| Science, Liberty and Peace | |
| Author: | Aldous Huxley |
| Country: | United Kingdom |
| Language: | English |
| Published: | 1946, Harper & Brothers, (US) 1947, Chatto & Windus, (UK) |
Science, Liberty and Peace is an essay written by Aldous Huxley, published in 1946. The essay debates a wide range of subjects reflecting Huxley's views towards the direction of society at that time. He puts forward a number of predictions, many of which resonate far beyond the time when it was written.A consistent theme throughout the essay is Huxley's preference towards a decentralised society.
"The man who pays the piper always calls the tune"[1]
"Today, thanks to applied science, a dictator with the gift of the gab is able to pour his emotionally charged evangel into the ears of tens of millions"[2]
"reading newspapers and listening to the radio are psychological addictions"[3]
"I see the better and I approve; but the worst is what I pursue"[4]
"If offered the choice between liberty and security, most people would unhesitatingly vote for security"[5]
"the dogma of inevitable progress became an unquestioned article of popular faith"[6]
"the belief in all-round progress is based upon the wishful dream that one can get something for nothing"[7]
"the most important lesson in history, it has been said, is that nobody ever learns history's lessons"[8]
"denies the value of a human being as a human being… affirms exclusiveness, encourages vanity, pride and self-satisfaction, stimulates hatred"[9]
"As Athens and Sparta died of idolatry and flag-waving and jingoism"[10]
"advances in technology" .. "do not abolish the institution of war; they merely modify its manifestations"[11]
"whenever some crisis makes us forget our surface rationality and idealism"[12]
“.. to build enough launching ramps and robot planes..”[13]
"when things go badly at home…. It is always possible…. To shift people's attention away from domestic to foreign and military affairs"[14]
"it becomes unpatriotic for anyone to voice even the most justifiable complaints against mismanagement or oppression"[15]
"armaments are the only goods that are given away without consideration of loss or profits"[16]
"we need not be surprised if the plans for an international inspectorate and the pooling of scientific knowledge should fail in practice to produce the good results expected of them".[17]
"the Emersonian doctrine of Self-Reliance”[18]
"mechanical techniques for the production of many consumer goods for a local market"[19]
"financial techniques … by which individuals can borrow money without increasing the power of the state or of commercial banks"[20]
"legal techniques, through which a community can protect itself against the profiteer who speculates in land values, which he has done nothing whatever to increase"[21]
"in the eyes of medieval Catholic theologians .. the profession of a moneylender or a speculator was beyond the pale"[22]
"what will happen when India and China are as highly industrialized as pre-war Japan and seek to exchange their low-priced manufactured goods for food, in competition with Western powers, whose standard of living is a great deal higher than theirs?”[23]
"the Russian power system and the Anglo-American power system"[24]
"organized science could diminish these temptations to armed conflict by finding means for providing all countries, whatever their natural resources, with a sufficiency of power"[25]
"the use of large-scale wind turbines is still, strangely enough, only in the experimental stage"[26]
"One of the most urgent tasks before applied science is the development of some portable source of power to replace petroleum – a most undesirable fuel from a political point of view"[27]