Orwell Castigates Wells, Defends Patriotism

I have frequently criticized our country for it behavior throughout the Twentieth Century. On the other hand, while doing so I simultaneous hold in my mind the conviction George Orwell put forth in his essay titled "Wells, Hitler and the World State" which was originally published in August 1941 in Horizon magazine. 

In this essay Orwell castigates H.G. Wells for his optimistic belief in scientific progress and a rational world state, which Orwell argued was naive in light of the rise of totalitarianism, particularly Hitler’s regime. Orwell saw Wells’ views as dangerously out of touch with the realities of power and human nature.  

For me, there were two significant takeaways here. First, I hadn't realized how long this idea of a "one world government" was being formulated and seriously discussed. Second, the importance of patriotism.

In his essay Orwell showed how H.G.Wells derided military analysts and experts as alarmists, insisting Hitler was little more than a grotesque caricature—dangerous only insofar as he fools the credulous. Orwell then shredded Wells with facts.

He then moved to his main point, that Wells was a one-world government advocate. Orwell saw this vision not just as naïve, but as fundamentally disconnected from human experience. “What is the point of pointing out that a World State is desirable?” Orwell asked. “What matters is that not one of the five great military powers would think of submitting to such a thing.”

“Whereas for the common-sense, essentially hedonistic world-view which Mr. Wells puts forward,” Orwell writes, “hardly a human creature is willing to shed a pint of blood.”

 

That sentence alone arrests the reader. Orwell’s point is not merely military. It is psychological and civilizational. In moments of existential peril, high-minded cosmopolitanism is no substitute for visceral, ingrained loyalties—loyalties which many elites had spent the past decades trying to dissolve.

This is precisely the point at which many have often struggled. When it comes to U.S. behavior on the world stage, we have much to be ashamed of. BUT... At America's core is there something left to believe in? Something worth fighting for? Even dying for?

This is the message of Stephen Kinzer's The True Flag, which documents America's imperialist aggressions on the world stage. The "true flag" is a metaphorical symbol representing the American flag as an emblem of human rights, self-determination, and serving as a positive example to the world, rather than a banner of conquest, imperialism, or military domination.

At America's heart, there really is something to believe in. 

The Origin and Meaning of Godwin's Law

This week a friend of mine brought up Godwin's Law with regards to Dems and Left-leanng media comparing Trump to Hitler. I was unfamiliar with this expression so I Googled it and found this:

Godwin's law

Also known as Godwin's law of Nazi analogies, this internet adage states that the likelihood of a comparison involving Hitler or Nazis increases as an online discussion continues.

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Through further research I learned that Godwin's Law was an internet adage coined by attorney and author Mike Godwin in 1990. It asserts that as an online discussion grows longer, the probability of someone making a comparison to Nazis or Adolf Hitler approaches certainty. Initially meant as an observation about how quickly online debates deteriorate into hyperbolic comparisons, Godwin's Law has become a widely recognized rule of online discourse.

The law highlights a tendency for individuals to invoke extreme comparisons, particularly referencing Nazi ideology, when emotions escalate in arguments. These comparisons often derail conversations, making it difficult to engage in rational debate. Although not an official rule or policy, Godwin's Law serves as a caution against the use of inappropriate or exaggerated analogies that trivialize historical atrocities.

In contemporary use, Godwin's Law is sometimes invoked to call out fallacious arguments and to encourage participants to remain on-topic and avoid reducing discussions to the lowest common denominator of debate. Over time, the term has also been used as a reminder to maintain a level of respect and seriousness, especially when discussing sensitive topics. Godwin himself, however, has clarified that the law does not apply in discussions where comparisons to Nazism are relevant or warranted based on the context. 

So there you have it.

* * * 

Have you ever called someone a Nazi? I did once. How do you feel about that today? Leave a comment and I may disclose the circumstance of my own experience.

