TOTALITARIAN CREED

Otago Daily Times, Issue 24226, 19 February 1940, Page 9

TOTALITARIAN CREED

“All forms of totalitarianism have something substantial in common,” said Mr J. Middleton Murry in a recent broadcast talk. “All totalitarianisms reject representative democracy as a political system; and they explicitly repudiate the theory of the responsible person on which representative democracy is based. They declare, quite frankly, that the free and enlightened citizen of democratic theory is a pure illusion: he does not exist. The ordinary member of a modern nation, they say. is quite incapable of the responsible freedom with which democratic theory credits him. He does not want it; it is useless to him if he has it; and. he does not mind if it is taken from him. What he does want is something more material; he wants security—the opportunity of work that will bring him a livelihood; he wants something more spiritual—the sense of belonging to a real community. What the mass-man wants, they say, is a strong leader, about whom he can feel enthusiastic, and from whom he can expect protection. Provided that his leader will undertake to crush the great ‘ interests ’ that are crushing the life out of him, he is content to be led. Whether the leader calls himself Communist, NationalSocialist, or Fascist makes no great odds, provided he represents an idea of the nation in which the mass-man can believe.”