History Forum / General / British History / November 2005

Lest We Forget...

This all sounds remarkably familiar -- to those of us who have a Sense of
History.

DSH
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"It is, I think, true to say that the intelligentsia have been more wrong
about the progress of the war than the common people, and that they were
more swayed by partisan feelings."

"The average intellectual of the Left believed, for instance, that the war
was lost in 1940, that the Germans were bound to overrun Egypt in 1942, that
the Japanese would never be driven out of the lands they had conquered, and
that the Anglo-American bombing offensive was making no impression on
Germany.  He could believe these things because his hatred for the British
ruling class forbade him to admit that British plans could succeed."

"There is no limit to the follies that can be swallowed if one is under the
influence of feelings of this kind."

"I have heard it confidently stated, for instance, that the American troops
had been brought to Europe not to fight the Germans but to crush an English
revolution.  One has to belong to the intelligentsia to believe things like
that: no ordinary man could be such a fool."

George Orwell [Eric Arthur Blair] (1903-1950) -- _Notes On Nationalism_, May
1945