Throwback Thursday: Stories About the Bomb

This week I've been watching Dunkirk, a powerful retelling of the near loss of the British army which would have undoubtedly resulted in the fall of Britain. Had that event occurred it is quite possible Adolph Hitler could have successfully conquered the world, for there would have been no impediment to Rommel's conquest of the Middle East oil fields, the primary objective of his North Africa campaign. And was it not the Turing Machine, a Brit breakthrough, that broke German code thus enabling the Allies to intercept messages and destroy Rommel's re-supply efforts? 

That moment in time (Dunkirk) was recently highlighted in the 2017 Gary Oldman film Darkest Hour. It's good to be reminded of how much of history is determined by singular moments and "little things." I think of here of the Ben Franklin quote that begins, "For want of a nail..."

And so... for Throwback Thursday I share this story about a little thing... with big consequences.

Stories About the Bomb
ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED 2013
I don't think there's a one of us in the Baby Boomer generation who lived unaware of the Cold War and that dark shadow of potential nuclear winter. It's one of those things that was always out there, though each of us reacted differently to this ominous reality. I remember reading On the Beach as a young teen, which had already become a film in 1959 starring Gregory Peck and Ava Gardner among others. A vividly written story about the end of the human race makes an impression on one, especially if you permit imagination to enter in to suggest all the things you may never experience before you die. Yes, even then we had fledgling versions of a bucket list.

Many of us also read Hiroshima by the Pulitzer Prize-winning John Hersey, a story about six survivors of the bomb that shook the world, with images so vivid it will straighten your hair.

So it is that many of us write in order to process our life experiences. I once wrote a poem on this theme called Bad Break which attempted to capture a measure of this Cold War anxiety.

In part, this is where my story "Two Acts That Changed the World" came from, which is currently the opening short story in my short collection of stories called Unremembered Histories.

The second inspiration for the story comes from having been enthralled by the writings of Jorge Luis Borges, whom I consider a primary influence on all of the stories in this particular volume. Borges is the master of reality-bending hyper-real story-telling.

For what it's worth, consider this intro something like a movie trailer, designed to entice you to fork over a few bucks to see the flick. It's a buck-ninety-nine if you have a Kindle. For iPad owners you can also download a free app. It's also now available in print.

TWO ACTS THAT CHANGED THE WORLD

Of the dozen or so German physicists who had been assigned the task of building a super-bomb for Germany, Wilhelm Kurtweil more than any knew the consequences for humanity should the Nazis succeed in being the first to achieve this ultimate quest. Kurtweil had been a leading voice in German physics before the war, was now a respected scientist in the twilight years of a fabulous career.

For him personally, Nazism was an odious blight on the German peoples, but he had remained silent, hoping against hope that the dark season would pass and German character would rise above its brutal cancer. By 1942 he’d lost this hope.

The super-bomb project was in full swing. The Nazis already dominated Europe. England was about to fall.

His worst fear of all: that the project would succeed and his name be forever associated with its success in bringing the world to its knees at Hitler's feet.

In November he began praying for divine intervention. He did not believe in God, but not knowing where else to turn and hoping that he was wrong, he prayed that God would give him wisdom. The following week he conceived in a dream, visualized with perfect clarity, the formulation for the Atomic Bomb. It was so perfect, so brilliantly conceived, and remarkably clever. He woke in a sweat. With an over-stimulated mind he spent the rest of that night hastily scratching notes on scraps of paper. For three successive nights he worked out the details, occasionally catching fitful moments of sleep to sustain his strength.

On the fourth night, he saw clearly the two actions he must take. First, he must find a way to undermine -- without drawing suspicion -- the efforts of his fellow scientists. And second, he must find a way to communicate his findings to the American scientists whom he believed were actively pursuing the same designs.

The first task was easy enough. He saw that the labyrinthian formula was built on a series of equations which flowed with a counter-intuitive divergence from logic at several critical points. How he had seen this so plainly baffled him. In presenting his discoveries to the group, he merely had to re-arrange the equation at two points and the system would forever fail to detonate. Once these two re-arrangements were made, no amount of re-evaluation would point to this particular detail as being faulty. All corrections of the misfire would focus on other areas of the formulation, with over one hundred million permutations. If all went well, it would be ten years before the mistake was discovered.

