Aldous Huxley Warns About Being Caught Unaware by Advancing Technology in 1958 Interview

In a new episode of the wonderfully animated interview series Blank on Blank, the dystopian satirist Aldous Huxley shared his thoughts on overpopulation, government, democracy and propaganda in a 1958 televised interview with Mike Wallace.

We mustn’t be caught by surprise by our own advancing technology. This has happened again and again in history and suddenly people have found themselves in a situation which they didn’t foresee and doing all sorts of things they really didn’t want to do. At the present the television, I think, is being used quite harmlessly. But, I mean, imagine, which must be the situation in all communist countries where the television, where it exists, is always saying the same things the whole time; it’s always driving along. It’s drumming in of a single idea, all the time. It’s obviously an immensely powerful instrument. All technology is in itself moral and neutral. These are just powers which can either be used well or ill; it is the same thing with atomic energy, we can either use it to blow ourselves up or we can use it as a substitute for the coal and the oil which are running out.

Video of the original interview.