When [H.G. Wells] was young, the antithesis between science and reaction was not false. Society was ruled by narrow-minded, profoundly incurious people, predatory businessmen, dull squires, bishops, politicians who could quote Horace but had never heard of algebra. Science was faintly disreputable and religious belief obligatory. Traditionalism, stupidity, snobbishness, patriotism, superstition and love of war seemed to be all on the same side[.] . . . . But unfortunately [in the modern time] the equation of science with common sense does not really hold good. . . . Modern Germany is far more scientific than England, and far more barbarous. Much of what Wells has imagined and worked for is physically there in Nazi Germany. The order, the planning, the State encouragement of science, the steel, the concrete, the aeroplanes, are all there, but all in the service of ideas appropriate to the Stone Age. Science is fighting on the side of superstition. . . . [Wells] was, and still is, quite incapable of understanding that nationalism, religious bigotry and feudal loyalty are far more powerful forces than what he himself would describe as sanity. . . . The people who have shown the best understanding of Fascism are either those who have suffered under it or those who have a Fascist streak in themselves. . . . Kipling, who was not deaf to the evil voices of power and military glory, . . . would have understood the appeal of Hitler, or for that matter of Stalin, whatever his attitude towards them might be. Wells is too sane to understand the modern world. --- George Orwell, in Wells, Hitler and the World State, 1941
Posted on: Sun, 03 Aug 2014 22:24:44 +0000