honeybabe
They Thought They Were Free:
"What no one seemed to notice was the ever widening gap between the
government and the people. And it became always wider…..the whole
process of its coming into being, was above all diverting, it
provided an excuse not to think….for people who did not want to
think anyway gave us some dreadful, fundamental things to think
about…..and kept us so busy with continuous changes and 'crises'
and so fascinated…..by the machinations of the 'national
enemies,' without and within, that we had no time to think about
these dreadful things that were growing, little by little, all
around us…..
Each step was so small, so inconsequential, so well explained or, on
occasion, 'regretted,' that unless one understood what the whole
thing was in principle, what all these 'little measures'…..must
some day lead to, one no more saw it developing from day to day than
a farmer in his field sees the corn growing…..Each act is worse
than the last, but only a little worse. You wait for the next and
the next.
You wait for one great shocking occasion, thinking that others, when
such a shock comes, will join you in resisting somehow. You don't
want to act, or even talk, alone…..you don't want to 'go out of
your way to make trouble.' But the one great shocking occasion,
when tens or hundreds or thousands will join with you, never comes.
That's the difficulty. The forms are all there, all untouched, all
reassuring, the houses, the shops, the jobs, the mealtimes, the
visits, the concerts, the cinema, the holidays. But the spirit,
which you never noticed because you made the lifelong mistake of
identifying it with the forms, is changed. Now you live in a world
of hate and fear, and the people who hate and fear do not even know
it themselves, when everyone is transformed, no one is transformed.
You have accepted things you would not have accepted five years ago,
a year ago, things your father…..could never have imagined."
— Milton Mayer, They Thought They Were Free, The Germans, 1938-45
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1955)