e&ample, the active principle of henbane and, in large doses, a po#erful poisonA there are pentothal and sodium amytal. $icknamed for some odd reason Ethe truth serum,E pentothal has been used by the police of various countries for the purpose of e&tracting confessions from Cor perhaps suggesting confessions toD reluctant criminals. ,entothal and sodium amytal lo#er the barrier bet#een the conscious and the subconscious mind and are of great value in the treatment of Ebattle fatigueE by the process kno#n in 3ngland as Eabreaction therapy,E in %merica as Enarcosynthesis.E 1t is said that these drugs are sometimes employed by the (ommunists, #hen preparing important prisoners for their public appearance in court. "ean#hile pharmacology, biochemistry and neurology are on the march, and #e can be Buite certain that, in the course of the ne&t fe# years, ne# and better chemical methods for increasing suggestibility and lo#ering psychological resistance #ill be dis< covered. ;ike everything else, these discoveries may be used #ell or badly. They may help the psychiatrist in his battle against mental illness, or they may help the dictator in his battle against freedom. "ore probably Csince science is divinely impartialD they #ill both enslave and make free, heal and at the same time destroy. IX. S(#*o+"*!o(" 7'r"(a"!o+ 1n a footnote appended to the 1919 edition of his book, $#e 8nterpretation o& Dreams, !igmund .reud called attention to the #ork of 9r. ,oet'l, an %ustrian neu< rologist, #ho had recently published a paper describing his e&periments #ith the tachistoscope. CThe tachistoscope is an instrument that comes in t#o forms << a vie#ing bo&, into #hich the subject looks at an image that is e&posed for a small fraction of a secondA a magic lantern #ith a high<speed shutter, capable of projecting an image very briefly upon a screen.D 1n these e&periments ,oet'l reBuired the subjects to make a dra#ing of #hat they had consciously noted of a picture e&posed to their vie# in a tachistoscope. . . . e then turned his attention to the dreams dreamed by the subjects during the follo#ing night and reBuired them once more to make dra#ings of appropriate portions of these dreams. 1t #as sho#n unmistakably that those details of the e&posed picture #hich had not been noted by the subject provided material for the construction of

the dream.E With various modifications and refinements ,oet'l=s e&periments have been repeated several times, most recently by 9r. (harles .isher, #ho has contributed three e&cellent papers on the subject of dreams and Epreconscious perceptionE to the 9ournal o& t#e %meri an Psy #oanalyti %sso iation- "ean#hile the academic psychologists have not been idle. (onfirming ,oet'l=s findings, their studies have sho#n that people actually see and hear a great deal more than they consciously kno# they see and hear, and that #hat they see and hear #ithout kno#ing it is recorded by the subconscious mind and may affect their conscious thoughts, feelings and behavior. ,ure science does not remain pure indefinitely. !ooner or later it is apt to turn into applied science and finally into technology. Theory modulates into industrial practice, kno#ledge becomes po#er, formulas and laboratory e&periments undergo a metamorphosis, and emerge as the <bomb. 1n the present case, ,oet'l=s nice little piece of pure science, and all the other nice little pieces of pure science in the field of preconscious perception, retained their pristine purity for a surprisingly long time. Then, in the early autumn of 19*H, e&actly forty years after the publication of ,oet'l=s original paper, it #as announced that their purity #as a thing of the pastA they had been applied, they had entered the realm of technology. The announcement made a considerable stir, and #as talked and #ritten about all over the civili'ed #orld. %nd no #onderA for the ne# techniBue of Esubliminal projection,E as it #as called, #as intimately associated #ith mass entertainment, and in the life of civili'ed human beings mass entertainment no# plays a part comparable to that played in the "iddle %ges by religion. 7ur epoch has been given many nicknames << the %ge of %n&iety, the %tomic %ge, the !pace %ge. 1t might, #ith eBually good reason, be called the %ge of Television %ddiction, the %ge of !oap 7pera, the %ge of the 9isk Iockey. 1n such an age the announcement that ,oet'l=s pure science had been applied in the form of a techniBue of subliminal projection could not fail to arouse the most intense interest among the #orld=s mass entertainees. .or the ne# techniBue #as aimed directly at them, and its purpose #as to manipulate their minds #ithout their being a#are of #hat #as being done to them. :y means of specially designed tachistoscopes #ords or images #ere to be flashed for a millisecond or less upon the screens of television sets and motion picture theaters during Cnot before or afterD the program. E9rink (oca<(olaE or E;ight up a (amelE #ould be superimposed upon the lovers= embrace, the tears of the broken<hearted mother, and the optic nerves of the vie#ers #ould record these secret messages, their subconscious minds #ould respond to them and in due course they #ould consciously feel a craving for soda pop and tobacco. %nd mean#hile other secret messages #ould be #hispered too softly, or sBueaked too shrilly, for conscious hearing. (onsciously the listener might be paying attention to some phrase as E9arling, 1 love youEA but subliminally, beneath the threshold of a#areness, his incredibly sensitive ears and his subconscious mind #ould be taking in the latest good ne#s about deodorants and la&atives. 9oes this kind of commercial propaganda really #orkF The evidence produced by the commercial firm that first unveiled a techniBue for subliminal projection #as vague and, from a scientific point of vie#, very unsatisfactory. 0epeated at regular intervals during the sho#ing of a picture in a movie theater, the command to buy more popcorn #as said to have resulted in a *5 per cent increase in popcorn sales during the intermission. :ut a single e&periment proves very little. "oreover, this particular

e&periment #as poorly set up. There #ere no controls and no attempt #as made to allo# for the many variables that undoubtedly affect the consumption of popcorn by a theater audience. %nd anyho# #as this the most effective #ay of applying the kno#ledge accumulated over the years by the scientific investigators of subconscious perceptionF Was it intrinsically probable that, by merely flashing the name of a product and a com< mand to buy it, you #ould be able to break do#n sales resistance and recruit ne# customersF The ans#er to both these Buestions is pretty obviously in the negative. :ut this does not mean, of course, that the findings of the neurologists and psychologists are #ithout any practical importance. !kilfully applied, ,oet'l=s nice little piece of pure science might #ell become a po#erful instrument for the manipulation of unsuspecting minds. .or a fe# suggestive hints let us no# turn from the popcorn vendors to those #ho, #ith less noise but more imagination and better methods, have been e&perimenting in the same field. 1n :ritain, #here the process of manipulating minds belo# the level of consciousness is kno#n as Estrobonic injection,E investigators have stressed the practical importance of creating the right psychological conditions for subconscious persuasion. % suggestion above the threshold of a#areness is more likely to take effect #hen the recipient is in a light hypnotic trance, under the influence of certain drugs, or has been debilitated by illness, starvation, or any kind of physical or emotional stress. :ut #hat is true for suggestions above the threshold of consciousness is also true for suggestions beneath that threshold. 1n a #ord, the lo#er the level of a person=s psychological resistance, the greater #ill be the effectiveness of strobonically injected suggestions. The scientific dictator of tomorro# #ill set up his #hispering machines and subliminal projectors in schools and hospitals Cchildren and the sick are highly suggestibleD, and in all public places #here audiences can be given a preliminary softening up by suggestibility<increasing oratory or rituals. .rom the conditions under #hich #e may e&pect subliminal suggestion to be effective #e no# pass to the suggestions themselves. 1n #hat terms should the propagandist address himself to his victims= subconscious mindsF 9irect commands CE:uy popcornE or E8ote for IonesED and unBualified statements CE!ocialism stinksE or E@=s toothpaste cures halitosisED are likely to take effect only upon those minds that are already partial to Iones and popcorn, already alive to the dangers of body odors and the public o#nership of the means of production. :ut to strengthen e&isting faith is not enoughA the propagandist, if he is #orth his salt, must create ne# faith, must kno# ho# to bring the indifferent and the undecided over to his side, must be able to mollify and perhaps even convert the hostile. To subliminal assertion and command he kno#s that he must add subliminal persuasion. %bove the threshold of a#areness, one of the most effective methods of non< rational persuasion is #hat may be called persuasion<by<association. The propagandist arbitrarily associates his chosen product, candidate or cause #ith some idea, some image of a person or thing #hich most people, in a given culture, unBuestioningly regard as good. Thus, in a selling campaign female beauty may be arbitrarily associated #ith any< thing from a bulldo'er to a diureticA in a political campaign patriotism may be associated #ith any cause from apart#eid to integration, and #ith any kind of person, from a "ahatma >andhi to a !enator "c(arthy. 4ears ago, in (entral %merica, 1 observed an e&ample of persuasion<by<association #hich filled me #ith an appalled admiration for the

