I expect many of you have recently been reading the dire prognostications of Sir Charles Darwin about the situation of the population of the world. A long interview with him was recently published in one of the weekly news magazines, and he is saying, of course, that the population of the world is going to double in fifty years, and it’s increasing at a sort of arithmetical progression, and very soon—if things go on the way they are, and very very serious measures are not taken—there’s literally going to be standing room only in the world.

There’s been a great deal of discussion about his remarks all over the place, and I happened to be discussing in New York with my friend Joseph Campbell—whose name will be familiar to many of you as the author of The Hero with a Thousand Faces, and the recent book The Masks of God. And he said, “You know”—Joe thinks rather toughly—he said, “You know, this sounds a terrible thing to say, but I think the time is coming when human survival is going to be conditional upon people passing examinations.” And he said furthermore: “I think one measure that would instantly cure this problem would be absolutely to forbid the practice of medicine.” In other words, the increase of population strikes us as a terrifying problem about which something very, very urgent has to be done. And we all seem to assume this simply as a matter of course. And I want, in this particular talk, to do a little bit of thinking out loud with you about this problem: about the whole question of human survival.

Now, it’s a truism: everybody knows that, during the last five hundred years—which really is the period of the birth of technology—the movement of social change, of technical change within human culture has suddenly taken an enormous spurt. And the rate of change seems to be faster and faster as the thing goes along, because as we learn how to change our environment, we learn how to change it faster. And therefore we’ve got this contrast of thousands and thousands of years of human history in which things moved very slowly indeed. Sometimes the movement was unnoticeable and, of course, in those ages people didn’t think in terms of social change, and they didn’t think in terms of progress. They thought rather of an eternal rotation of human life, just like the rotation of the seasons which goes on and on and on, century after century, so that the concept even of history does not arise for such people. Old histories are not really histories in our sense, they’re simply chronicles: recordings of events that occurred with no idea that these events are of a dynamic character, that they build themselves up into a movement, which is a movement of change or progress or even degradation.

And so there is suddenly, as it were, this explosion of history. And some people have been uncharitable enough to liken it to the sudden disordered growth of cancerous cells within the human organism. And now that we have some opportunity to consider the problem of where this extraordinary change is going. No one, of course, can lay down the law as an infallible prophet about it, but we cannot avoid the impression that the change may not be going where we thought we wanted it to go. That, in other words, the the logic of a technological culture may be a form of growth, a form of development, a form of change, which is not really in human interest, but which is, as it were, the inevitable mechanical, almost mathematical development of certain types of motion and certain types of structure.

In other words, this may lead—we’ve seriously got to think of this. When you’ve got technical power in combination with the kind of emotions that human beings have, it may lead simply to a swift climax and disappearance of our species. I mean, that’s the very worst (as we say) that could happen. And so if that is what technological change is going to do within the course of perhaps not very many years—either by the population bomb, or a hydrogen bomb, or whatever it may be; some serious disruption of our ecological relationship to our planet—then, if that is true, we might turn around and say, “Well, perhaps those old Taoist philosophers who were talking about 400 and 300 BC in China were right after all.” As I think you all know, a great deal of the Taoist literature is a criticism of human ingenuity—not only of technical ingenuity; of such innovations in agriculture in ancient China as the well-sweep for irrigating the fields. It’s also a criticism of such things as carpenters’ squares and compasses, and the use of tools, and generally of all those means which human beings use to (as it is said) interfere in the so-called course of nature.

Now, naturally, if you think about that carefully, it’s really impossible for a human being not to interfere in the course of nature. If there is any difference between man and nature at all—which is highly dubious; but nevertheless, if we grant for the sake of argument such a difference—any action that we do is an interference in the course of events. And so I think what those old Taoist philosophers were saying was not that we ought not to interfere (because that’s impossible), they were saying that we ought not to have our minds set upon changing things all the time, and in accomplishing maybe our farming or our building (or whatever activity we’re engaged in) we ought not to be set on accomplishing it ever more efficiently, so as to produce ever more food and so as to alter the balances of man’s relationship to his environment as they stand. In other words: keep things running and interfere to a minimum.

It was for this reason, therefore, that the Taoists had a laissez-faire attitude in politics. They believed, on the whole, that it was better to leave people alone and make their own mistakes than try and help them. They discouraged, therefore, all kinds of legislation in the interests of social welfare. They discouraged the artificial deliberate practice of the virtues. And all these things, they said, interfere with man’s so-called natural constitution, and are going to lead to trouble in the long run. And so now, perhaps, if they could be with us, they could say to us: “We told you so!”

