This seems wrong (with hindsight, I suppose). My mental image of Orwell is that he was quite sharp. How did he manage to get this bit wrong so badly? Does anyone know the reason?
By my reading, Orwell is giving Hitler a bit of credit, not only in the fact that he rejects this premise and emphasizes patriotic and militaristic virtues above quality of life, but that he could move an entire nation to agree with this vision. What Orwell means here is that people don't just want comfort and prosperity; they are in fact willing to actively sacrifice these things to achieve a vision, especially one expressed in warlike or patriotic terms. Orwell might be a bit disappointed, and is definitely unsympathetic to fascism, but he does give it credit for being able to inspire people to a grander cause than their own comfort and well-being.
Why do you think, the catholic church survived for 2000 years -- that is longer than the US capitalism currently lived.
> [Hitler] has grasped the falsity of the hedonistic attitude to life. Nearly all western thought since the last war, certainly all "progressive" thought, has assumed tacitly that human beings desire nothing beyond ease, security, and avoidance of pain. In such a view of life there is no room, for instance, for patriotism and the military virtues. The Socialist who finds his children playing with soldiers is usually upset, but he is never able to think of a substitute for the tin soldiers; tin pacifists somehow won’t do. Hitler, because in his own joyless mind he feels it with exceptional strength, knows that human beings 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, flag and loyalty-parades…. Whereas Socialism, and even capitalism in a grudging way, have said to people "I offer you a good time," Hitler has said to them "I offer you struggle, danger and death," and as a result a whole nation flings itself at his feet.
I'm not sure this appeals to people more then peace and prosperity but it can have a strong appeal to some people some of the time especially to young men(see ISIS) and especially when your side is winning the war and civilian losses are low.
It's not saying nazism is 'correct' and should be practiced, but rather the way nazis view human psychology is a better model than that of the hedonist.
Given how prosperous and successful such societies have turned out to be in the past (they all failed), I would have expected someone to just reject it outright in favour of all the other ideas like individuality and freedom, as they are clearly better. I mean, you can't say some ideology is "psychologically sound" and have all its adoptees crash and burn everywhere causing untold amounts of damage. That's not sound at all.
So I was wondering if he meant it, or he was just depressed from how the war was going in 1940. Plus, and maybe I'm just ignorant, I always thought he was against totalitarianism.
What he writes, does not imply that he is pro-totalitarianism. He only says, that the concept to give people something to hope for, to fight for, to give their life for a "higher meaning" is a more sound psychological concept as "hey, have a good time ... and just live for the next gadget"
I think Orwell was wrong, but not for the obvious reasons.
As an observation, it's impossible to argue with the suggestion that humans need more than comfort. Humans have been creating crusades, pogroms, holy wars, riots, race riots, and revolutions since almost forever.
But I don't think he understood what made Nazi fascism so extreme - which is the way it turned war, patriotism, and death into ends in their own right, rather than means to an end.
There was no pretence at higher purpose or salvation. The entire German political system became a suicide and death cult, and swallowed itself whole.
Maybe not in the traditional form (with religious meaning), but in a new, nationalistic form. The pretence of a higher purpose of the NS system was in my opinion, that the nation will succeed in its god given plan to succeed. You can hear it shining threw in many of Hitlers speeches.
No, when you understand "purpose" in a strict religious way, it did not have such pretence. But when you have an open mind to something that is more common than religion, it definitively had.
There are also many things that are clearly directed into a cult or replacement-religion. Also Hitler uses many religious phrases and imitations. Many see this as a clear sign for a cult.
Also the fact, that for example the wife of Goebbels killed her children, speaks clearly that many people (many killed themselves either) lost all hope and life purpose, because the NS system was (for them) something like the salvation for the German nation.
>The entire German political system became a suicide and death cult, and swallowed itself whole.
Now you say it yourself and contradict yourself by saying that it became a cult. It was a kind of cult and thus had the pretence of a higher purpose. (of course, if you always define "purpose" as going to heaven, you are right -- but in my opinion there are different levels or kinds of purpose).
That is right. But this was possible, because with the dead of the system, many of the involved people also lost hope for Germany as a whole. I don't want to excuse, what they did (some of them slaughtered their own people and behaved like real monsters), but in some cases it might become a little more understandable.
I also don't want to show this cult in a shiny light. It was really a death cult (and that from the start) -- but because of a different reason: The system was based on the notion, that the German nation will rise -- and the condition for that was, that others had to fall. It was a kind of social-darwinism (hope, got that word right). This whole notion: I will rise, and others have to fall (for that) is anti-christian and a total abuse of Darwins findings. It is a cult, based on the death of others. What happened was, that this death fired back on the Germans.
Not that wrong. The whole passage tells more about how he meant it: that people don't just want ease and hedonism, but they also need struggle and passion and meaning and hurt.
People that have it all too easy more often than not fell in for drugs, depression, etc. And conversely, some of the most "happiest" place on earth, according to their citizens own estimations in polls, are places with tragic poverty and harsh conditions.
That's very far from my recollection of those polls where Scandinavian countries frequently come out on top. Common denominators of those countries include low wealth inequality, an extensive social safety net, and a grounded attitude towards the future. With all this, there's still plenty of struggle and passion and meaning and hurt in the microcosm of daily existence. Humans don't seem designed to be suspended in a state of constant happiness.