men #ho had devised it. 1n the mountains of >uatemala the only imported art #orks are the colored calendars distributed free of charge by the foreign companies #hose products are sold to the 1ndians. The %merican calendars sho#ed pictures of dogs, of landscapes, of young #omen in a state of partial nudity. :ut to the 1ndian dogs are merely utilitarian objects, landscapes are #hat he sees only too much of, every day of his life, and half< naked blondes are uninteresting, perhaps a little repulsive. %merican calendars #ere, in conseBuence, far less popular than >erman calendarsA for the >erman advertisers had taken the trouble to find out #hat the 1ndians valued and #ere interested in. 1 remember in particular one masterpiece of commercial propaganda. 1t #as a calendar put out by a manufacturer of aspirin. %t the bottom of the picture one sa# the familiar trademark on the familiar bottle of #hite tablets. %bove it #ere no sno# scenes or autumnal #oods, no cocker spaniels or bosomy chorus girls. $o << the #ily >ermans had associated their pain<relievers #ith a brightly colored and e&tremely lifelike picture of the oly Trinity sitting on a cumulus cloud and surrounded by !t. Ioseph, the 8irgin "ary, assorted saints and a large number of angels. The miraculous virtues of acetyl salicylic acid #ere thus guaranteed, in the 1ndians= simple and deeply religious minds, by >od the .ather and the entire heavenly host. This kind of persuasion<by<association is something to #hich the techniBues of subliminal projection seem to lend themselves particularly #ell. 1n a series of e&< periments carried out at $e# 4ork -niversity, under the auspices of the $ational 1nstitute of ealth, it #as found that a person=s feelings about some consciously seen image could be modified by associating it, on the subconscious level, #ith another image, or, better still, #ith value<bearing #ords. Thus, #hen associated, on the subconscious level, #ith the #ord Ehappy,E a blank e&pressionless face #ould seem to the observer to smile, to look friendly, amiable, outgoing. When the same face #as associated, also on the subcon< scious level, #ith the #ord Eangry,E it took on a forbidding e&pression, and seemed to the observer to have become hostile and disagreeable. CTo a group of young #omen, it also came to seem very masculine << #hereas #hen it #as associated #ith Ehappy,E they sa# the face as belonging to a member of their o#n se&. .athers and husbands, please take note.D .or the commercial and political propagandist, these findings, it is obvious, are highly significant. 1f he can put his victims into a state of abnormally high suggestibility, if he can sho# them, #hile they are in that state, the thing, the person or, through a symbol, the cause he has to sell, and if, on the subconscious level, he can associate this thing, person or symbol #ith some value<bearing #ord or image, he may be able to modify their feelings and opinions #ithout their having any idea of #hat he is doing. 1t should be possible, according to an enterprising commercial group in $e# 7rleans, to enhance the entertainment value of films and television plays by using this techniBue. ,eople like to feel strong emotions and therefore enjoy tragedies, thrillers, murder mysteries and tales of passion. The dramati'ation of a fight or an embrace produces strong emotions in the spectators. 1t might produce even stronger emotions if it #ere associated, on the subconscious level, #ith appropriate #ords or symbols. .or e&ample, in the film version of % Farewell to %rms, the death of the heroine in childbirth might be made even more distressing than it already is by subliminally flashing upon the screen, again and again, during the playing of the scene, such ominous #ords as Epain,E EbloodE and Edeath.E (onsciously, the #ords #ould not be seenA but their effect upon the subconscious mind might be very great and these effects might po#erfully reinforce the

emotions evoked, on the conscious level, by the acting and the dialogue. 1f, as seems pretty certain, subliminal projection can consistently intensify the emotions felt by moviegoers, the motion picture industry may yet be saved from bankruptcy << that is, if the producers of television plays don=t get there first. 1n the light of #hat has been said about persuasion<by<association and the enhancement of emotions by subliminal suggestion, let us try to imagine #hat the political meeting of tomorro# #ill be like. The candidate Cif there is still a Buestion of candidatesD, or the appointed representative of the ruling oligarchy, #ill make his speech for all to hear. "ean#hile the tachistoscopes, the #hispering and sBueaking machines, the projectors of images so dim that only the subconscious mind can respond to them, #ill be reinforcing #hat he says by systematically associating the man and his cause #ith positively charged #ords and hallo#ed images, and by strobonically injecting negatively charged #ords and odious symbols #henever he mentions the enemies of the !tate or the ,arty. 1n the -nited !tates brief flashes of %braham ;incoln and the #ords Egovernment by the peopleE #ill be projected upon the rostrum. 1n 0ussia the speaker #ill, of course, be associated #ith glimpses of ;enin, #ith the #ords Epeople=s democracy,E #ith the prophetic beard of .ather "ar&. :ecause all this is still safely in the future, #e can afford to smile. Ten or t#enty years from no#, it #ill probably seem a good deal less amusing. .or #hat is no# merely science fiction #ill have become everyday political fact. ,oet'l #as one of the portents #hich, #hen #riting Brave New World, 1 someho# overlooked. There is no reference in my fable to subliminal projection. 1t is a mistake of omission #hich, if 1 #ere to re#rite the book today, 1 should most certainly correct. X. H&p+opa')!a 1n the late autumn of 19*H the Woodland 0oad (amp, a penal institution in Tulare (ounty, (alifornia, became the scene of a curious and interesting e&periment. "iniature loud<speakers #ere placed under the pillo#s of a group of prisoners #ho had volunteered to act as psychological guinea pigs. 3ach of these pillo# speakers #as hooked up to a phonograph in the Warden=s office. 3very hour throughout the night an inspirational #hisper repeated a brief homily on Ethe principles of moral living.E Waking at midnight, a prisoner might hear this still small voice e&tolling the cardinal virtues or murmuring, on behalf of his o#n :etter !elf, E1 am filled #ith love and compassion for all, so help me >od.E %fter reading about the Woodland 0oad (amp, 1 turned to the second chapter of Brave New World- 1n that chapter the 9irector of atcheries and (onditioning for Western 3urope e&plains to a group of freshman conditioners and hatchers the #orkings of that state<controlled system of ethical education, kno#n in the seventh century %fter .ord as hypnopaedia. The earliest attempts at sleep<teaching, the 9irector told his audience, had been misguided, and therefore unsuccessful. 3ducators had tried to give intellectual training to their slumbering pupils. :ut intellectual activity is incompatible #ith sleep. ypnopaedia became successful only #hen it #as used for moral training << in other #ords, for the conditioning of behavior through verbal suggestion at a time of lo#ered psychological resistance. EWordless conditioning is crude and #holesale, cannot

inculcate the more comple& courses of behavior reBuired by the !tate. .or that there must be #ords, but #ords #ithout reasonE . . . the kind of #ords that reBuire no analysis for their comprehension, but can be s#allo#ed #hole by the sleeping brain. This is true hynopaedia, Ethe greatest morali'ing and sociali'ing force of all time.E 1n the :rave $e# World, no citi'ens belonging to the lo#er castes ever gave any trouble. WhyF :ecause, from the moment he could speak and understand #hat #as said to him, every lo#er<caste child #as e&posed to endlessly repeated suggestions, night after night, during the hours of dro#siness and sleep. These suggestions #ere Elike drops of liBuid sealing #a&, drops that adhere, incrust, incorporate themselves #ith #hat they fall on, till finally the rock is all one scarlet blob. Till at last the child=s mind is these suggestions and the sum of these suggestions is the child=s mind. %nd not the child=s mind only. The adult=s mind too << all his life long. The mind that judges and desires and decides << made up of these suggestions. :ut these suggestions are our suggestions << suggestions from the !tate. . . .E To date, so far as 1 kno#, hypnopaedic suggestions have been given by no state more formidable than Tulare (ounty, and the nature of Tulare=s hypnopaedic suggestions to la#breakers is une&ceptionable. 1f only all of us, and not only the inmates of the Woodland 0oad (amp, could be effectively filled, during our sleep, #ith love and compassion for allL $o, it is not the message conveyed by the inspirational #hisper that one objects toA it is the principle of sleep<teaching by governmental agencies. 1s hypnopaedia the sort of instrument that officials, delegated to e&ercise authority in a democratic society, ought to be allo#ed to use at their discretionF 1n the present instance they are using it only on volunteers and #ith the best intentions. :ut there is no guarantee that in other cases the intentions #ill be good or the indoctrination on a voluntary basis. %ny la# or social arrangement #hich makes it possible for officials to be led into temptation is bad. %ny la# or arrangement #hich preserves them from being tempted to abuse their delegated po#er for their o#n advantage, or for the benefit of the !tate or of some political, economic or ecclesiastical organi'ation, is good. ypnopaedia, if it is effective, #ould be a tremendously po#erful instrument in the hands of anyone in a position to impose suggestions upon a captive audience. % democratic society is a society dedicated to the proposition that po#er is often abused and should therefore be entrusted to officials only in limited amounts and for limited periods of time. 1n such a society, the use of hypnopaedia by officials should be regulated by la# << that is, of course, if hypnopaedia is genuinely an instrument of po#er. :ut is it in fact an instrument of po#erF Will it #ork no# as #ell as 1 imagined it #orking in the seventh century %...F ;et us e&amine the evidence. 1n the Psy #ologi al Bulletin for Iuly, 19**, (harles W. !imon and William . 3mmons have analy'ed and evaluated the ten most important studies in the field. %ll these studies #ere concerned #ith memory. 9oes sleep<teaching help the pupil in his task of learning by roteF %nd to #hat e&tent is material #hispered into the ear of a sleeping person remembered ne&t morning #hen he #akesF !imon and 3mmons ans#er as fol< lo#s ? ETen sleep<learning studies #ere revie#ed. "any of these have been cited uncritically by commercial firms or in popular maga'ines and ne#s articles as evidence in support of the feasibility of learning during sleep. % critical analysis #as made of their e&perimental design, statistics, methodology and criteria of sleep. %ll the studies had #eaknesses in one or more of these areas. The studies do not make it uneBuivocally clear that learning during sleep actually takes place. :ut some learning appears to take place in