I was discussing this problem from another point of view on this program not so long ago in reviewing that extraordinary book by Norman Brown called A Life Against Death: The Psychoanalytical Meaning of History, and I’ve been interested to see that this book has been widely reviewed in periodicals all over the Western world. And there was an extraordinarily interesting review in the Times Literary Supplement. Of course, a lot of people don’t understand the book at all. They just think this is some sort of ridiculous argument by an ultra-Freudian. But the reviewer in the Times Literary Supplement got the point quite clearly, and he was saying, in other words: may not the necessary repression—of our biological instincts—may not this necessary repression, in the interests of civilized order, be part and parcel of the same movement which I’m talking about as the development of history, the development of the technological culture.

And as, on the one hand, the development of technology—say, in physics and in medicine—may be bringing us to our destruction, so on the other hand the development of civilized mores and restraints on behavior required by the presence of dangerous machines—that is to say, the restraints on behavior while driving on the highway, and things of a similar kind—may not this all be adding up to a pattern of life which is fundamentally anti-human? That is to say: it is against our interests as bodies. And therefore, although it seems to us the most shocking and absurd question to consider doing away with all these restraints, and doing away with all these technical aids to life, nevertheless, now that we’re able to look at the whole picture, must we not seriously raise the question whether we didn’t make a great mistake after all, and that it would have been much better to live at a kind of low level of culture, and even perhaps a low level of morals on a rather primitive scale? Wouldn’t we, on the whole, have survived as a species ever so much longer? Wouldn’t human life be more stable? And even though we would have to put up with dirt and disease and infant mortality, and all these problems which modern technology is conquering, nevertheless this might be preferable to the total extinction of our species? Now, I’m just putting this forward as a question. I do not know—nobody knows—whether technological skill and the repression of our biological life will result in the extinction of the species, but we can say it ceertainly might.

During the summer I was in Big Sur in California, and I was taking a walk with a friend of mine who lives there who I find extraordinarily interesting. He’s a man who is a sculptor, a rather skillful gardener, grows the most beautiful garden around his little cottage. But what I especially like about him is, when I go for walks with him, how he notices all kinds of weeds and plants and rocks and wonderful little things around, and picks them up and points them out, and sometimes makes very instructive comments about them. We happened to notice one day a particular plant that was covered in some kind of aphids; greenfly. And the next day there were even more of them. They were having a wonderful feed and multiplying to beat the band. The next day we came along, and there was no longer plants, there was no longer aphids, there was just the bare stalk covered with gray dust. And he said, “You know, that’s like us. That’s what we’re going to do, and that’ll be the end.” And he didn’t seem in his attitude quite to be horrified at it, but rather to feel, well, simply: what do you expect? That’s the way things go.

Because, you see, the choice comes down to something like this: do you prefer to burn fast or slowly? I mean “burn” in the sense that an electric light burns or an electric motor. Do you, in other words, want to go off with a bang or with a whimper? Do you want a stable life which is perhaps very dull, or do you want a very exciting life that is short and sweet? Interesting to come across this quotation the other day which Freud wrote in a letter to his own doctor, Dr. Fliess, in which he said, “I am not following your interdict in regard to smoking. Do you think it is so very lucky to have a long, miserable life?”

Well, it’s the same question for human beings; for the race. There are of course, as we all know, species which have survived for millions and millions of years. Take for example ants. But they’ve survived because the organization of their life is very simple—very viable, as biologists say, and very monotonous. Nothing happens in antdom of any great excitement. They have wars occasionally and so on, but, by and large, their life goes on exactly the same way millennium after millennium. And the Taoist argument that I quoted—in other words: leave nature alone. In other words, what this is really saying is: let human life remain at its very primitive agrarian level, perhaps even at the hunting level. Let it stay that way.

Well, supposing we were successful in doing that. That means that we should have an extraordinarily stable culture. It would go on just like that, for century after century after century, and there might be no foreseeable end. Nevertheless, in due course, when the sun explodes or the planet freezes over it would come to an end. But it certainly would not be as exciting, as interesting a form of life, as that which we are now living.

And therefore, this seems to be the choice before us. And if you think about it deeply, it’s very difficult to decide in favor of one course or the other. Perhaps it’s a matter of temperament: that there are those people, for example, who like their life to be full of strong emotions. They like to be very happy sometimes and very sad sometimes, to be full of ups and downs. Well, other people who don’t like that at all. They find it too shattering, and rather than be very happy, they would like to remain at a level of sort of humdrum, easygoing existence. And I feel very strongly that the choice between these two things is a matter of temperament. And therefore, there are those temperaments among us who will say, “No, no, stop all this technology. Let’s live a very humdrum, straightforward life that may be pleasant but not always exciting.” Other people say they simply can’t stand that. Let’s exploit our human capabilities to the utmost and see what we can do, even if it all disappears.

But, you see, one problem that exists in this whole discussion is that, really, both points of view are based on the same premise. Now, to make myself clear, what do I mean by both points of view? The premise of the people who say, “Leave the world alone, leave human beings alone, let it be,” on the one hand. The people, on the other hand, who say, “For goodness sake, don’t do that! Let’s change it all. Let’s improve our human lot. Let’s get rid of poverty and starvation and so on.” These are really the two points of view I’m talking about.

