• @frezik@midwest.social
    link
    fedilink
    268 months ago

    Whereas Socialism, and even capitalism in a more 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. Perhaps later on they will get sick of it and change their minds, as at the end of the last war. After a few years of slaughter and starvation ‘Greatest happiness of the greatest number’ is a good slogan, but at this moment ‘Better an end with horror than a horror without end’ is a winner. Now that we are fighting against the man who coined it, we ought not to underrate its emotional appeal.

    From George Orwell’s 1940 review of Mein Kampf.

    https://bookmarks.reviews/george-orwells-1940-review-of-mein-kampf/

    • @prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone
      link
      fedilink
      48 months ago

      After a few years of slaughter and starvation ‘Greatest happiness of the greatest number’ is a good slogan, but at this moment ‘Better an end with horror than a horror without end’ is a winner. Now that we are fighting against the man who coined it, we ought not to underrate its emotional appeal.

      Goddamn.

      • @frezik@midwest.social
        link
        fedilink
        18 months ago

        Orwell goes hard. It’s unfortunate that he’s known for two books that people pretend they read in high school because their English teacher made them.