a special kind of #aking state #herein the subjects do not remember later on if they had been a#ake. This may be of great practical importance from the standpoint of economy in study time, but it cannot be construed as sleep learning- - - - The problem is partially con< founded by an inadeBuate definition of sleep.E "ean#hile the fact remains that in the %merican %rmy during the !econd World War Cand even, e&perimentally, during the .irstD daytime instruction in the "orse (ode and in foreign languages #as supplemented by instruction during sleep << apparently #ith satisfactory results. !ince the end of World War 11 several commercial firms in the -nited !tates and else#here have sold large numbers of pillo# speakers and clock<controlled phonographs and tape recorders for the use of actors in a hurry to learn their parts, of politicians and preachers #ho #ant to give the illusion of being e&temporaneously eloBuent, of students preparing for e&aminations and, finally and most profitably, of the countless people #ho are dissatisfied #ith themselves as they are and #ould like to be suggested or autosuggested into becoming something else. !elf<administered suggestion can easily be recorded on magnetic tape and listened to, over and over again, by day and during sleep. !uggestions from the outside may be bought in the form of records carrying a #ide variety of helpful messages. There are on the market records for the release of tension and the induction of deep rela&ation, records for promoting self<confidence Cmuch used by salesmenD, records for increasing one=s charm and making one=s personality more magnetic. %mong the best sellers are records for the achievement of se&ual harmony and records for those #ho #ish to lose #eight. CE1 am cold to chocolate, insensible to the lure of potatoes, utterly unmoved by muffins.ED There are records for improved health and even records for making more money. %nd the remarkable thing is that, according to the unsolicited testimonials sent in by grateful purchasers of these records, many people actually do make more money after listening to hypnopaedic suggestions to that effect, many obese ladies do lose #eight and many couples on the verge of divorce achieve se&ual harmony and live happily ever after. 1n this conte&t an article by Theodore @. :arber, E!leep and ypnosis,E #hich appeared in $#e 9ournal o& 'lini al and *2perimental )ypnosis for 7ctober, 19*6, is most enlightening. "r. :arber points out that there is a significant difference bet#een light sleep and deep sleep. 1n deep sleep the electroencephalograph records no alpha #avesA in light sleep alpha #aves make their appearance. 1n this respect light sleep is closer to the #aking and hypnotic states Cin both of #hich alpha #aves are presentD than it is to deep sleep. % loud noise #ill cause a person in deep sleep to a#aken. % less violent stimulus #ill not arouse him, but #ill cause the reappearance of alpha #aves. 9eep sleep has given place for the time being to light sleep. % person in deep sleep is unsuggestible. :ut #hen subjects in light sleep are given suggestions, they #ill respond to them, "r. :arber found, in the same #ay that they respond to suggestions #hen in the hypnotic trance. "any of the earlier investigators of hypnotism made similar e&periments. 1n his classical )istory, Pra ti e and $#eory o& )ypnotism, first published in 1953, "ilne :ram#ell records that Emany authorities claim to have changed natural sleep into hypnotic sleep. %ccording to Wetterstrand, it is often very easy to put oneself en rapport #ith sleeping persons, especially children. . . . Wetterstrand thinks this method of inducing hypnosis of much practical value and claims to have often used it successfully.E :ram#ell cites many other e&perienced hypnotists Cincluding such eminent authorities as

:ernheim, "oll and .orelD to the same effect. Today an e&perimenter #ould not speak of Echanging natural into hypnotic sleep.E %ll he is prepared to say is that light sleep Cas opposed to deep sleep #ithout alpha #avesD is a state in #hich many subjects #ill accept suggestions as readily as they do #hen under hypnosis. .or e&ample, after being told, #hen lightly asleep, that they #ill #ake up in a little #hile, feeling e&tremely thirsty, many subjects #ill duly #ake up #ith a dry throat and a craving for #ater. The corte& may be too inactive to think straightA but it is alert enough to respond to suggestions and to pass them on to the autonomic nervous system. %s #e have already seen, the #ell<kno#n !#edish physician and e&perimenter, Wetterstrand, #as especially successful in the hypnotic treatment of sleeping children. 1n our o#n day Wetterstrand=s methods are follo#ed by a number of pediatricians, #ho instruct young mothers in the art of giving helpful suggestions to their children during the hours of light sleep. :y this kind of hypnopaedia children can be cured of bed #etting and nail biting, can be prepared to go into surgery #ithout apprehension, can be given confidence and reassurance #hen, for any reason, the circumstances of their life have become distressing. 1 myself have seen remarkable results achieved by the therapeutic sleep<teaching of small children. (omparable results could probably be achieved #ith many adults. .or a #ould<be dictator, the moral of all this is plain. -nder proper conditions, hypnopaedia actually #orks << #orks, it #ould seem, about as #ell as hypnosis. "ost of the things that can be done #ith and to a person in hypnotic trance can be done #ith and to a person in light sleep. 8erbal suggestions can be passed through the somnolent corte& to the midbrain, the brain stem and the autonomic nervous system. 1f these suggestions are #ell conceived and freBuently repeated, the bodily functions of the sleeper can be improved or interfered #ith, ne# patterns of feeling can be installed and old ones modified, posthypnotic commands can be given, slogans, formulas and trigger #ords deeply ingrained in the memory. (hildren are better hypnopaedic subjects than adults, and the #ould<be dictator #ill take full advantage of the fact. (hildren of nursery<school and kindergarten age #ill be treated to hypnopaedic suggestions during their afternoon nap. .or older children and particularly the children of party members << the boys and girls #ho #ill gro# up to be leaders, administrators and teachers << there #ill be boarding schools, in #hich an e&cellent day<time education #ill be supplemented by nightly sleep< teaching. 1n the case of adults, special attention #ill be paid to the sick. %s ,avlov demonstrated many years ago, strong<minded and resistant dogs become completely suggestible after an operation or #hen suffering from some debilitating illness. 7ur dictator #ill therefore see that every hospital #ard is #ired for sound. %n appendectomy, an accouchement, a bout of pneumonia or hepatitis, can be made the occasion for an intensive course in loyalty and the true faith, a refresher in the principles of the local ideology. 7ther captive audiences can be found in prisons, in labor camps, in military barracks, on ships at sea, on trains and airplanes in the night, in the dismal #aiting rooms of bus terminals and rail#ay stations. 3ven if the hypnopaedic suggestions given to these captive audiences #ere no more than 15 per cent effective, the results #ould still be impressive and, for a dictator, highly desirable. .rom the heightened suggestibility associated #ith light sleep and hypnosis let us pass to the normal suggestibility of those #ho are a#ake << or at least #ho think they are a#ake. C1n fact, as the :uddhists insist, most of us are half asleep all the time and go

