Aldous Huxley - "Pleasures"

The mind… atrophied by a lack of use

Purist Still Life - Roy Lichtenstein

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Aldous Huxley (1894 - 1963) was an acclaimed British writer known for his profound and forward-thinking commentary on themes of technological advancement and human nature.

I recently came upon his essay “Pleasures” written in 1923 in Vanity Fair. I thought I’d deconstruct it and add my own commentary throughout - in italics.

Here’s the link to the original article: “Pleasures”

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Huxley lists out the difficulties plaguing his time, mainly World War 1 & Prohibition. He claims that none of these external threats are as dangerous to man as the threats that stem from within. The ones that, “threaten the mind rather than the body and estate of contemporary man.”

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Times are difficult now too. There's a war in Europe. Inflation has been rampant. There's mass hysteria associated with Covid, racial tensions, & gender identities.

Even with all these external threats, none have an effect on people as much as the entertainment currently at our disposal - Tik Tok, Instagram & Netflix to name a few.

These “ready-made distractions”, as Huxley likes to call them, are more accessible than talking with your best friends.

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Huxley goes on, listing how people used to spend their free time pursuing hobbies with more intellectual rigor:

• People in the 17th century listened to academic disputes on theology/metaphysics

• Commoners in ordinary culture could be relied upon to take part in musical acts like a madrigal or motet.

• The uneducated listened to Shakespeare with comprehension. They practiced traditional dance routines in spring and summer.

“To indulge in their favorite pastime our ancestors had to exert their minds to an uncommon degree.”

Now things have changed.

“Man is supplied with ready-made distractions…which demand from pleasure seekers no personal participation and no intellectual effort of any sort…No mental effort is demanded of them, no participation; they need only sit and keep their eyes open.”

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There’s no way I would have guessed this statement was written about people living in 1923. Huxley may as well have been writing about the local subway last night or people waiting at an airport gate - 90% + glued to their phones.

I will be the first one to admit, I’m usually part of the 90%. I spend an exuberant amount of time on Twitter. Sometimes I’m hardwired to open Instagram after checking the app five minutes ago. There’s nothing inherently “wrong” with doing so. There’s a time and place, I get it. The intention behind screen time is what matters.

Hugh Han on Unsplash

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Huxley continues to talk about his time. The working hours for a majority of people are already spent doing mechanical tasks with no mental effort and no individuality required. In hours of leisure, people’s time spent matches their “mechanically stereotyped” work.

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Today, our lives have gotten even more homogenized. Most white-collar work is administrative - it lacks creative rigor. I see friends working in project management at companies that don’t inspire them. Others are manually entering data using archaic technology. Many are selling a product they could care less about - the payout is what matters.

People come home, microwave dinner, watch Netflix/Youtube and voila – bedtime.

Where has the ability to entertain ourselves gone? Playing a musical instrument. Participating in a sport. Writing, filming, singing. Hobbies in general.

Mindless consumption is ruling many of our daily lives, and it’s slowly stripping away the energy to pursue a meaningful hobby.

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Later in the article, Huxley speaks about the movie industry in 1923:

“There have always been fourth rate writers, but their work never made it out of their local municipality. Now, any writer in Los Angeles gets his work out across the world… and audiences have to soak in its tepid bath of nonsense.”

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Ok, this is pretty funny given that I’m writing this noob commentary from Los Angeles. But hey, Huxley would be proud of the effort.

In all seriousness, imagine what Huxley would have thought about today. A lot of what people consume is garbage - because it literally is. Anyone can create content and instantly share it with the world.

I was in the car with my brother the other day speaking about our latest DJ gig. In the middle of this conversation, a friend texted him. After responding to the message, he blindly opened Instagram and was met with a video showing the growth of a peacock from birth to adulthood.

Our conversation was completely forgotten, he goes, “Look, look Timmy”.

Mind-blown.

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“Self-poisoned in this fashion, civilization looks as though it might easily decline into a kind of premature senility”

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Huxley wrote an entire book on this quote. In Brave New World, the “savage” explains his views to the technocrat who wants a comfortable, perfect society:

”But I don't want comfort. I want God, I want poetry, I want real danger, I want freedom, I want goodness, I want sin.”

With access to information about the entire history of the world, people are becoming more one-dimensional - only consuming what has been created in the last week.

We’re drowned in the sea of entertainment and pleasure. Numb from all the dopamine hits.

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Thanks for reading,

– Timmy