The World Beyond Hitler

I must begin with a confession. When I wrote Last and First Men, I completely missed Hitler. I imagined many futures for humanity, but I did not foresee that particular eruption. Let this be a warning: there are always surprises ahead.

Yet now that we are in the midst of this war, I believe it represents a far bigger turning point than the last. After the Great War, we could still muddle along more or less as before—the same power politics, the same unplanned economy, the same assumptions about civilization. After this war, that will no longer be possible. We face either genuine change or catastrophic regression.

Why? Because mechanization has advanced so far, because the world has grown so much smaller and more tightly interconnected, that the old muddling-through is no longer sustainable. The forces we have unleashed demand a new kind of response.

Hitler is not a freakish phenomenon, some inexplicable aberration of history. Given the circumstances, something like Hitler was almost inevitable.

Consider Germany after the last war: a proud nation, built on the myth of the Reich, suffered military defeat. There followed economic crisis—hyperinflation, then depression. The democracies, who had promised a new world order, let Germany down repeatedly. The result was what we might call a collective social inferiority neurosis.

But there was more. Germans also gained a peculiarly clear view of the worst side of what we call "civilization"—its hypocrisies, its failures. They developed a profound sense that something was fundamentally wrong with liberal culture. Out of this grew a deep disgust: disgust with liberalism's false promises, with Christianity's weakness, with materialism's emptiness, with rationality's pretensions.

Into this situation came Hitler—himself a man of multiple failures: military failure, artistic failure, social failure. But he possessed boundless ambition and, crucially, he sensed the prevailing subconscious disillusionment of his people.

He produced a new myth to answer that disillusionment. Against sham internationalism, he offered the race cult. Against sham love, he offered naked might. Against hollow rationalism, he offered unreason—a pseudo-mysticism that spoke to depths which reason cannot reach. He offered a death cult: the individual must sacrifice everything for the race. And he offered a scapegoat: the Jews, onto whom all resentments could be projected.

Hitler clicked with Germany—not with the conscious, rational Germany, but with the German subconscious. This is the terrible thing: Germans laughed at him even as they followed him. They knew, on some level, that it was all absurd—and they followed him anyway, because the myth answered needs that their conscious minds could not acknowledge.

The case of Italy was similar. And we must recognize that there is a world-wide fascist tendency—not confined to Germany or Italy, but arising wherever the old liberal order has visibly failed.

But if we are to defeat Hitler with more than military force, we must understand what was wrong with the civilization he rejected. And here we must be honest: there has been insincerity throughout.

In theory, liberal civilization promised universal happiness through laissez-faire economics, genuine internationalism, the rule of reason, free speech, and human brotherhood. A beautiful vision.

In practice, it delivered slums, mass unemployment, and grotesque inequality. It produced nationalism and imperialism, not internationalism. It reduced human beings to "economic man" and sanctioned exploitation. Its individualism was unchecked by any genuine sense of community.

Three things, in summary, characterized our civilization: nationalism masquerading as internationalism, commercial exploitation masquerading as freedom, and materialism masquerading as progress. Hitler saw through the pretense. His answer was monstrous—but the pretense was real.

How then shall we meet Hitler's challenge? Military resistance is essential, but it is not enough. You cannot defeat an idea with guns alone.

The strength of Nazism is that it is an idea—a myth that speaks to deep human needs. We must answer it with a better idea: something positive to fight for, not merely something to fight against. We need a vision of a new order in Europe and the world, a new cultural ideal.

This cannot be simply a return to liberal individualism—that is discredited. Nor can it be Nazism. It must be a genuine new synthesis: one that preserves what was valuable in liberalism while addressing its failures, one that acknowledges human depth without surrendering to barbarism.

Let me try to sketch the large movements of culture that have brought us here.

Liberal Democracy retained Christian moral language—brotherhood, freedom, individual fulfillment—but without any genuine sanction. In practice it produced keyed selfishnesses and "economic man."

Socialism tried to correct this by stressing community while keeping liberal values and Christian brotherhood. A noble attempt, but incomplete.

Marxian Communism accepted economic man as the basis of analysis, disparaged the individual, and exalted society. It claimed morality was solely socially conditioned, yet somehow tried to keep Christian values—an impossible combination.

Italian Fascism at least denied economic man, demanding self-abnegation in service of the State.

Nazism went further: it denied not only economic man but love itself. Its appeal is neurotic, emphasizing virility and ruthlessness. It offers pseudo-mysticism and an amoral morality where "right" simply means "what serves the race."

A new synthesis is needed—one that has yet to be born.

The world beyond Hitler—if there is to be one—must address three interconnected problems: first, the establishment of a supra-national order through federalism; second, the achievement of social harmony through creative planning; third, the clarification of fundamental values.

What are the aims of federation? To prevent war, certainly. But more than that: to redirect human energy from armaments toward genuine prosperity and the fulfillment of human capacity. To create, for the first time in history, an instrument for world-planning.

Consider the causes of war: the armed independence of national states, each a law unto itself; economic imperialism and rivalry for markets; and beneath both, tribalistic passion—the primitive loyalty to one's own group against all others. Federalism must address all three.

First, federalism abolishes armed nationalism by creating supra-national institutions: a government above nations, a police force that enforces international law, a common citizenship, and a legal framework that supersedes national sovereignty in matters of war and peace.

Second, federalism might abolish economic imperialism—but let us be clear: if it does not abolish economic imperialism, federalism will not work. The competitive scramble for resources and markets will tear apart any merely political union.