Now, there is a third point of view which is: “Well, let’s speed up this whole technological change process and bring our existence to a glorious explosive conclusion.” That’s the third point of view altogether. But if you take the first two points of view I mentioned, they’re both based on the premise that what is important for us is to survive; to go on. And the first point of view says: we will not survive if you interfere technologically. That will destroy us. Therefore, you ought not to interfere technologically so that we can have a simply stable, humdrum kind of existence. The other point of view, you see, says: no, that means that the species is valued, but we care nothing for the individual. Let’s save the individual. Let him survive. Let every individual survive for as long as he’s capable of doing.

And I think that herein lies the trouble: that going on becomes the main value of life. And if that is your value, it is precisely this that seems to me, in a way, the most anti-human kind of thing. Now, that may sound a very startling and unreasonable thing to say. But in the name of survival—in the name, in other words, of the future, whether it be the technical future or whether it be the humdrum agrarian future,—n the name of both these futures, dreadful things are done. I mean, let us think of these gigantic ideological revolutions which have occurred, be they fascist or be they communistic. It’s always the same old story: tighten your belts, join the army of workers or the army of soldiers. We’re going to be miserable for a few years but there’s a great time coming. A thousand years of prosperity of an unimaginable kind. This is always the argument. And in the name of this kind of utopia, people are sent to concentration camps and tortured and burned and slaughtered—all in the name of the future, of the survival of the race.

And so, in the same way, if your reason, if the purpose you have behind recommending the non-interfering way, then still in the name of survival, people who are suffering are just left to rot. And in this way, it seems to me that both points of view lack reality. They lack sensitivity and compassion for the people who are here. And we think somehow that it’s much more noble to have sensitivity and compassion for the generations as yet unborn. I suppose that’s natural in a way because we all love our children and they represent to us the people as yet to come. We think of our children and we also think of our children’s children. But at the same time, I think there’s a compassion for children that can be very, very seriously overdone. All kinds of people nowadays are simply knocking themselves out to make their children happy. Our children are so overlooked after, so over-mothered, so over-organized that I sometimes seriously question the wisdom of this. Whether they may not be actually all the fun of childhood being taken away by this. I mean, it’s the same sort of thing. Here’s a child with every kind of elaborate toy in the world and bored with the whole thing. Here’s another child who’s only got a saucepan and a clothes peg to play with. And out of these things, he builds all kinds of marvelous toys in his imagination. But be that as it may, the crux of the matter is, when are we living? Are we living now or are we living tomorrow? Now, it seems to me that when a person is living completely, when he, in Norman Brown’s sense, is not repressing his body. Oh, for heaven’s sakes, Norman Brown doesn’t mean by this, as some people have thought, that everybody should sort of strip their clothes off and behave like babies and wallow around in their own excrement and have a marvelous time. He’s not talking about that. He’s talking about becoming fully open and fully sensitive with our five senses, giving ourselves, in other words, the space and time to explore. Watch a child in this sense. At meal times, Don Haya-Kala was talking about this last night. He said, what a child observed the action of milk in a spoonful of sugar. And they’re absolutely fascinated with the capillary movement of each grain of sugar absorbing the milk. And while they’re contemplating this in great delight, somebody wraps on the table and says, get on with your breakfast or you’ll be late for school. What is that sort of thing, really, that Brown is talking about? That if one has, using the milk in the sugar as a symbol, if one has the milk in the sugar, then one’s life is very rich. And the question of will it go on and will it come to an end, ceases to be a very important question. It’s got to come to an end sometime. But our anxiety about this, resulting from our ability to bind time, absolutely spoils the living of it at all. What is the use of living if one is perpetually distracted from living by the anxious consideration of the thing coming to an end? Surely everybody knows the party must come to an end, the play must come to an end, the concert must come to an end. Everything must. But the more we think about that, the more we are paralyzed in our participation in the thing while it is here. And therefore, is it really after all so bad if the human race does end with a bang rather than a whimper, death in any circumstances is laudable to be unpleasant. And are we going to drag it on indefinitely or go out with an explosion? Well, again, I think that’s a matter of temperament to decide. But is this really the important question? All this, what I would call apocalyptic thinking, this eschatological, frantic worrying about the end of the world, is of course nothing new in human history. But it seems to me to be the neurosis of people who haven’t learned how to handle time. In other words, in being able to consider time and be aware of time, it’s a great accomplishment, but it’s made us sick. It’s made us hopelessly neurotic. And what we have to somehow be capable of doing is to handle time and think of time, but regard it as a pretty abstract affair and not take it to heart. For otherwise, all the skill that we can muster to make the future as bright for us as we can possibly imagine it to be, will be in vain, because we will always be considering. But it’s got to come to an end, and that will forever ruin our enjoyment of it.