through life as somnambulists obeying somebody else=s suggestions. 3nlightenment is total a#akeness. The #ord E:uddhaE can be translated as EThe Wake.ED >enetically, every human being is uniBue and in many #ays unlike every other human being. The range of individual variation from the statistical norm is ama'ingly #ide. %nd the statistical norm, let us remember, is useful only in actuarial calculations, not in real life. 1n real life there is no such person as the average man. There are only particular men, #omen and children, each #ith his or her inborn idiosyncrasies of mind and body, and all trying Cor being compelledD to sBuee'e their biological diversities into the uniformity of some cultural mold. !uggestibility is one of the Bualities that vary significantly from individual to individual. 3nvironmental factors certainly play their part in making one person more responsive to suggestion than anotherA but there are also, no less certainly, constitutional differences in the suggestibility of individuals. 3&treme resistance to suggestion is rather rare. .ortunately so. .or if everyone #ere as unsuggestible as some people are, social life #ould be impossible. !ocieties can function #ith a reasonable degree of efficiency because, in varying degrees, most people are fairly suggestible. 3&treme suggestibility is probably about as rare as e&treme unsuggestibility. %nd this also is fortunate. .or if most people #ere as responsive to outside suggestions as the men and #omen at the e&treme limits of suggestibility, free, rational choice #ould become, for the majority of the electorate, virtually impossible, and democratic institutions could not survive, or even come into e&istence. % fe# years ago, at the "assachusetts >eneral ospital, a group of researchers carried out a most illuminating e&periment on the pain<relieving effects of placebos. C% placebo is anything #hich the patient believes to be an active drug, but #hich in fact is pharmacologically inactive.D 1n this e&periment the subjects #ere one hundred and si&ty< t#o patients #ho had just come out of surgery and #ere all in considerable pain. Whenever a patient asked for medication to relieve pain, he or she #as given an injection, either of morphine or of distilled #ater. %ll the patients received some injections of morphine and some of the placebo. %bout 35 per cent of the patients never obtained relief from the placebo. 7n the other hand 12 per cent obtained relief after every injection of distilled #ater. The remaining ** per cent of the group #ere relieved by the placebo on some occasions, but not on others. 1n #hat respects did the suggestible reactors differ from the unsuggestible non< reactorsF (areful study and testing revealed that neither age nor se& #as a significant factor. "en reacted to placebo as freBuently as did #omen, and young people as often as old ones. $or did intelligence, as measured by the standard tests, seem to be important. The average 1G of the t#o groups #as about the same. 1t #as above all in temperament, in the #ay they felt about themselves and other people that the members of the t#o groups #ere significantly different. The reactors #ere more co<operative than the non< reactors, less critical and suspicious. They gave the nurses no trouble and thought that the care they #ere receiving in the hospital #as simply E#onderful.E :ut though less un< friendly to#ard others than the non<reactors, the reactors #ere generally much more an&ious about themselves. -nder stress, this an&iety tended to translate itself into various psychosomatic symptoms, such as stomach upsets, diarrhea and headaches. 1n spite of or because of their an&iety, most of the reactors #ere more uninhibited in the display of emotion than #ere the non<reactors, and more voluble. They #ere also much more

religious, much more active in the affairs of their church and much more preoccupied, on a subconscious level, #ith their pelvic and abdominal organs. 1t is interesting to compare these figures for reaction to placebos #ith the estimates made, in their o#n special field, by #riters on hypnosis. %bout a fifth of the population, they tell us, can be hypnoti'ed very easily. %nother fifth cannot be hypnoti'ed at all, or can be hypnoti'ed only #hen drugs or fatigue have lo#ered psychological resistance. The remaining three<fifths can be hypnoti'ed some#hat less easily than the first group, but considerably more easily than the second. % manufacturer of hypnopaedic records has told me that about 25 per cent of his customers are enthusiastic and report striking results in a very short time. %t the other end of the spectrum of suggestibility there is an + per cent minority that regularly asks for its money back. :et#een these t#o e&tremes are the people #ho fail to get Buick results, but are suggestible enough to be affected in the long run. 1f they listen perseveringly to the appropriate hypnopaedic in< structions they #ill end by getting #hat they #ant << self<confidence or se&ual harmony, less #eight or more money. The ideals of democracy and freedom confront the brute fact of human suggestibility. 7ne<fifth of every electorate can be hypnoti'ed almost in the t#inkling of an eye, one<seventh can be relieved of pain by injections of #ater, one<Buarter #ill respond promptly and enthusiastically to hypnopaedia. %nd to these all too co<operative minorities must be added the slo#<starting majorities, #hose less e&treme suggestibility can be effectually e&ploited by anyone #ho kno#s his business and is prepared to take the necessary time and trouble. 1s individual freedom compatible #ith a high degree of individual suggestibilityF (an democratic institutions survive the subversion from #ithin of skilled mind< manipulators trained in the science and art of e&ploiting the suggestibility both of individuals and of cro#dsF To #hat e&tent can the inborn tendency to be too suggestible for one=s o#n good or the good of a democratic society be neutrali'ed by educationF o# far can the e&ploitation of inordinate suggestibility by businessmen and ecclesiastics, by politicians in and out of po#er, be controlled by la#F 3&plicitly or implicitly, the first t#o Buestions have been discussed in earlier articles. 1n #hat follo#s 1 shall consider the problems of prevention and cure. XI. E)(*at!o+ for 6r'')o% 3ducation for freedom must begin by stating facts and enunciating values, and must go on to develop appropriate techniBues for reali'ing the values and for combating those #ho, for #hatever reason, choose to ignore the facts or deny the values. 1n an earlier chapter 1 have discussed the !ocial 3thic, in terms of #hich the evils resulting from over<organi'ation and over<population are justified and made to seem good. 1s such a system of values consonant #ith #hat #e kno# about human physiBue and temperamentF The !ocial 3thic assumes that nurture is all<important in determining human behavior and that nature << the psychophysical eBuipment #ith #hich individuals are born << is a negligible factor. :ut is this trueF 1s it true that human beings are nothing but the products of their social environmentF %nd if it is not true, #hat justification can

there be for maintaining that the individual is less important than the group of #hich he is a memberF %ll the available evidence points to the conclusion that in the life of individuals and societies heredity is no less significant than culture. 3very individual is biologically uniBue and unlike all other individuals. .reedom is therefore a great good, tolerance a great virtue and regimentation a great misfortune. .or practical or theoretical reasons, dictators, organi'ation men and certain scientists are an&ious to reduce the maddening diversity of men=s natures to some kind of manageable uniformity. 1n the first flush of his :ehavioristic fervor, I. :. Watson roundly declared that he could find Eno support for hereditary patterns of behavior, nor for special abilities Cmusical, art, etc.D #hich are supposed to run in families.E %nd even today #e find a distinguished psychologist, ,rofessor :. .. !kinner of arvard, insisting that, Eas scientific e&planation becomes more and more comprehensive, the contribution #hich may be claimed by the individual himself appears to approach 'ero. "an=s vaunted creative po#ers, his achievements in art, science and morals, his capacity to choose and our right to hold him responsible for the conseBuences of his choice << none of these is conspicuous in the ne# scientific self< portrait.E 1n a #ord, !hakespeare=s plays #ere not #ritten by !hakespeare, nor even by :acon or the 3arl of 7&fordA they #ere #ritten by 3li'abethan 3ngland. "ore than si&ty years ago William Iames #rote an essay on E>reat "en and Their 3nvironment,E in #hich he set out to defend the outstanding individual against the assaults of erbert !pencer. !pencer had proclaimed that E!cienceE Cthat #onderfully convenient personification of the opinions, at a given date, of ,rofessors @, 4 and OD had completely abolished the >reat "an. EThe great man,E he had #ritten, Emust be classed #ith all other phenomena in the society that gave him birth, as a product of its antecedents.E The great man may be Cor seem to beD Ethe pro&imate initiator of changes. . . . :ut if there is to be anything like a real e&planation of these changes, it must be sought in that aggregate of conditions out of #hich both he and they have arisen.E This is one of those empty profundities to #hich no operational meaning can possibly be attached. What our philosopher is saying is that #e must kno# everything before #e can fully understand anything. $o doubt. :ut in fact #e shall never kno# everything. We must therefore be content #ith partial understanding and pro&imate causes << including the influence of great men. E1f anything is humanly certain,E #rites William Iames, Eit is that the great man=s society, properly so called, does not make him before he can remake it. ,hysiological forces, #ith #hich the social, political, geographical and to a great e&tent anthropological conditions have just as much and just as little to do as the crater of 8esuvius has to do #ith the flickering of this gas by #hich 1 #rite, are #hat make him. (an it be that "r. !pencer holds the convergence of sociological pressures to have so impinged upon !tratford<upon<%von about the t#enty<si&th of %pril, 1*62, that a W. !hakespeare, #ith all his mental peculiarities, had to be born thereF . . . %nd does he mean to say that if the aforesaid W. !hakespeare had died of cholera infantum, another mother at !tratford<upon<%von #ould need have engendered a duplicate copy of him, to restore the sociologic eBuilibriumFE ,rofessor !kinner is an e&perimental psychologist, and his treatise on E!cience and uman :ehaviorE is solidly based upon facts. :ut unfortunately the facts belong to so limited a class that #hen at last he ventures upon a generali'ation, his conclusions are as s#eepingly unrealistic as those of the 8ictorian theori'er. 1nevitably soA for ,rofessor

