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On
Silence
[ by Aldous Huxley ]
The twentieth century is, among other things, the Age of Noise. Physical
noise, mental noise and noise of desire -- we hold history's record for
all of them. And no wonder; for all the resources of our almost miraculous
technology have been thrown into the current assault against silence.
That most popular and influential of all recent inventions, the radio
is nothing but a conduit through which pre-fabricated din can flow into
our homes. And this din goes far deeper, of course, than the eardrums.
It penetrates the mind, filling it with a babel of distractions, blasts
of corybantic or sentimental music, continually repeated doses of drama
that bring no catharsis, but usually create a craving for daily or even
hourly emotional enemas. And where, as in most countries, the broadcasting
stations support themselves by selling time to advertisers, the noise
is carried from the ear, through the realms of phantasy, knowledge and
feeling to the ego's core of wish and desire. Spoken or printed, broadcast
over the ether or on wood-pulp, all advertising copy has but one purpose
-- to prevent the will from ever achieving silence. Desirelessness is
the condition of deliverance and illumination. The condition of an expanding
and technologically progressive system of mass production is universal
craving. Advertising is the organized effort to extend and intensify the
workings of that force, which (as all the saints and teachers of all the
higher religions have always taught) is the principal cause of suffering
and wrong-doing and the greatest obstacle between the human soul and its
Divine Ground. from Silence, Liberty, and Peace (1946)
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