This lecture by the late A. Huxley is best known for the following quote:

“If you are going to control any population for any length of time, you must have some measure of consent. It’s exceedingly difficult to see how pure terrorism can function indefinitely. It can function for a fairly long time, but I think sooner or later you have to bring in an element of persuasion, an element of getting people to consent to what is happening to them.
Well, it seems to me that the nature of The Ultimate Revolution with which we are now faced is precisely this: That we are in process of developing a whole series of techniques, which will enable the controlling oligarchy who have always existed and presumably always will exist, to get people, actually, to love their servitude.”

Think about what it means for the way we will organize our society, if we assume that there will always be an “controlling oligarchy”. Why is Huxley later so exited about Vu Van Thai’s concept of “an adaptation of technique, which shall be suitable for these people” (that is, the people in the “backward countries”)?

Have fun!

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