Though he intended to delay as long as possible the presentation of his formulation, he knew he must be the first to present, lest the correct thesis be presented in regards to the critical path. By early spring of 1943 he saw that two of his young proteges were uncovering significant portions of the path and he was forced to the first task. On April seventh, he presented his findings with cool reserve and astounding humility. The team was ecstatic at the breakthrough.

The second task proved more daunting... 

Read the reviews here, and check it out: Unremembered Histories

Throwback Thursday: Hitler Discovers Dylan Won Nobel Prize for Literature

I don't recall who did this kind of thing first. Woody Allen's 1966 romp What's Up, Tiger Lily was a hilarious early version of the form, dubbing English over a foreign language film.

There's nothing quite like the unexpected, well-executed. This piece was published October 13 last fall, very shortly after the announcement had been made. Someone was very clever, though actually the same segment was published four months earlier with another set of subtitles in reaction to Donald Trump winning the Republican nomination.

I'm not sure who created this, but for sure they deserve an award of their own. Best short documentary? The script is rich with gems. The Führer discovers that a Jewish singer-songwriter from the Midwest has just won the Nobel Prize for Literature.

(Note: A pair of F-bombs make this a PG-13, fwiw.)

Meantime, life goes on all around you. Catch a laugh when you can.

Ideas Have Consequences: Eugenics

I once read that the London Times from 1935-1939 praised Hitler's Germany in its editorial pages for what he was doing there. What he was doing was courageously practicing ideas that had become quite popular in the early part of this century as an outgrowth of the advocacy of Charles Darwin's son, Major Leonard Darwin and other believers in eugenics, the selective breeding of humans. This is why many of the mentally ill, and even bed-wetters, were eliminated from the ranks of German society, by extermination.

Until recently I had failed to connect the dots, but the importance of eugenics was a highly popular belief amongst educated, liberal-minded people in Western society. It's a fairly ugly chapter that we don't hear much about because it has been relegated to the closets.

If you're like me, you probably also wondered why Charles Lindbergh was so enthralled with Nazi Germany. When you discover that he, too, was an advocate of eugenics then you begin to grasp why he, too, liked what Hitler was doing on this ground-breaking front.

One should often be suspicious of the recommendations scholars make when they are predicting doom. The Population Bomb was the big thing when I was in college. Back in 1932, predictions of gloom and doom were announced if the world did not engage in widespread eugenics reforms. These were predictions by Major Darwin, a whole-hearted advocate of eugenics for decades at this point. Across the Atlantic, someone was listening.


Major Darwin Predicts Civilization's Doom Unless Century Brings Wide Eugenic Reforms (NYT 1932)*

New York Times
Posted on Wednesday, December 16, 2009 3:49:34 PM by MNDude
Aug 21, 1932 Eugenists (sic) from all over the world will attend the Third International Congress of Eugenics today and tomorrow at the American Museum of Natural History. At general and sectional meetings they will discuss advances in the study for the physical and mental improvement of the human race.

Aug 23, 1932 Eugenic reforms must be adopted within the next hundred years if civilization is to go on, was the message of Major Leonard Darwin, son of Charles Darwin, founder of the modern theory of evolution, read last night at the Third International Congress of Eugenics, which opened yesterday at the American Museum of Natural History.


It is not history's prettiest chapter, but it's a good one to familiarize oneself with.

*SOURCE: Major Darwin Predicts...

You can go here for more on Darwin and Eugenics.

The Unnecessary War

I've begun reading a fascinating book by Patrick Buchanan called Churchill, Hitler and "the Unnecessary War". Its theme, spelled out in the subtitle, is how Britain lost its empire and the West lost the world.

Buchanan's thesis is that World War I was a total fiasco caused by poor judgment by Britain's leaders in general and Winston Churchill in particular.