!kinner=s indifference to #hat Iames calls the Ephysiological forcesE is almost as complete as erbert !pencer=s. The genetic factors determining human behavior are dismissed by him in less than a page. There is no reference in his book to the findings of constitutional medicine, nor any hint of that constitutional psychology, in terms of #hich Cand in terms of #hich alone, so far as 1 can judgeD it might be possible to #rite a complete and realistic biography of an individual in relation to the relevant facts of his e&istence << his body, his temperament, his intellectual endo#ments, his immediate environment from moment to moment, his time, place and culture. % science of human behavior is like a science of motion in the abstract << necessary, but, by itself, #holly inadeBuate to the facts. (onsider a dragonfly, a rocket and a breaking #ave. %ll three of them illustrate the same fundamental la#s of motionA but they illustrate these la#s in different #ays, and the differences are at least as important as the identities. :y itself, a study of motion can tell us almost nothing about that #hich, in any given instance, is being moved. !imilarly a study of behavior can, by itself, tell us almost nothing about the individual mind<body that, in any particular instance, is e&hibiting the behavior. :ut to us #ho are mind<bodies, a kno#ledge of mind<bodies is of paramount importance. "oreover, #e kno# by observation and e&perience that the differences bet#een individual mind<bodies are enormously great, and that some mind<bodies can and do profoundly affect their social environment. 7n this last point "r. :ertrand 0ussell is in full agreement #ith William Iames << and #ith practically everyone, 1 #ould add, e&cept the proponents of !pencerian or :ehavioristic scientism. 1n 0ussell=s vie# the causes of historical change are of three kinds << economic change, political theory and important individuals. E1 do not believe,E says "r. 0ussell, Ethat any of these can be ignored, or #holly e&plained a#ay as the effect of causes of another kind.E Thus, if :ismarck and ;enin had died in infancy, our #orld #ould be very different from #hat, thanks in part to :ismarck and ;enin, it no# is. E istory is not yet a science, and can only be made to seem scientific by falsifications and omissions.E 1n real life, life as it is lived from day to day, the individual can never be e&plained a#ay. 1t is only in theory that his contributions appear to approach 'eroA in practice they are all<important. When a piece of #ork gets done in the #orld, #ho actually does itF Whose eyes and ears do the perceiving, #hose corte& does the thinking, #ho has the feelings that motivate, the #ill that overcomes obstaclesF (ertainly not the social environmentA for a group is not an organism, but only a blind unconscious organi'ation. 3verything that is done #ithin a society is done by individuals. These individuals are, of course, profoundly influenced by the local culture, the taboos and moralities, the information and misinformation handed do#n from the past and preserved in a body of spoken traditions or #ritten literatureA but #hatever each individual takes from society Cor, to be more accurate, #hatever he takes from other indi< viduals associated in groups, or from the symbolic records compiled by other individuals, living or deadD #ill be used by him in his o#n uniBue #ay << #ith #is special senses, #is biochemical make<up, #is physiBue and temperament, and nobody else=s. $o amount of scientific e&planation, ho#ever comprehensive, can e&plain a#ay these self<evident facts. %nd let us remember that ,rofessor !kinner=s scientific portrait of man as the product of the social environment is not the only scientific portrait. There are other, more realistic likenesses. (onsider, for e&ample, ,rofessor 0oger Williams= portrait. What he paints is not behavior in the abstract, but mind<bodies behaving<mind<bodies that are the products partly of the environment they share #ith other mind<bodies, partly of their o#n private

heredity. 1n $#e )uman Frontier and Free (ut "ne5ual ,rofessor Williams has e&patiated, #ith a #ealth of detailed evidence, on those innate differences bet#een individuals, for #hich 9r. Watson could find no support and #hose importance, in ,rofessor !kinner=s eyes, approaches 'ero. %mong animals, biological variability #ithin a given species becomes more and more conspicuous as #e move up the evolutionary scale. This biological variability is highest in man, and human beings display a greater degree of biochemical, structural and temperamental diversity than do the members of any other species. This is a plain observable fact. :ut #hat 1 have called the Will to 7rder, the desire to impose a comprehensible uniformity upon the be#ildering manifoldness of things and events, has led many people to ignore this fact. They have minimi'ed biological uniBueness and have concentrated all their attention upon the simpler and, in the present state of kno#ledge, more understandable environmental fac< tors involved in human behavior. E%s a result of this environmentally centered thinking and investigation,E #rites ,rofessor Williams, Ethe doctrine of the essential uniformity of human infants has been #idely accepted and is held by a great body of social psychol< ogists, sociologists, social anthropologists, and many others, including historians, economists, educationalists, legal scholars and men in public life. This doctrine has been incorporated into the prevailing mode of thought of many #ho have had to do #ith shaping educational and governmental policies and is often accepted unBuestioningly by those #ho do little critical thinking of their o#n.E %n ethical system that is based upon a fairly realistic appraisal of the data of e&perience is likely to do more good than harm. :ut many ethical systems have been based upon an appraisal of e&perience, a vie# of the nature of things, that is hopelessly unrealistic. !uch an ethic is likely to do more harm than good. Thus, until Buite recent times, it #as universally believed that bad #eather, diseases of cattle and se&ual impotence could be, and in many cases actually #ere, caused by the malevolent operations of magicians. To catch and kill magicians #as therefore a duty << and this duty, moreover, had been divinely ordained in the second :ook of "oses? EThou shalt not suffer a #itch to live.E The systems of ethics and la# that #ere based upon this erroneous vie# of the nature of things #ere the cause Cduring the centuries, #hen they #ere taken most seriously by men in authorityD of the most appalling evils. The orgy of spying, lynching and judicial murder, #hich these #rong vie#s about magic made logical and mandatory, #as not matched until our o#n days, #hen the (ommunist ethic, based upon erroneous vie#s about economics, and the $a'i ethic, based upon erroneous vie#s about race, commanded and justified atrocities on an even greater scale. (onseBuences hardly less undesirable are likely to follo# the general adoption of a !ocial 3thic, based upon the erroneous vie# that ours is a fully social species, that human infants are born uniform and that individuals are the product of conditioning by and #ithin the collective environment. 1f these vie#s #ere correct, if human beings #ere in fact the members of a truly social species, and if their individual differences #ere trifling and could be completely ironed out by appropriate conditioning, then, obviously, there #ould be no need for liberty and the !tate #ould be justified in persecuting the heretics #ho demanded it. .or the individual termite, service to the termitary is perfect freedom. :ut human beings are not completely socialA they are only moderately gregarious. Their societies are not organisms, like the hive or the anthillA they are organi'ations, in other #ords ad #o machines for collective living. "oreover, the differences bet#een

individuals are so great that, in spite of the most intensive cultural ironing, an e&treme endomorph Cto use W. . !heldon=s terminologyD #ill retain his sociable viscerotonic characteristics, an e&treme mesomorph #ill remain energetically somatotonic through thick and thin and an e&treme ectomorph #ill al#ays be cerebrotonic, introverted and oversensitive. 1n the :rave $e# World of my fable socially desirable behavior #as in< sured by a double process of genetic manipulation and postnatal conditioning. :abies #ere cultivated in bottles and a high degree of uniformity in the human product #as assured by using ova from a limited number of mothers and by treating each ovum in such a #ay that it #ould split and split again, producing identical t#ins in batches of a hundred or more. 1n this #ay it #as possible to produce standardi'ed machine<minders for standardi'ed machines. %nd the standardi'ation of the machine<minders #as perfected, after birth, by infant conditioning, hypnopaedia and chemically induced euphoria as a substitute for the satisfaction of feeling oneself free and creative. 1n the #orld #e live in, as has been pointed out in earlier chapters, vast impersonal forces are making for the centrali'ation of po#er and a regimented society. The genetic standardi'ation of individuals is still impossibleA but :ig >overnment and :ig :usiness already possess, or #ill very soon possess, all the techniBues for mind<manipulation described in Brave New World, along #ith others of #hich 1 #as too unimaginative to dream. ;acking the ability to impose genetic uniformity upon embryos, the rulers of tomorro#=s over<populated and over<organi'ed #orld #ill try to impose social and cul< tural uniformity upon adults and their children. To achieve this end, they #ill Cunless preventedD make use of all the mind<manipulating techniBues at their disposal and #ill not hesitate to reinforce these methods of non<rational persuasion by economic coer< cion and threats of physical violence. 1f this kind of tyranny is to be avoided, #e must begin #ithout delay to educate ourselves and our children for freedom and self< government. !uch an education for freedom should be, as 1 have said, an education first of all in facts and in values << the fact of individual diversity and genetic uniBueness and the values of freedom, tolerance and mutual charity #hich are the ethical corollaries of these facts. :ut unfortunately correct kno#ledge and sound principles are not enough. %n une&citing truth may be eclipsed by a thrilling falsehood. % skilful appeal to passion is often too strong for the best of good resolutions. The effects of false and pernicious propaganda cannot be neutrali'ed e&cept by a thorough training in the art of analy'ing its techniBues and seeing through its sophistries. ;anguage has made possible man=s progress from animality to civili'ation. :ut language has also inspired that sustained folly and that systematic, that genuinely diabolic #ickedness #hich are no less characteristic of human behavior than are the language<inspired virtues of systematic forethought and sustained angelic benevolence. ;anguage permits its users to pay attention to things, persons and events, even #hen the things and persons are absent and the events are not taking place. ;anguage gives definition to our memories and, by translating e&periences into symbols, converts the immediacy of craving or abhorrence, of hatred or love, into fi&ed principles of feeling and conduct. 1n some #ay of #hich #e are #holly unconscious, the reticular system of the brain selects from a countless host of stimuli those fe# e&periences #hich are of practical importance to us. .rom these unconsciously selected e&periences #e more or less consciously select and abstract a smaller number, #hich #e label #ith #ords from our vocabulary and then classify #ithin a system at once

