TOTALITARIAN GOVERNMENT

Wairarapa Times-Age, 22 September 1941, Page 7

TOTALITARIAN GOVERNMENT

SAPPING SPRINGS OF THOUGHT.

“The theory of totalitarian government is that the people in power are always right because they are in power, and that any person who differs from their opinions or resists their decrees is actively wicked,” said Mr St. John Ervine in a recent address. “The dictator surrounds himself \yith a staff which is sycophantic; they assure him that everything he says and does is not only right, but perfect. They would lose their jobs if they did not. ■ He rules his subjects as if they were thoughtless slaves, from whom he demands blind obedience. Theirs not to reason why, theirs but to do what he tells them or die. And he has power over them that no other man possesses. The power of life and death. It is clear (isn't it?) that, in such a community, there can never be fresh springs of thought. Nothing can be taught or practised there that is not permitted by the dictator. To ask a question which can be construed as an expression of doubt is to bring oneself dangerously near the concentration camp. The good Nazi does not ask questions; he obeys.”