You are likely following daily news streams about technology, politics and much more. At times we are told that what is happening around us is all new and we are in unprecedented territory. And we may be, but the feeling that we are indeed in unprecedented territory is NOT new. Our professional world is the world of tech, but as you well now, tech impacts all parts of our lives for better or for worse. Is tech more pervasive than ever? Maybe.
Many ideas are not new, and at times our underlying human nature of anxiety and always fearing the worst seem to be the constant undercurrent. Maybe it is the human condition, that leads us to anxiety, that leads us to fear the worst. I guess this was how we survived when the world was a less comfortable place, and we had an average life expectancy of 32 years and infant mortality was 165 in 1,000 … this was year 1900. But even before that when living in the ‘wild’ and at risk of being attacked by other tribes or wild animals in an instant, our fear and anxiety was probably what kept us alive. Anxiety maybe more a result of evolution and survival of the best fit of our species, rather than a result of increasingly stressful lives in an always-on world.
Aldous Huxley was interviewed by Mike Wallace in 1958. This was 64 years ago when there were 2.9 Bio people on the planet, versus today’s 8.2 Bio. The reason for the interview was the 25’th anniversary of Mr Huxley’s book ‘Brave New World’, a book that was published in 1932. Mr Huxley was a prolific writer; he wrote 50 books in his career and was nominated for the Noble Prize nine times. He failed to achieve the highest accolade of actually winning it. Not even once.
The primary topics of the 1958 interview, departing in the points raised by Huxley’s 1932 book, were ‘over population (birth control)’, the rise of Communism, democracy and dictatorship, propaganda and influencing populations, dangers for children in (mis)information and lastly what Huxley called ‘over-organisation’ in colossal hierarchical structures whether corporate of government type.
Remembering that the context of the 25 years since ‘Brave New World’ was written was the rise of Nazism, Fascism and Communism and a devasting WW II. As we know today much of the fertile ground for these movements in Europe was created at the end of WW I, with the murder of the Russian Czar and the complete crippling of the German economy because of war reparations and a continuing occupation of France and Belgium of the Ruhr district (the industrial heartland) in Germany. An occupation that was finally ended in 1925.
When Huxley is questioned in the interview on why is it, that technology, not necessarily in itself is evil, is appropriated for the purpose of control, suppression and manipulation, his answer was simple: power! Power in the hands of the few he added.
The post WWII world, manifesting itself with ‘Cold War’ gave Huxley plenty of fodder to think about oppressive regimes and power and how such regimes could survive and how they operate at scale. Thus his stated concerns over media control, manipulation of populations and the ‘brainwashing’ of children. As he said in the interview, the fundamental purpose of the constitutions (democracies) in the US and the UK (and most other nations) was/is to keep unfettered power in check through ensuring that there would always be a rotation of leadership. Like term limits of presidential nominees or prime ministers.
Another key point he made was, that we seem to be continuously caught by surprise by our own advancement of technology and the impact that it has on everything. The nuclear bomb was new at the time, and mankind was only beginning to understand the enormity of the impact of such deadly weapons. A new technology that defined the Cold War era.
TV as a media was new at the time, and there was much concern about the ‘manipulation’ that TV and advertising would expose people to. Seen in the light of a 1956 US election where TV rather than radio had become the dominant medium to reach voters, it wasn’t surprising that the early day of the ‘ad-man’ was causing concern. TV as a new medium spread fears and doubts about the impact, fear about the tools that were used, not only for adults but also children.
The end of WW II saw the creation of large state sponsored programs to develop nuclear technology. At the time, a technology so complex that only state actors had resources and capital to develop the technology. Developing nuclear capabilities was swiftly followed by large state sponsored programs for space technology especially by the US and the Soviet Union.
Commercial nuclear power and space exploration required massive complex projects with centralised decision making to be successful. Thus, the inspiration for Huxley to talk about ‘over-organisation’ of enormous hierarchical structures of private companies and government. A general fear of bureaucratic structures at an immense scale, possessing an own internal logic.
So, in a quick summary the themes that Huxley was grabbling with in the late 1950’s were:
Birth control
- The impact on media on populations
- The danger for children to be exposed to media
- The (adverse) impact of new media on democratic elections
- The rise of dictatorships as adversaries to a democratic world
- Soviet Union (Russia) as a key adversary
- The adoption of new technology and the surprising unintended consequences that results from new technology
- The ‘over-organisation’ of private companies and government as a result of (or enabled by) technology
Do we recognise these themes? Have we learned from history in this regard, or are we playing out the same patterns as before? What is different now? What remains the same?
Technology changes, it morphs, it renews itself, our fundamental questions remain the same at its core: Who controls us? Who tells me what to do and how to do it? Who has the power? How do we restrain power in the hands of a few? Will our children grow up in a safe world? Can we feed everyone? Do we face annihilation from some threat? A threat that could be immediate or creep up on us without us understanding it.
It may appear a dark way to end the year, but it isn’t, it is a recognition of the fundamental questions we a wrestling with when new technology makes it way into our everyday life. Since the wheel, the printing press and gunpowder, the questions remain.
