In class video (aldous Huxley)

This interview was taped at the height of the Cold War and which Huxley saw as an increasing time of tension in the world which could ultimately arise in global problems such as totalitarian control. To be more exact, Huxley saw overpopulation as a disaster that was lurking just around the corner. Huxley argued that increasing populations would place extra pressure on existing resources such as coal and agricultural necessities like food. In his interview Wallace asks “Well, what are these forces and these devices, Mr. Huxley?” Huxley replies “I should say that there are two main impersonal forces… This is the force which in general terms can be called overpopulation, the mounting pressure of population pressing upon existing resources.” Huxley then says “let's just take a simple fact that between the time of birth of Christ and the landing of the May Flower, the population of the earth doubled. It rose from two hundred and fifty million to probably five hundred million.” Mike Wallace then asks “Well, why should overpopulation work to diminish our freedoms?” Huxley basically responds by saying that people in the world have less to eat and less goods per capita than they had fifty years ago due to the problem of overpopulation. This correlates with what was said above regarding that growing populations would place pressure on existing resources.