metaphysical, scientific and ethical, made up of other #ords on a higher level of abstraction. 1n cases #here the selecting and abstracting have been dictated by a system that is not too erroneous as a vie# of the nature of things, and #here the verbal labels have been intelligently chosen and their symbolic nature clearly understood, our behavior is apt to be realistic and tolerably decent. :ut under the influence of badly chosen #ords, applied, #ithout any understanding of their merely symbolic character, to e&periences that have been selected and abstracted in the light of a system of erroneous ideas, #e are apt to behave #ith a fiendishness and an organi'ed stupidity, of #hich dumb animals Cprecisely because they are dumb and cannot speakD are blessedly incapable. 1n their anti<rational propaganda the enemies of freedom systematically pervert the resources of language in order to #heedle or stampede their victims into thinking, feeling and acting as they, the mind<manipulators, #ant them to think, feel and act. %n education for freedom Cand for the love and intelligence #hich are at once the conditions and the results of freedomD must be, among other things, an education in the proper uses of language. .or the last t#o or three generations philosophers have devoted a great deal of time and thought to the analysis of symbols and the meaning of meaning. o# are the #ords and sentences #hich #e speak related to the things, persons and events, #ith #hich #e have to deal in our day<to<day livingF To discuss this problem #ould take too long and lead us too far afield. !uffice it to say that all the intellectual materials for a sound education in the proper use of language << an education on every level from the kindergarten to the postgraduate school << are no# available. !uch an education in the art of distinguishing bet#een the proper and the improper use of symbols could be inaugurated immediately. 1ndeed it might have been inaugurated at any time during the last thirty or forty years. %nd yet children are no#here taught, in any systematic #ay, to distinguish true from false, or meaningful from meaningless, statements. Why is this soF :ecause their elders, even in the democratic countries, do not #ant them to be given this kind of education. 1n this conte&t the brief, sad history of the 1nstitute for ,ropaganda %nalysis is highly significant. The 1nstitute #as founded in 193H, #hen $a'i propaganda #as at its noisiest and most effective, by "r. .ilene, the $e# 3ngland philanthropist. -nder its auspices analyses of non<rational propaganda #ere made and several te&ts for the instruction of high school and university students #ere prepared. Then came the #ar << a total #ar on all the fronts, the mental no less than the physical. With all the %llied governments engaging in Epsychological #arfare,E an insistence upon the desirability of analy'ing propaganda seemed a bit tactless. The 1nstitute #as closed in 1921. :ut even before the outbreak of hostilities, there #ere many persons to #hom its activities seemed profoundly objectionable. (ertain educators, for e&ample, disapproved of the teaching of propaganda analysis on the grounds that it #ould make adolescents unduly cynical. $or #as it #elcomed by the military authorities, #ho #ere afraid that recruits might start to analy'e the utterances of drill sergeants. %nd then there #ere the clergymen and the advertisers. The clergymen #ere against propaganda analysis as tending to undermine belief and diminish churchgoingA the advertisers objected on the grounds that it might undermine brand loyalty and reduce sales. These fears and dislikes #ere not unfounded. Too searching a scrutiny by too many of the common folk of #hat is said by their pastors and masters might prove to be profoundly subversive. 1n its present form, the social order depends for its continued e&istence on the acceptance, #ithout too many embarrassing Buestions, of the propaganda

put forth by those in authority and the propaganda hallo#ed by the local traditions. The problem, once more, is to find the happy mean. 1ndividuals must be suggestible enough to be #illing and able to make their society #ork, but not so suggestible as to fall helplessly under the spell of professional mind<manipulators. !imilarly, they should be taught enough about propaganda analysis to preserve them from an uncritical belief in sheer nonsense, but not so much as to make them reject outright the not al#ays rational outpourings of the #ell<meaning guardians of tradition. ,robably the happy mean be< t#een gullibility and a total skepticism can never be discovered and maintained by analysis alone. This rather negative approach to the problem #ill have to be supplemented by something more positive << the enunciation of a set of generally acceptable values based upon a solid foundation of facts. The value, first of all, of individual freedom, based upon the facts of human diversity and genetic uniBuenessA the value of charity and compassion, based upon the old familiar fact, lately rediscovered by modern psychiatry << the fact that, #hatever their mental and physical diversity, love is as necessary to human beings as food and shelterA and finally the value of intelligence, #ith< out #hich love is impotent and freedom unattainable. This set of values #ill provide us #ith a criterion by #hich propaganda may be judged. The propaganda that is found to be both nonsensical and immoral may be rejected out of hand. That #hich is merely irra< tional, but compatible #ith love and freedom, and not on principle opposed to the e&ercise of intelligence, may be provisionally accepted for #hat it is #orth. XII. W at Ca+ B' Do+'= We can be educated for freedom << much better educated for it than #e are at present. :ut freedom, as 1 have tried to sho#, is threatened from many directions, and these threats are of many different kinds << demographic, social, political, psychological. 7ur disease has a multiplicity of cooperating causes and is not to be cured e&cept by a multiplicity of cooperating remedies. 1n coping #ith any comple& human situation, #e must take account of all the relevant factors, not merely of a single factor. $othing short of everything is ever really enough. .reedom is menaced, and education for freedom is urgently needed. :ut so are many other things << for e&ample, social organi'ation for freedom, birth control for freedom, legislation for freedom. ;et us begin #ith the last of these items. .rom the time of "agna (arta and even earlier, the makers of 3nglish la# have been concerned to protect the physical freedom of the individual. % person #ho is being kept in prison on grounds of doubtful legality has the right, under the (ommon ;a# as clarified by the statute of 16H9, to appeal to one of the higher courts of justice for a #rit of #a(eas orpus- This #rit is addressed by a judge of the high court to a sheriff or jailer, and commands him, #ithin a specified period of time, to bring the person he is holding in custody to the court for an e&amination of his case << to bring, be it noted, not the person=s #ritten complaint, nor his legal representatives, but his orpus, his body, the too too solid flesh #hich has been made to sleep on boards, to smell the fetid prison air, to eat the revolting prison food. This concern #ith the basic condition of freedom << the absence of physical constraint << is unBuestionably necessary, but is not all that is necessary. 1t is perfectly possible for a man to be out of prison, and yet not free << to be under no physical

constraint and yet to be a psychological captive, compelled to think, feel and act as the representatives of the national !tate, or of some private interest #ithin the nation, #ant him to think, feel and act. There #ill never be such a thing as a #rit of #a(eas mentemA for no sheriff or jailer can bring an illegally imprisoned mind into court, and no person #hose mind had been made captive by the methods outlined in earlier articles #ould be in a position to complain of his captivity. The nature of psychological compulsion is such that those #ho act under constraint remain under the impression that they are acting on their o#n initiative. The victim of mind<manipulation does not kno# that he is a victim. To him, the #alls of his prison are invisible, and he believes himself to be free. That he is not free is apparent only to other people. is servitude is strictly objective. $o, 1 repeat, there can never be such a thing as a #rit of #a(eas mentem- :ut there an be preventive legislation << an outla#ing of the psychological slave trade, a statute for the protection of minds against the unscrupulous purveyors of poisonous propaganda, modeled on the statutes for the protection of bodies against the unscrupulous purveyors of adulterated food and dangerous drugs. .or e&ample, there could and, 1 think, there should be legislation limiting the right of public officials, civil or military, to subject the captive audiences under their command or in their custody to sleep<teaching. There could and, 1 think, there should be legislation prohibiting the use of subliminal projection in public places or on television screens. There could and, 1 think, there should be legislation to prevent political candidates not merely from spending more than a certain amount of money on their election campaigns, but also to prevent them from resorting to the kind of anti<rational propaganda that makes nonsense of the #hole democratic process. !uch preventive legislation might do some goodA but if the great impersonal forces no# menacing freedom continue to gather momentum, they cannot do much good for very long. The best of constitutions and preventive la#s #ill be po#erless against the steadily increasing pressures of over<population and of the over<organi'ation imposed by gro#ing numbers and advancing technology. The constitutions #ill not be abrogated and the good la#s #ill remain on the statute bookA but these liberal forms #ill merely serve to mask and adorn a profoundly illiberal substance. >iven unchecked over<population and over<organi'ation, #e may e&pect to see in the democratic countries a reversal of the process #hich transformed 3ngland into a democracy, #hile retaining all the out#ard forms of a monarchy. -nder the relentless thrust of accelerating overpopulation and increasing over<organi'ation, and by means of ever more effective methods of mind< manipulation, the democracies #ill change their natureA the Buaint old forms << elections, parliaments, !upreme (ourts and all the rest << #ill remain. The underlying substance #ill be a ne# kind of non<violent totalitarianism. %ll the traditional names, all the hallo#ed slogans #ill remain e&actly #hat they #ere in the good old days. 9emocracy and freedom #ill be the theme of every broadcast and editorial << but democracy and freedom in a strictly ,ick#ickian sense. "ean#hile the ruling oligarchy and its highly trained elite of soldiers, policemen, thought<manufacturers and mind<manipulators #ill Buietly run the sho# as they see fit. o# can #e control the vast impersonal forces that no# menace our hard<#on freedomsF 7n the verbal level and in general terms, the Buestion may be ans#ered #ith the utmost ease. (onsider the problem of over<population. 0apidly mounting human numbers are pressing ever more heavily on natural resources. What is to be doneF

