This paper offers a critical examination of UNESCO’s cultural heritage conventions
with special regard to the declared transhumanism of the organization’s first
director-general, Sir Julian Huxley. While Huxley’s advocation of eugenics is a
well-established fact, this part of his intellectual heritage is usually not considered
overtly aligned to his ideas about cultural preservation. On closer consideration,
however, improvement and preservation (both cultural and biological) turn out to
be closely associated concerns in the field of Huxley’s intellectual vision.