PLEASURES - ALDOUS HUXLEY
Aldous Huxley was an English writer and Philosopher.
He was born (1894-1963) in a prominent family.
He was also an English novelist and critic.
He was gifted with an acute and far-ranging intelligence
His works are notable for their wit and pessimistic satire.
He was a teacher, physiologist and Ophthalmic surgeon.
In his scientific paper, he demonstrated the existence of an unrecogn layer in the inner sheath of hairs:
This layer is known as Huxley's layer.
Huxley was the grand-nephew of Mathew Arnold.
Huxley lived through the two world wars.
It was the grimness of the wars which shocked and compelled him to turn a new leaf.
Earlier he was a strong rationalist.
He was deeply interested in the problem of human life.
He made attacks on whatever was absurd and irrational.
He devoted himself to the pursuit of what he called perennial philosophy.
Huxley is always lucid. He relates to everything. which he analyses the key problems.
He guides us, on how to get rid of the cobwebs in our minds and live sanely and sensibly
In this respect, he at once persuades and Stimulates the readers
Huxley is fond. paradoxes. The paradoxes bring out the most remarkable part of his wit.
It also brings, out his amazing energy, clarity and precision.
Some of the best essays of Huxley are:-
On the Margin,
Proper Studies,
Music at Nights & Text and Pretexts.
Huxley begins his essay by saying. that since 1914, a great deal was heard about the menace to civilization.
First, it was Prussian militarism, then the Germans, then the prolongation of the war; the treaty of Versailles, french militarism, then the minor menaces as prohibition; Lord Northcliffe Mr. Byron Comstockery… and many more.
The essayist says that civilization has resisted combined attacks of these enemies very well.
The essayists talks of Neander that to Athens, (the cave dwellers who proceeded modern man and Ruthenian culture during the age of Pericles)
So this phase was the 'phase of war', the 'giant age before the flood'.
The nine years since world war 1914.
Huxley say's that the important fact is, including these menaces, the largest war and the stupendous peace, ever known in history.
These have confined the shelves in most places. They bark more furiously than they bite.
The dangers of our civilization are not the external dangers -wild man, wars and bankruptcy are the dangers of war brought after them.
The alarming dangers are those that menace from within.
These threaten the mind, rather than the body.
The writer says, above all poisons, the most poisonous is within Pleasure.
The writer says 'Pleasure' is a very curious and appalling thing.
By 'Pleasure' the author means organized activity.
The word 'Pleasure' evokes nightmare Visions
The author says like all people he also does not like work.
At the same time, the writer says, he would rather work eight hours a day, than lead a life of 'pleasure'.
The author attempts to give the horrors of 'pleasure' - that pleasure makes one an imbecile.
Earlier we engaged ourselves in different things. And they needed intellectual efforts.
For example, during the 17th century, people took delight in listening to erudite sermons.
They had academic disputes on theology and metaphysics.
The author refers to the entertainment offered to Prince Palestine on his marriage with the daughter of James I. - This was between the Lord keeper Williams and a troop of Minor Cambridge logicians.
The author says to imagine the feelings of the contemporary Prince.
It was not only the Royal Personages that enjoy the intelligent pleasure each one enjoyed.
During the Elizabethian times, every lady and gentleman could be relied upon to take part in Madrigal or a mortal.
Even the uneducated delighted in pleasures that required the exercise of certain intelligence.
They tried to understand Hamlet and Othello.
They sang and made music.
The peasants went through the traditional rites.
They sang and enjoyed to each successive season.
The writer says their pleasures were intelligent and alive.
It was they who by their own efforts entertained themselves.
But things have changed today. Now we seek pleasures, no intellectual effort and personal participation.
Their Cinemas were the same stale balderdash.
The writers and dramatists were not up to the mark.
They have been fourth-rate dramatists.
Their work died quickly, without getting beyond the boundaries of their city, the country in which they appeared.
Huxley says in the times of Today, invention goes beyond Los Angeles and across the world.
No mental effort is needed, and no participation is needed.
They sit passively in the tepid bath of nonsense.
What they need is to sit and keep their eyes open.
The author questions, "If the democracies want music ?"
The essayists goes on to say that earlier people could have made their own music.
But now they just turn on the gramophone, or fruity contralto at Marconi House, singing Slumber listening to The Gleaners. Slumber song.
And if they want literature, they go to the press.
It's true the press imparts information,
But its real function is to provide no effort or fatigue. of a simple thought,
This function was fulfilled with extraordinary success.
All these need no effort, but keep moving eyes on the column & cinemas.
Huxley says to certain, individuals practice athletics sports, where individual participation is demanded.
Others play golf and tennis.
The higher rich classes' entertainment was by shooting birds and pursuing foxes to go skiing in the Alps.
The Vast mass of the community had not come to sport Vicariously.
They prefer to watch football matches.
The essayists says that people dance all over the world.
But they dance with the same steps.
The dances have been scrupulously sterilized of any Local or personal individuality.
The essayists say's that these ready-made distractions are the same for everyone, all over the world.
And Huxley adds that all these are a worse menace to civilization than the menace of Germans.
The working of the day requires no effort, no individuality, and no initiative.
And now the distractions also demand no intelligence, as the work does.
The work and leisure with no effort have become a blessed relief to come to the end of.
we have become self-poisoned sin in this fashion
Civilization seems to decline into a kind of premature sensibility.
The essayists says that the mind is atrophied by lack of use.
The mind is unable to entertain itself.
The distractions will lead to the grossest Stimulants of ever-increasing violence and crudity
The democracy of the future will sicken of chronic and mortal boredom.
The author fears that the civilization will go as the Roman Civilization went
The Romans also took interest in ready-made distractions, in which they had no individual participation.
Dear deadly ennui demanded more Gladiators tightrope walking for fetched animals to be Slaughtered.
The most violent forms of entertainment can only be obtained illicitly.
To obtain pleasure by killing and Slaughter. The essayists say that one has to be a member of the Ku Klux Klan.
Huxley ends up saying we must not despair, as we will see blood flowing across the stage of the Hippodrome.
The force of boredom that needs to be alleviated may prove too much for idealists.
Click here for On the Pleasures of No Longer Being Very Young ~ G.k Chesterton
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