Thursday, May 10, 2012

George Orwell (1903 - 1950)

When one compares [Hitler's] utterances of a year or so ago with those made fifteen years earlier [in Mein Kampf], a thing which strikes one is the rigidity of his mind, the way in which his world view doesn't develop. It is the fixed vision of a monomaniac and not likely to be much affected by the temporary maneuvers of power politics.
          Review of Mein Kampf. 1940. Collected in George Orwell: The Collected Essays, Journalism & Letters.


I should like to put it on record that I have never been able to dislike Hitler. Ever since he came to power - till then, like nearly everyone, I had been decieved into thinking that he did not matter - I have reflected that I would certainly kill him if I could get within reach if him, but that I could feel no personal animosity. The fact is there is something deeply appealing about him. One feels it again when one sees his photographs... It is a pathetic, dog-like face, the face of a man suffering under intolerable wrongs. In a rather more manly way, it reproduces the expression of innumerable pictures of Christ crucified, and there is little doubt that this is how Hitler sees himself. The initial, personal cause of his grievance against the universe can only be guessed at; but at any rate the grievance is there. He is the martyr, the victim, prometheus chained to the rock, the self sacrificing hero who fights singlehanded against impossible odds. If he were killing a mouse he would know how to make it seem a dragon. One feels, as with Napoleon, that he is fighting against destiny, that he can't win, and yet that he somehow deserves to. The attraction of such a poise is of course enormous; half the films one sees turn upon such a theme.
          Review of Mein Kampf. 1940. Collected in George Orwell: The Collected Essays, Journalism &
          Letters.



Hitler, because in his own joyless mind he feels it with such exceptional strength, knows that human brings don't only want comfort, safety, short working hours, hygiene, birth control, and, in general, common sense; they also, at least intermittently, want struggle and self sacrifice, not to mention drums, flags, and loyalty parades. However they may be as economic theories, fascism and nazism are far sounder than any hedonistic conception of life.
          Review of Mein Kampf. 1940. Collected in George Orwell: The Collected Essays, Journalism &
          Letters.



The sin of nearly all left-wingers from 1933 on is that they wanted to be anti-fascist without being anti-totalitarian.
          Arthur Koestler. 1944. Collected in George Orwell: The Collected Essays, Journalism & Letters.



Since about 1930 the world has given no reason for hope whatever. Nothing is in sight except a welter of lies, hatred, cruelty, and ignorance, and beyond our current troubles loom vaster ones which are only now entering on the European consciousness.
          Arthur Koestler. 1944. Collected in George Orwell: The Collected Essays, Journalism & Letters.

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