Did these books foretell?
Was Aldous Huxley a visionary?
By GAIL H. WEISS
Staff Writer
Aldous Huxley was a visionary.
His prophetic fantasies of the future found in his books "Brave New World" and "Ape and Essence" -- published in the 1930s and 1940s -- describe global destruction, bacterial warfare, overpopulation, depletion of natural resources, media violence, widespread drug use and cloning.
These are familiar subjects today.
Signs of global destruction
The threat of nuclear destruction and bacterial warfare are present-day realities.
Referring to anthrax -- an infectious, fatal disease of cattle, sheep and other warm-blooded animals -- a 1997 "New York Times" article said: "Biological weapons have several properties that might be attractive to a county like Iraq. If properly deployed, they could cause civilian casualties in numbers comparable to those of a nuclear weapon. Unlike nuclear weapons, they are easy to manufacture and conceal.
"Just a flask of culture can produce pounds of anthrax bacteria in four days. One gram -- about 0.04 ounces or the weight of two paper clips -- contains enough doses to kill 10 million people."
Emergency physicians in the United States are preparing for the unthinkable -- a nuclear attack or the release of chemical or biological weapons, according to Reuters Health.
Dr. Edward M. Eitzen Jr., a colonel in the Medical Corps of the U.S. Army at Fort Detrick in Frederick, Md., writes, "The greatest threat to the U.S. in the early part of the 21st century will not come from a military confrontation. Rather, it will come from an attack within our borders from a single individual or group that has access to weapons of mass destruction, including nuclear, chemical or biologic agents."
"We are at a crossroads in this country in terms of readiness to respond to biological terrorism," Eitzen writes. "While progress has been made, there are still gaps in our capabilities, and a concerted effort must continue if we are to be as ready as we need to be."
Saturating Mother Earth
In Huxley's "Brave New World," he writes, "Ignoring the obvious fact that his devastation of natural resources would, in the long run, result in the ruin of his civilization and even the extinction of his species, modern man continued, generation after generation, to exploit the earth in such a way.
"Overpopulation, war and human indifference sap the energies and resources that might be devoted to raising the standard of living and literacy."
Historians say 1.6 billion people lived on earth 100 years ago. World population has just reached 6 billion.
Increased population is consistent with increased suggested human-caused emission histories of ozone-depleting gases, according to the June 23 issue of the journal, "Nature." The journal reported most gases responsible for stratospheric ozone depletion are produced by human activities and are not naturally occurring in the atmosphere.
Federal and university scientists measured firn - the air trapped in the polar snowpack in Antarctica and Greenland. Lead researcher/author, James Butler of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Climate Monitoring and Diagnostics Laboratory in Boulder, Colo., said that the data confirm that these major chlorofluorocarbons, halons and chlorinated solvents in the atmosphere are entirely produced from human emissions and that contributions from volcanoes or the biosphere are negligible or non-existent.
Scary to contemplate.
Desensitizing ourselves to violence
"The atrocities you take your little girl to see, twice a week, on the news reel -- and she finds them commonplace and boring. Twenty years hence, at this rate, your grandchildren will be turning on their television sets for a look at gladiatorial games; and when those begin to pall, there will be the army's mass crucifixion of conscientious objectors or the skinning alive, in full color, of the 70,000 persons suspected of un-Honduranean Activities."
Our grandchildren may not witness persons being skinned alive on television; however, in the opinion of John Rosemond, a family psychologist in N.C. who writes a column for "Knight-Ridder Newspapers," the innocence of America's children has been undermined, and he believes television has played a significant role.
He is not alone in this belief.
Based on a 1998 survey of 1,010 adults and 500 teenagers, 54 percent of teen-agers and 68 percent of their parents believed violence in music and on TV encourages youth violence. The survey was from Family First in Charlotte County, an independent non-profit organization dedicated to bringing an awareness of the importance of families in society.
Last month, CNN did a presentation on the V-chip, a technology Congress has mandated. At this time, the chip must be in at least half of the new television sets made. The V-chip which enables parents to block objectionable programs is favored by 84.1 percent of parents who participated in a study done by Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania.
The jury is out on how widely implemented V-chip technology will be accepted.
Numbing our reality
In 1997, the nation's leading figure in the war on drugs said he believes the enemy is switching uniforms. Retired Army General Barry McCaffrey, director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy, sees the cocaine threat giving way to another old nemesis: methamphetamines. McCaffrey says that while 1.4 million Americans remain addicted to cocaine, he sees cocaine use in dramatic decline.
"If you look over the last 15 years, it's come down by 75 percent from 6 million (users) down to 1.4 million," McCaffrey said. "Our guess is 15 years from now, it won't be the principal drug threat to America. But that won't help if it is replaced by methamphetamines ... prohypnol and other boutique drugs."
Cloning: the chapter ready to unfold
"Dolly" became a household name in February 1997 when scientists at Scotland's Roslin Institute announced they had cloned a ewe. Cloned from another sheep's udder, she became an overnight celebrity.
The cloning was landmark and the first time a mammal was cloned from a cell other than a sperm or an egg.
Later in the year scientists at Roslin announced another sheep -- Polly -- had been cloned with a human gene added. Some hope that Polly will produce a protein some humans, including hemophiliacs, need; an example of controlling science for the public good, as Huxley suggests in "Brave New World."
Less than month after the Scottish announcement, a team of U.S. scientists from Oregon said they produced two rhesus monkeys from cloned embryos.
In an interview with the "Washington Post," the Oregon genetic researchers said they have no plans to try cloning from adult monkeys, as such an experiment would carry research a step closer to the cloning of humans, which many find morally wrong.
Don Wolf, a senior scientist at the Organ Regional Primate Research Center and director of the human in vitro fertilization laboratory at Oregon Health Sciences University told the "Post" they are trying to produce genetically identical monkeys for research. Such research could lead to advancements in combating infertility.
Human cloning, once science fiction, could become science fact and change mankind forever. Will Aldous Huxley's "hatcheries centers" and "fertilizing rooms" become a reality in the 21st century like so many of his visions have become reality?