Mike Wallace interviews Aldous Huxley on US Politics

In this interview from 1958, Mike Wallace asks Huxley about a series of essays he wrote about the treats to American Democracy. Huxley predicted that elections will become more driven my Madison Ave., and less about issues that should be important to the American public.

He describes the means of distracting voters from real issues by new technologies - such as television. He talks about the political campaigns being more and more driven by ad agencies-types, and less about issues that are important to the lives of voters. Appealing to voters on a sub-conscious, emotional level - bypassing the rational, enlightened self-interest that should motivate voters.

He also makes the point that the same techniques of brand loyalty as used to sell toothpaste, cigarettes, and soap are being used to capture voters when they are young, who will remain brand loyal.

A major theme of Huxley was that future dictatorships (or "democracies" run by corporations and powerful individuals) will not remain in power by force, but by conditioning the masses to love their servitude. Such is the case in America today, where the vast majority of Americans are wage slaves, unable to break free of the corporatism and consumerism that binds them.

Although Huxley is often seen as a commentator on political issues, at heart, he believed it boiled down to a religious issue. He embraced Vedanta as offering the proper understanding of the world, and that the human quest for freedom, is only really arrived at via a spiritual path - not political. We have to see all human beings on the planet as part of ourselves. Our extended family. Only then can we approach global issues with the right attitude.

Huxley personally adopted the following "Minimum Working Hypothisis" as a guiding force in his life, and recommended it for others (which he developed through his connection with Swami Prabhavananda and Vedanta, and other spiritual sources):

That there is a Godhead, Ground, Brahman, Clear Light of the Void, which is the unmanifested principle of all manifestations.

That the Ground is at once transcendent and immanent.

That it is possible for human beings to love, know, and from virtually, to become actually identical with the divine Ground.

That to achieve this unitive knowledge of the Godhead is the final end and purpose of human existence.

That there is a Law or Dharma which must be obeyed, a Tao or Way which must be followed, if men are to achieve their final end.