7bviously #e must, #ith all possible speed, reduce the birth rate to the point #here it does not e&ceed the death rate. %t the same time #e must, #ith all possible speed, increase food production, #e must institute and implement a #orld<#ide policy for conserving our soils and our forests, #e must develop practical substitutes, preferably less dangerous and less rapidly e&haustible than uranium, for our present fuelsA and, #hile husbanding our d#indling resources of easily available minerals, #e must #ork out ne# and not too costly methods for e&tracting these minerals from ever poorer and poorer ores << the poorest ore of all being sea #ater. :ut all this, needless to say, is almost infinitely easier said than done. The annual increase of numbers should be reduced. :ut ho#F We are given t#o choices << famine, pestilence and #ar on the one hand, birth control on the other. "ost of us choose birth control << and immediately find ourselves confronted by a problem that is simultaneously a pu''le in physiology, pharmacology, sociology, psychology and even theology. EThe ,illE has not yet been invented. When and if it is invented, ho# can it be distributed to the many hundreds of millions of potential mothers Cor, if it is a pill that #orks upon the male, potential fathersD #ho #ill have to take it if the birth rate of the species is to be reducedF %nd, given e&isting social customs and the forces of cultural and psychological inertia, ho# can those #ho ought to take the pill, but don=t #ant to, be persuaded to change their mindsF %nd #hat about the objections on the part of the 0oman (atholic (hurch, to any form of birth control e&cept the so<called 0hythm "ethod << a method, incidentally, #hich has proved, hitherto, to be almost completely ineffective in reducing the birth rate of those industrially back#ard societies #here such a reduction is most urgently necessaryF %nd these Buestions about the future, hypothetical ,ill must be asked, #ith as little prospect of eliciting satisfactory ans#ers, about the chemical and mechanical methods of birth control already available. When #e pass from the problems of birth control to the problems of increasing the available food supply and conserving our natural resources, #e find ourselves confronted by difficulties not perhaps Buite so great, but still enormous. There is the problem, first of all, of education. o# soon can the innumerable peasants and farmers, #ho are no# responsible for raising most of the #orld=s supply of food, be educated into improving their methodsF %nd #hen and if they are educated, #here #ill they find the capital to provide them #ith the machines, the fuel and lubricants, the electric po#er, the fertili'ers and the improved strains of food plants and domestic animals, #ithout #hich the best agricultural education is uselessF !imilarly, #ho is going to educate the human race in the principles and practice of conservationF %nd ho# are the hungry peasant< citi'ens of a country #hose population and demands for food are rapidly rising to be pre< vented from Emining the soilEF %nd, if they can be prevented, #ho #ill pay for their support #hile the #ounded and e&hausted earth is being gradually nursed back, if that is still feasible, to health and restored fertilityF 7r consider the back#ard societies that are no# trying to industriali'e. 1f they succeed, #ho is to prevent them, in their desperate efforts to catch up and keep up, from sBuandering the planet=s irreplaceable resources as stupidly and #antonly as #as done, and is still being done, by their forerunners in the raceF %nd #hen the day of reckoning comes, #here, in the poorer countries, #ill anyone find the scientific manpo#er and the huge amounts of capital that #ill be reBuired to e&tract the indispensable minerals from ores in #hich their concentration is too lo#, under e&isting circumstances, to make e&traction technically feasible or economically justifiableF 1t may be that, in time, a practical ans#er to all these Buestions can be found.

:ut in ho# much timeF 1n any race bet#een human numbers and natural resources, time is against us. :y the end of the present century, there may, if #e try very hard, be t#ice as much food on the #orld=s markets as there is today. :ut there #ill also be about t#ice as many people, and several billions of these people #ill be living in partially industriali'ed countries and consuming ten times as much po#er, #ater, timber and irreplaceable minerals as they are consuming no#. 1n a #ord, the food situation #ill be as bad as it is today, and the ra# materials situation #ill be considerably #orse. To find a solution to the problem of over<organi'ation is hardly less difficult than to find a solution to the problem of natural resources and increasing numbers. 7n the verbal level and in general terms the ans#er is perfectly simple. Thus, it is a political a&iom that po#er follo#s property. :ut it is no# a historical fact that the means of production are fast becoming the monopolistic property of :ig :usiness and :ig >overnment. Therefore, if you believe in democracy, make arrangements to distribute property as #idely as possible. 7r take the right to vote. 1n principle, it is a great privilege. 1n practice, as recent history has repeatedly sho#n, the right to vote, by itself, is no guarantee of liberty. Therefore, if you #ish to avoid dictatorship by referendum, break up modern society=s merely functional collectives into self<governing, voluntarily cooperating groups, capable of functioning outside the bureaucratic systems of :ig :usiness and :ig >overnment. 7ver<population and over<organi'ation have produced the modern metropolis, in #hich a fully human life of multiple personal relationships has become almost impossible. Therefore, if you #ish to avoid the spiritual impoverishment of individuals and #hole societies, leave the metropolis and revive the small country community, or alternately humani'e the metropolis by creating #ithin its net#ork of mechanical organi'ation the urban eBuivalents of small country communities, in #hich individuals can meet and cooperate as complete persons, not as the mere embodiments of speciali'ed functions. %ll this is obvious today and, indeed, #as obvious fifty years ago. .rom ilaire :elloc to "r. "ortimer %dler, from the early apostles of cooperative credit unions to the land reformers of modern 1taly and Iapan, men of good #ill have for generations been advocating the decentrali'ation of economic po#er and the #idespread distribution of property. %nd ho# many ingenious schemes have been propounded for the dispersal of production, for a return to small<scale Evillage industry.E %nd then there #ere 9ubreuil=s elaborate plans for giving a measure of autonomy and initiative to the various departments of a single large industrial organi'ation. There #ere the !yndicalists, #ith their blueprints for a stateless society organi'ed as a federation of productive groups under the auspices of the trade unions. 1n %merica, %rthur "organ and :aker :ro#nell have set forth the theory and described the practice of a ne# kind of community living on the village and small<to#n level. ,rofessor !kinner of arvard has set forth a psychologist=s vie# of the problem in his Walden $wo, a -topian novel about a self<sustaining and autonomous community, so scientifically organi'ed that nobody is ever led into anti<social temptation and, #ithout resort to coercion or undesirable propaganda, everyone does #hat he or she ought to do, and everyone is happy and creative. 1n .rance, during and after the !econd World War, "arcel :arbu and his follo#ers set up a number of self<governing, non<hierarchical communities of production, #hich #ere also communities for mutual aid and full human

