Some light post-Christmas reading for you, from his novel After Many a Summer Dies the Swan:
Misplaced seriousness — the source of some of our most fatal errors. One should be serious, Mr. Propter had said, only about what deserves to be taken seriously. And, on the strictly human level, there was nothing that deserved to be taken seriously except the sufferings men inflicted upon themselves by their crimes and follies.
No, a good satire was much more deeply truthful. The trouble was that so few good satires existed because so few satirists were prepared to carry their criticism of human values far enough.
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One response to “Aldous Huxley on the Dangers of Misplaced Seriousness”
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Huxley indeed is turning in his grave. He is one of my favorite authors and raised serious issues and made world-wide breakthroughs in the research of psychedelics as well as our cognitive liberties. I drew a portrait as homage to the man and his works. Let me know what you think of it at http://dregstudiosart.blogspot.com/2010/07/aldous-huxley-rolls-in-his-grave.html