them, and even the most savage suitors had to face prospeehvernfathers-in-law who were looking for the same kind of qualitiesrnthat fathers-in-law always look for: They want a man who eanrnprovide for their little girl —and ensure the success of their ownrnqualities in the great genetic lottery that produced human nature.rnA typical American teenager who divided his time betweenrnpigging out and making lewd remarks may be straight onrnthe basics, but he would not have impressed daddy Magog.rnMen still, even in this centur)’ of democracy and progress,rncome into this world as paleolithic savages, with the same appetitesrnand inclinations as the sons of that African Eve who isrnsupposed to be “our general mother.” Try to suppress them,rnand our appetites will only find more devious channels and outletsrntoward their gratification. You cannot alter or suppress humanrnnature; you can only warp its expression. The great successrnof American democracy is its ability to satisfy the most basicrninstincts of the human race, while at the same time virtuallyrneliminating its highest qualities. We are the fly caught in honeyrnthat has hardened into amber.rnMeals used to require the effort and talent of a hardworkingrnwoman. Wlio needs a balanced diet or even good-tasting food,rnwhen he ean slop up Big Macs, salted and sugared french friesrnstill dripping in grease, and wash them down with soft drinks inventedrnto kill off diabetics? .. .rnFor most men, sexual gratification used to mean marriage, arncommitment to one (or at most two or three) women and thernoffspring they bore—for it was this commitment that daddy Magogrnstipulated as the price of his daughter. In a state of nature,rnDon Juan would either have to make himself chief or be killedrnby the first father or husband whose female property he damaged.rnBut now, a young man of any c[uality can be assured of arnsteady supply of willing girls. Today, boys of 12 and 13 years arernbesieged on the telephone by a dazzling assortment of Kimberleys.rnHeathers, and Taras. (I speak now as a father.) The situationrnhardly changes when they marr)’. Women have now sunkrnto the low, predator)’ level of men, and with both parties in arnrace to rack up the most extramarital points, the high divorcernrate in the Western nations is hardly surprising.rnOf course, there is the loser, who “can’t get no girly action.”rnThis is the “kind of man who reads Playboy” and checks out thernX-rated films fronr the Family Video Store. To be fair, evenrnsome of the Don Juans are addicted to pornography. It helps tornkeep their interest up, even when the charms of Morgan orrnTiffany grow stale. There is nothing unusual or unnatural inrnthis. In the beginning, any successful male had to be constantlyrnon the alert for the glimpse or scent of the attractive femalernwho would make him “immortal with a kiss.” But pornographyrnis the Big Mac of sex: It titillates and teases; it may even seem tornsatisfy for the moment. But the more you get, the sicker you become,rnand eventually you forget what real food or real womenrn(with real names) are like.rnThis is the triumph of American democracy, to have createdrna line of suecubi that haunt our waking dreams until wernhave lost our appetite for reality. Television, radio, movies, andrnelectronic music might all be used, to a limited extent, for somerngood purpose, and I am not immune to their pleasures, evenrntheir vicious pleasures. But we don’t limit them. We never turnrnthe damn things off. Now, the latest advertising gimmick is tornput giant TV screens into health clubs and airports, alternatingrnthe soft-sell “entertainment” segments with hard-sell commercials.rnTed Turner has even seduced schools into accepting hisrnbroadcasts, and the only complaints come typically from anticapitalistrnleftists. Poor Ezra Pound, stuck in his cage outside ofrnPisa, wrote some of the best verse of his later career, but transferredrnto the warm and dry St. Elizabeth’s loony bin, he turnedrnout virtually nothing worth reading. Perhaps it had somethingrnto do with the television blasting outside his room.rnSuecubi, nightmares, simulacra. Even the lady of Shalottrnwas “half sick of shadows.” We delight in them and would notrntrade them in for reality, even if we could. The schools, asrnDewey knew, made sure of that. By teaching nothing of grammar,rnliterature, history, or theology, American schools-public,rnprivate, and parochial—see to it that we grow up knowing nothingrnof the world. Instead, we are trapped within a toweringrnprison of images and abstractions, and a man might spend hisrnlife butting with his head and never crack through the deadeningrnwall of lies. We are like the villains of old, so hardened inrnour ways that we cannot recognize virtue or beauty when we seernit. . . .rnOf all the 20th-century prophets who predicted doom for ourrnbotched civilization, it was Aldous Huxley who saw most clearly.rnIn Nineteen Eighty-Four George Orwell looked at the surfacernsymptoms of political repression and official propagandarnthat characterized Nazi Germany and Stalinist Russia, and extrapolated.rnThe Soviets played Orwell’s game for 70 years, andrnit didn’t work. Huxley, on the other hand, looked closer tornhome in Britain and America and saw the future in Californiarn—a deracinated culture based on hedonism, mood elevators,rnand compulsory consumption of useless articles that keeprnthe world economy going. The control exerted by Huxley’srnworld-state over its people extends from genetically engineeredrnbabies raised in government nurseries and schooled in classesrnon “elementary sex and elementary class consciousness” to arnlifetime of assigned duties, obligatory pleasures, ending in euthanasiarnfor the public good. It is a happy-talking New WorldrnOrder, where the greatest eiremy of the regime would be arnShakespeare-reading savage, capable of love and hate.rnThe totalitarian states of the 50’s and 40’s were, as Huxley realized,rntoo crude and negative in their methods: “The most importantrnManhattan projects of the future will be vast government-rnsponsored inquiries into what the politicians and thernparticipating scientists will call ‘the problem of happiness’ —inrnother words, the problem of making people love their servitude.”rnHuxley published Brave New World in 1932 and set the talernsix centuries into the future. In 1946, in the foreword to a newrnedition, he revised his timetable: “Today it seems quite possiblernthat the horrors may be upon us within a single century.” Therernwere only two likely alternatives, he suggested, either “a numberrnof national, militarized totalitarianisms” threatening to blowrnup the world or else “one supra-national totalitarianism, calledrninto existence by the social chaos resulting from rapid technologicalrnprogress… and developing under the need for efficiencyrnand stabilit)’, into the welfare-tyranny of Utopia.” Forty-fivernyears later, we know it is the latter scenario that will be playedrnout, perhaps by the first years of the next millennium. In a similarrnvein. Pound told his mother, “the art of letters will come tornan end before A.D. 2000.” If Pound and Huxley were both correct,rnas I believe they were, then we ean take comfort in this reflection:rnCome the millennium, there will be few peoplernaround capable of reading Brave New World or any other bookrnproduced by the lost civilization. crnThis article first appeared in the January 1992 issue.rn12/CHRONICLESrnrnrn