Editing Aldous Huxley (section)

== Late-in-life perspectives ==
Biographer Harold H. Watts wrote that Huxley's writings in the "final and extended period of his life" are "the work of a man who is meditating on the central problems of many modern men".<ref>{{cite book|last=Watts|first=Harold H.|title=Aldous Huxley|year=1969|publisher=Twayne Publishers|pages=85–86}}</ref> Huxley had deeply felt apprehensions about the future the developed world might make for itself. From these, he made some warnings in his writings and talks. In a 1958 televised interview conducted by journalist [[Mike Wallace]], Huxley outlined several major concerns: the difficulties and dangers of world overpopulation; the tendency towards distinctly hierarchical social organisation; the crucial importance of evaluating the use of technology in mass societies susceptible to persuasion; the tendency to promote modern politicians to a naive public as well-marketed commodities.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ePNGa0m3XA | archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/varchive/youtube/20211030/1ePNGa0m3XA| archive-date=30 October 2021|title=The Mike Wallace Interview: Aldous Huxley (18 May 1958) |via=YouTube |date=25 July 2011 |access-date=8 March 2013}}{{cbignore}}</ref> In a December 1962 letter to brother Julian, summarizing a paper he had presented in [[Santa Barbara, California|Santa Barbara]], he wrote, "What I said was that if we didn't pretty quickly start thinking of human problems in ecological terms rather than in terms of power politics we should very soon be in a bad way."{{sfn|Sexton|2007|p=485}}

Huxley's engagement with Eastern wisdom traditions was entirely compatible with a strong appreciation of [[modern science]]. Biographer Milton Birnbaum wrote that Huxley "ended by embracing both science and Eastern religion".<ref>{{cite book|last=Birnbaum|first=Milton|title=Aldous Huxley's Quest for Values|year=1971|publisher=University of Tennessee Press|isbn=0-87049-127-X|page=407}}</ref> In his last book, ''[[Literature and Science]]'', Huxley wrote that "The ethical and philosophical implications of modern science are more Buddhist than Christian...."<ref>{{cite book|last=Huxley|first=Aldous|title=Literature and Science|year=1963|publisher=Harper & Row|page=109}}</ref> In "A Philosopher's Visionary Prediction", published one month before he died, Huxley endorsed training in [[general semantics]] and "the nonverbal world of culturally uncontaminated consciousness", writing that "We must learn how to be mentally silent, we must cultivate the art of pure receptivity.... [T]he individual must learn to decondition himself, must be able to cut holes in the fence of verbalized symbols that hems him in."<ref>{{cite magazine |last=Huxley |first=Aldous |date=November 1963 |title=A Philosopher's Visionary Prediction |magazine=[[Playboy]]|location=Chicago |pages=175–179}}</ref>