living. %nd mean#hile, in ;ondon, the ,eckham 3&periment has demonstrated that it is possible, by co<ordinating health services #ith the #ider interests of the group, to create a true community even in a metropolis. We see, then, that the disease of over<organi'ation has been clearly recogni'ed, that various comprehensive remedies have been prescribed and that e&perimental treatments of symptoms have been attempted here and there, often #ith considerable success. %nd yet, in spite of all this preaching and this e&emplary practice, the disease gro#s steadily #orse. We kno# that it is unsafe to allo# po#er to be concentrated in the hands of a ruling oligarchyA nevertheless po#er is in fact being concentrated in fe#er and fe#er hands. We kno# that, for most people, life in a huge modern city is anonymous, atomic, less than fully humanA nevertheless the huge cities gro# steadily huger and the pattern of urban<industrial living remains unchanged. We kno# that, in a very large and comple& society, democracy is almost meaningless e&cept in relation to autonomous groups of manageable si'eA nevertheless more and more of every nation=s affairs are managed by the bureaucrats of :ig >overnment and :ig :usiness. 1t is only too evident that, in practice, the problem of over<organi'ation is almost as hard to solve as the problem of over<population. 1n both cases #e kno# #hat ought to be doneA but in neither case have #e been able, as yet, to act effectively upon our kno#ledge. %t this point #e find ourselves confronted by a very disBuieting Buestion? 9o #e really #ish to act upon our kno#ledgeF 9oes a majority of the population think it #orth #hile to take a good deal of trouble, in order to halt and, if possible, reverse the current drift to#ard totalitarian control of everythingF 1n the -nited !tates and %merica is the prophetic image of the rest of the urban<industrial #orld as it #ill be a fe# years from no# << recent public opinion polls have revealed that an actual majority of young people in their teens, the voters of tomorro#, have no faith in democratic institutions, see no objection to the censorship of unpopular ideas, do not believe that government of the people by the people is possible and #ould be perfectly content, if they can continue to live in the style to #hich the boom has accustomed them, to be ruled, from above, by an oligarchy of assorted e&perts. That so many of the #ell<fed young television<#atchers in the #orld=s most po#erful democracy should be so completely indifferent to the idea of self<government, so blankly uninterested in freedom of thought and the right to dissent, is distressing, but not too surprising. E.ree as a bird,E #e say, and envy the #inged creatures for their po#er of unrestricted movement in all the three dimensions. :ut, alas, #e forget the dodo. %ny bird that has learned ho# to grub up a good living #ithout being compelled to use its #ings #ill soon renounce the privilege of flight and remain forever grounded. !omething analogous is true of human beings. 1f the bread is supplied regularly and copiously three times a day, many of them #ill be perfectly content to live by bread alone << or at least by bread and circuses alone. E1n the end,E says the >rand 1nBuisitor in 9ostoevsky=s parable, Ein the end they #ill lay their freedom at our feet and say to us, =make us your slaves, but feed us.= E %nd #hen %lyosha Marama'ov asks his brother, the teller of the story, if the >rand 1nBuisitor is speaking ironically, 1van ans#ers, E$ot a bit of itL e claims it as a merit for himself and his (hurch that they have vanBuished freedom and done so to make men happy.E 4es, to make men happyA Efor nothing,E the 1nBuisitor insists, Ehas ever been more insupportable for a man or a human society than freedom.E $othing, e&cept the absence of freedomA for #hen things go badly, and the rations are reduced, the grounded dodos #ill clamor again for their #ings << only

to renounce them, yet once more, #hen times gro# better and the dodo<farmers become more lenient and generous. The young people #ho no# think so poorly of democracy may gro# up to become fighters for freedom. The cry of E>ive me television and hamburgers, but don=t bother me #ith the responsibilities of liberty,E may give place, under altered circumstances, to the cry of E>ive me liberty or give me death.E 1f such a revolution takes place, it #ill be due in part to the operation of forces over #hich even the most po#erful rulers have very little control, in part to the incompetence of those rulers, their inability to make effective use of the mind<manipulating instruments #ith #hich science and technology have supplied, and #ill go on supplying, the #ould<be tyrant. (onsidering ho# little they kne# and ho# poorly they #ere eBuipped, the >rand 1nBuisitors of earlier times did remarkably #ell. :ut their successors, the #ell<informed, thoroughly scientific dictators of the future #ill undoubtedly be able to do a great deal better. The >rand 1nBuisitor reproaches (hrist #ith having called upon men to be free and tells im that E#e have corrected Thy #ork and founded it upon miracle, mystery and authority.E :ut miracle, mystery and authority are not enough to guarantee the indefinite survival of a dictatorship. 1n my fable of Brave New World, the dictators had added science to the list and thus #ere able to enforce their authority by manipulating the bodies of embryos, the refle&es of infants and the minds of children and adults. %nd, instead of merely talking about miracles and hinting symbolically at mysteries, they #ere able, by means of drugs, to give their subjects the direct e&perience of mysteries and miracles << to transform mere faith into ecstatic kno#ledge. The older dictators fell because they could never supply their subjects #ith enough bread, enough circuses, enough miracles and mysteries. $or did they possess a really effective system of mind<manipulation. 1n the past, free<thinkers and revolutionaries #ere often the products of the most piously orthodo& education. This is not surprising. The methods employed by orthodo& educators #ere and still are e&tremely inefficient. -nder a scientific dictator education #ill really #ork << #ith the result that most men and #omen #ill gro# up to love their servitude and #ill never dream of revolution. There seems to be no good reason #hy a thoroughly scientific dictatorship should ever be overthro#n. "ean#hile there is still some freedom left in the #orld. "any young people, it is true, do not seem to value freedom. :ut some of us still believe that, #ithout freedom, human beings cannot become fully human and that freedom is therefore supremely valuable. ,erhaps the forces that no# menace freedom are too strong to be resisted for very long. 1t is still our duty to do #hatever #e can to resist them. A0)o(" H(.0'& %ldous ;eonard u&ley #as born in !urrey, 3ngland, on Iuly 26, 1+92, third son of 9r. ;eonard u&ley and Iulia %rnold, the niece of "atthe# %rnold and sister of "rs. umphrey Ward. e is the grandson of T. . u&ley, the scientist. E1 #as educated,E he #rites, Eat 3ton, #hich 1 left at seventeen o#ing to an affliction of the eyes #hich left me practically blind for t#o or three years, an event #hich prevented me from becoming a complete public<school 3nglish gentleman. ,rovidence is sometimes kind even #hen it seems to be harsh. "y temporary blindness also preserved me from becoming a doctor, for #hich 1 am also grateful. .or seeing that 1

nearly died of over#ork as a journalist, 1 should infallibly have killed myself in the much more strenuous profession of medicine. 7n the other hand, 1 very much regret the scientific training #hich my blindness made me miss. 1t is ludicrous to live in the t#entieth century eBuipped #ith an elegant literary training eminently suitable for the seventeenth. %s soon as 1 could see #ell enough to read through a magnifying glass, 1 #ent to 7&ford, #here 1 took my degree in 3nglish literature. T#o years of my time at 7&ford #ere years of the #ar. 9uring the remainder of the #ar 1 cut do#n trees, #orked in a government office << as long as my sight #ould stand the strain << and taught at school.E There follo#ed several years of journalism, including music and artistic criticism, articles on architecture and house decoration, and book revie#s. 1n this period he began the #riting of poems, essays, and historical pieces #hich he has continued throughout his literary career, but it #as as a satirical novelist that he first caught the public fancy. "r. u&ley established his reputation before he #as thirty and has been a prolific #riter. aving contributed to poetry maga'ines, he published his first book, $#e Burning W#eel, a volume of poems, in 1916. There follo#ed three more volumes of verse before his first prose #ork, :im(o, #as brought out in 1925. %lthough doing editorial #ork for the ;ondon )ouse and ;arden at the time, u&ley #rote in Buick succession a number of books #hich included 'rome 3ellow, his first novel. Mortal 'oils, %nti )ay, $#ose Barren :eaves, Point 'ounterpoint, Brave New World, $e2ts and Prete2ts, *yeless in ;aza, and $#e Olive $ree #ere among the books #hich follo#ed. .or a number of years "r. u&ley lived in 1taly, #here he formed a close relationship #ith 9. . ;a#rence, #hose letters he edited in 1933. "ost of "r. u&ley=s earlier novels #ere #ritten in 1taly and !outhern ,rance, the later books in $e# "e&ico and (alifornia. While living in Taos, $e# "e&ico, "r. u&ley #rote *nds and Means- 1ts publication #as follo#ed by a fantastic novel, %&ter Many a !ummer Dies t#e !wan- Then came ;rey *minen e, a biography of 0ichelieu=s coadjutor, .ather Ioseph. !ince then his published #orks have included $#e %rt o& !eeing, $ime Must )ave a, !top, $#e Perennial P#ilosop#y, %pe and *ssen e, $#emes and <ariations, $#e ;io onda !mile, $#e Devils o& :ondon, $#e Doors o& Per eption, $#e ;enius and t#e ;oddess, )eaven and )ell, and $omorrow and $omorrow- $#e World o& %ldous )u2ley, an omnibus #ork edited by (harles I. 0olo, #as published in 192H, follo#ed by 'olle ted !#ort !tories C19*+D and 'olle ted *ssays C19*9D. Brave New World Revisited, an e&amination of the prophecies made in Brave New World, #as brought out in 19*+A a selection of essays, On %rt and %rtists, in 1965, and a novel, 8sland, in 1962. 1n 19*9 %ldous u&ley received the %#ard of "erit for the $ovel from the %merican %cademy of %rts and ;etters. "r. u&ley came to the -nited !tates in 193H and #as living in (alifornia at the time of his death on $ovember 22,1963. 3$9