On the threshold of the 20th century, Britain's empire was at its peak in influence and power. Who could have foreseen that the Britain could stumble so badly so as to become a shell of its former self. Who could have predicted the devastation in Europe wrought by two global wars, and the horrors wrought by Hitler and Stalin?

I am reminded of the venerated Robert E. Lee, the Confederacy's hero/general in its time of greatest need. For a hundred years Lee was on the receiving end of much adulation. He was a "great man." But, he was also flawed like many, and did not always make wise decisions. In the past thirty years or so Lee's life and leadership have been re-examined. The critics are finally having their say.

So with Churchill, it appears. A great statesman or a blundering bulldog?

I enter the book with a certain level of background about Pat Buchanan, a Nixon insider and speech writer who coined the phrase "the Silent Majority." As part of the Nixon "dirty tricks brigade" Buchanan's rap sheet carries baggage that might cause some to dismiss him outright. His foreign policy stance has resulted in him being labelled an isolationist. But there's some substance behind this stance or attitude that may be worth a deeper examination. For this reason I believe his arguments are worth a hearing.

One of the themes of the Viet Nam War era protesters was, "Who appointed America to be the policeman of the world?" Buchanan's position these past many years has been identical. In the preface to this book he castigates the 78 days of bombing which we inflicted on Kosovo as well as the military incursion into Iraq. The war with Iraq may have been a cakewalk at the start, but the mess afterwards is a very serious problem which will continue to have consequences. Buchanan states that we may be witnessing first hand the irreversible decline of the West.

This book shows the destructive power of certain mindsets. Entangling alliances and foreign military adventurism created that first Great War and, according to Buchanan, the vengefulness of the Treaty of Versailles is what catapulted Hitler to power in the 20s. WWI thus gave birth to WWII... and consequently much suffering.

In one of his previous books, Buchanan chastened America's leadership for following the same paths. “(T)oday, America's leaders are reenacting every folly that brought these great powers [Russia, Germany, and Japan] to ruin -- from arrogance and hubris, to assertions of global hegemony, to imperial overstretch, to trumpeting new 'crusades,' to handing out war guarantees to regions and countries where Americans have never fought before. We are piling up the kind of commitments that produced the greatest disasters of the twentieth century." Pat Buchanan, A Republic, Not an Empire

Is Buchanan being alarmist? True, Buchanan has been controversial during the course of his very public political career. And having not yet waded too deeply into this volume, I can't say where I will line up with all his assessments. One thing is certain, if I may paraphrase Robert Burns: Man's inhumanity to man has made countless millions mourn.

Politics of Hate & Manipulation

Years ago, when I read Eric Hoffer’s The True Believer, the section about how propagandists use hate to manipulate people really hit home with me. Here are some excerpts.

“Common hatred unites the most heterogeneous elements… Hitler used anti-Semitism not only to unify his Germans but also to sap the resoluteness of Jew-hating Poland, Rumania, Hungary, and finally even France. He made similar use of anti-communism.” (p. 86)

By concentrating hatred on a single foe, Hoffer notes, it unites disparate groups as “adversaries far removed from one another seem to belong to a single category.” (p. 87)

With the advent of the internet, I have been on the receiving end of quite a few “pass this to ten friends” emails that foster hatred toward either Muslims or Hispanics. The Democrats do nothing to discourage hatred either, though with a different object who goes by the name Dubya.
The Oscar winning film Crash showed the corrosive power of prejudice, fear and mistrust. And the tragic consequences at an individual level.

On the national level hatred, whether from left or right, may unify disparate groups for a time, but it does not lead to a good society in the end. If the masses are led by manipulators instead of educators, we will most assuredly see them manipulated in ways that are not good for us.

My big concern today is that in the name of freedom from (Muslims or illegal immigrants or whatever we can be coerced into being afraid of) we will give up our still more of our freedoms.

In the light of history, it is not unwise to be wary.