Third, federalism can educate humanity out of tribalism. It is based on and fosters a will for intertribal cooperation and supra-tribal loyalty. People must come to feel themselves citizens of a larger whole, not merely members of a tribe temporarily in alliance.

What machinery would federalism require? It must be based on like-mindedness about fundamental social aims—without that, any union will be fragile. There would be a dual vote: citizens voting for both national and federal representatives. A hierarchy of governments, from local through national to federal. Common citizenship, so that a French person in Germany or an American in Britain is not a foreigner.

Federal control would extend to foreign policy, armaments, currency, and economic organization. Whether it should extend to law, justice, and education is debatable—these touch on deep cultural differences.

What federations are possible? We might begin with the English-speaking peoples: the USA, Britain, and the Dominions. We might federate Europe—a dream that seems distant now but may not always be so. We might unite the democracies of the world. And ultimately, we must aim at the Federation of Man—humanity as one political community.

There is a debate between federal purists, who believe that ending war will make everything else fall into place, and socialists, who insist we must achieve socialism first because capitalist states are essentially cannibals who will devour any federation from within. Both are partly right.

The solution, I believe, is that any federal government must have genuine economic control—the power to prevent autarky and economic imperialism, to coordinate resources for the common good.

Positive planning is essential—planning for plenty, for human welfare. Stalin and Hitler, for all their horrors, have taught us that planning is possible. Consider the difference between a sponge and a mammal: the sponge has no central coordination, each cell fending for itself; the mammal has integrated systems serving the whole organism. World economic organization is now vital if humanity is to function as anything more than a sponge.

But there is real danger here: the robot world, the dictatorship of planners. Nazism has grasped the need for planning but lost sight of the goal—human fulfillment. The democracies retain rudiments of the goal but dare not plan creatively, hampered by an effete ruling class wedded to the old disorder.

We need a new democratic ideal and theory. The aim must be to make the most of individuals—not as mere economic units, but as knowers, feelers, and strivers. This requires equality of opportunity, equality of freedom, and equality of sacrifice.

We accept the duty of sacrifice—but only when it is genuinely needed, and only when we can trust the goal. Human beings need to feel the call to sacrifice; this is something Nazism understood and liberalism forgot. But our sacrifice must be voluntary, open-eyed, and occasional—not imposed, blind, and perpetual.

Here is a paradox: if our rulers manifestly care for our freedom, we will willingly sacrifice our freedom at their bidding when crisis demands. Trust is the key.

And what is "the good" we are aiming at? I suggest this definition: the good is what the developed mind cannot help but desire when it knows the facts and is not perverted by circumstance. And what does such a mind desire? The fulfillment of individual human capacity—in knowing, feeling, and creating.

We need to rediscover what "the good" means. Various traditions offer different answers. The Catholics say the Church interprets God's will. The Puritans say individual conscience is the guide. The scientists, in their official capacity, disclaim morality altogether—or reduce it to the greatest pleasure.

The liberals inherited a vague Christian morality without sanction. The socialists declare that community is good—social welfare the highest value. The Communists say "the good" is what furthers social evolution toward the classless society. The Nazis say "the good" is whatever serves the Herrenvolk, the master race.

What comes next? We need a new understanding of the good—one that combines the best insights of these traditions while avoiding their errors. One that is genuinely rational, genuinely social, and genuinely humane.

Who can take us into the promised land? Not our present leaders—they are tied up with the old order. Some, like Churchill, may serve a temporary purpose in this crisis, but they cannot build the new world. Not the old-school-tie financial class, whose interests are wedded to the past. Not the proletariat alone, who lack the technical knowledge. Not the intellectuals, who theorize but cannot act.

I believe the "middle class" must lead—but I mean a broad middle class that includes the technicians: engineers, airmen, mechanics, artisans. The applied scientists. The teachers. The ordinary people who keep society functioning.

But they are slow to wake. A few sensitive souls have awakened, but the mass still cling to the old world, hoping somehow it will return. Circumstances are not yet ripe for the great awakening of the middle class. I fear that only suffering will wake them—suffering on a scale we have not yet experienced.

Consider the dominant mode of thought in the inter-war period—the years between 1918 and 1939. We assumed "economic man": that people are fundamentally motivated by material self-interest, that utilitarianism and "self-fulfillment" are sufficient guides to life. We made constant appeal to "reason"—as if human beings were rational calculating machines.

Beneath the surface, there was deep amorality, covered by the threadbare cloak of liberal Christianity. Emotion was suppressed, denied, forced underground. And in politics, this led inevitably to the appeasement policies—the belief that if we only gave Hitler enough, he would become reasonable and be satisfied.

We were wrong. The suppressed emotion erupted in the fascist movements. The denied depths of human nature found monstrous expression. We must learn from this.

What was it that I missed when I failed to foresee Hitler? Not an individual but a movement: a widespread revulsion from civilization itself, from reason, from love—at least in the popular mind—and from the insincere internationalism of the post-war order.

What we have witnessed is an eruption from the subconscious: irrationalism, self-abnegation, a return to primitive values. It is, in psychological terms, a neurotic regression to infantilism—what happens when a personality (or a civilization) fails at the adult level and retreats to earlier, more primitive modes of functioning.

What comes next? Either deeper regression—a descent into barbarism from which recovery may take centuries—or the recovery of adult mentality, the achievement of a genuine new synthesis that addresses the failures of liberalism without surrendering to the darkness.

This war ends an age and begins a new one. What that new age will be depends on whether we can muster the wisdom and courage to grow up.