THE HUMAN SITUATION

Aldous Huxley (1894-1963), brother of Sir Julian Huxley and grandson of TH Huxley, was one of the most brilliant intellectuals of his generation and author of some 40 books, including the classic books The Perennial Philosophy, Brave New World and Island. I first read this book in October 1978, so nearly 40 years ago, and it consists of a series of 16 lectures given at the University of California, Santa Barbara in 1959. Given that two of the books above depict his dystopia and utopia, I thought it would be interesting to reread the book, and I was not disappointed. It is said that one could infer from the topics of Huxley's conversation which volume of the Encyclopaedia Britannica he had recently been reading. In the first lecture, he apologises for being someone of 'encyclopedic ignorance', by which he really means that he is a generalist who is able to make unusual connections between different disciplines.

His first plea is for an integrated education, which he thinks should be based on fundamental human problems considered from a number of different angles. This would enable people to build bridges, as he himself does in these lectures as a man of letters. He feels it important to bring together the three worlds of abstractions and concepts, immediate experience and objective observation, and the world of spiritual insight. He returns to this theme in the final lecture where he recommends a training of the mind-body in perception, in imagination, and in the use of language.

In this first lecture, he refers to the growth of technology and the 'technicisation of every aspect of human life'. In a lecture on the future he thinks that the most important mechanical advances will be connected with computers, mentioning an early version of a device for searching back numbers of scientific periodicals – something now routine. It would have been difficult for him to anticipate the Internet, but he does refer to Werner von Braun forecasting that satellites may be connected together into a kind of electric relay 'which will permit TV programmes to be globally transmitted at any moment' (p. 107) - not a prospect that he relishes. He is concerned, though, that such technological progress might strengthen the hand of the powerful minority against the majority. This is the case for instance in surveillance technology although the Internet is also a powerful driver of freedom and democracy.

His discussion of the environment has proved prescient. At the time of the lectures, the world population was 2.8 billion, and he devotes two lectures to the planet and the population explosion, forecasting that population will double in less than 50 years – it has now in fact tripled in just under 60 years since the lectures. He forecasts an increasing proportion of people living in cities, which he is concerned will leave them devoid of contact with the natural environment. So far as the planet as a whole is concerned, he remarks that humans have been increasingly 'a profound geological force' - indeed, since 2000, we now refer to the Anthropocene era. He likens us to parasites, and not very sensible ones at that, as we seem intent on destroying our own habitat. He catalogues the disappearance of species, the erosion of topsoil, the felling of forests and overgrazing - remarking that 'it is quite fantastic what the goat has succeeded in destroying; it includes the whole Mediterranean basin.' (p. 25) He concludes that 'the combination of human destructiveness and population increase is an enormous and frightening fact.' This is still true.

Huxley shows extensive knowledge of contemporary psychology, and notes the significance of Abraham Maslow and Fritz Perls, along with the implications of the teaching of FM Alexander for posture. In a lecture on the unconscious, he argues that the work of FWH Myers is much more illuminating than that of Freud. However, I found his most interesting observations related to the different temperaments represented by the body types of endomorph, mesomorph and ectomorph. He quotes the work of WH Sheldon and is critical of the classification in Jung's work on psychological types independently of the type of the body: the extrovert mesomorph is very different from his endomorph counterpart. It seems that this aspect is still largely neglected in modern psychology.

A number of lectures are devoted to political and religious themes, where Huxley's interesting starting point is a discussion of language: 'it is on the one hand the mother of science and philosophy, and on the other hand it begets every kind of superstition, prejudice and madness. It helps us and it destroys us; it makes civilisation possible, and it also produces those frightful conflicts which wreck civilisation.' (p. 171) He observes that totalitarian regimes regard things and people as illustrations of key words – usually prejudicial. The same applies to war propaganda persuading people that those on the other side 'are the concretisation of very bad abstractions.'

This same issue is found in the history of symbol-manipulating religion, which he analyses in terms of myth, creed, and theology. This leads him to contrast the religion of direct acquaintance with the divine with the religion of belief systems. He is extensively acquainted with the history of mysticism and its often heretical status within orthodox circles. As we know only too well, religion as a system of beliefs has always been an ambivalent force, and Huxley notes that the strife-producing quality of religion as a system of theological symbols has not only brought about jihads and crusades, but internal friction and hatred within religions. He would be sad but not surprised to see the spread of terrorism, fundamentalism and fanaticism. Interestingly, he wonders why many otherwise open-minded scientific people refuse even to consider the evidence amassed by parapsychology, for instance by JB Rhine. He answers that the facts 'just don't make sense in terms of the worldview which we accept as more or less axiomatic.' This is still true today.

He sees much more promise in the mystical approach cultivating a sense of unity and solidarity with the world, as well as love and compassion. He quotes Eckhart's remark that what is taken in by contemplation is given out in love. He continues this discussion in the lecture on the natural history of visions, which he starts with the question: why are precious stones precious? His answer is that they remind us of transcendent visions, which he had some experience through mescaline in the 1950s, which he wrote up in a book called The Doors of Perception. He writes that the highest common factor in the visionary experience is that of subjective light – 'an immense white light of extraordinary power.' (p. 227) He would have been very interested in the advances made in the study of spiritual experience and near death experiences, where this light is frequently mentioned.

Huxley is sanguine about human political prospects. In a lecture on war and nationalism he comes back to the role of language and a conceptual system, remarking that 'war is conditioned by human symbol systems, and in our modern life symbol system is that of nationalism' - this is still largely true. He laments the extraordinary and paradoxical spectacle of unprecedented skill and knowledge being poured into projects leading to misery, servitude and death. He puts the point poignantly that preparations for war have always led to war and, given the role of armaments in the US economy, 'preparation for death has become the basis of Western prosperity'. (p. 82) He quotes a book he wrote in 1946 called Science, Liberty and Peace where he argues for the necessity of shifting the whole attention of politics from the unsolvable problems of power to the solvable and even more urgent problems of human needs. Alas, we are still waiting, while the production of armaments and the pursuit of power are given priority.

This still leaves an important role for what Huxley calls realistic idealism or idealistic realism rather than a utopian idealism devoid of practical suggestions. Writing in 1958, President Sukarno issued an impassioned plea to draw back from the edge of moral bankruptcy and use science for peaceful purposes (p. 88). For Huxley, this means bringing together love and knowledge: 'love without knowledge is largely impotent, and knowledge without love is frequently inhuman. In the world as we see it today there is obviously a great deal of loveless knowledge and knowledgeless love - not to mention a good deal of both knowledgeless and unfortunately very knowledgeable hate floating around.' (p. 249)

He places his hope not only in education but also in cleansing the doors of perception: 'if we habitually saw the world as infinite and holy, we should obviously find it a great deal less necessary to go in for bullfighting, attacking minorities or working up frenzies against foreign peoples.' He continues: 'let us hope that sooner or later we shall find some method by which, combining awareness with trainings in good feeling, we may increase the sum of human decency and make the realisation of many of our latent potentialities possible.' (p. 253) This is a profoundly humanitarian vision that we can all share. Huxley was a great visionary with a deep understanding of human nature, and these lectures represent the culmination of 50 years of thought. When asked what advice he would give people, he replied that it was a little embarrassing after so much study that the best advice he could give was that people should be kinder to each other. Typically, this is both wise and humane.