The youth: "I tell you, it'll all be over by Christmas. There's obviously going to be a compromise peace. I'm pinning my faith to Sir Samuel Hoare. It's degrading company to be in, I admit, but still Hoare is on our side. So long as Hoare's in Madrid, there's always hope of a sell-out."
Orwell: "What about all those preparations that they're making against invasion -- the pill boxes that they're building everywhere, the Local Defense Volunteers and so forth?"
The youth: "Oh, that merely means they're getting ready to crush the working class when the Germans get here. I suppose some of them might be fools enough to try to resist, but Churchill and the Germans between them won't take long to settle them. Don't worry, it'll soon be over."
Orwell: "Do you really want to see your children grow up Nazis?"
The youth: "Nonsense! You don't suppose the Germans are going to encourage Fascism in this country, do you? They don't want to breed up a race of warriors to fight against them. Their object will be to turn us into slaves. That's why I'm a pacifist. They'll encourage people like me."
Orwell: "And shoot people like me?"
The youth: "That would be just too bad."
Orwell: "But why are you so anxious to remain alive?"
The youth: "So that I can get on with my work, of course."
It had come out in the conversation that the youth was a painter -- whether good or bad I do not know; but at any rate, sincerely interested in painting and quite ready to face poverty in pursuit of it. As a painter, he would probably have been somewhat better off under a German occupation than a writer or journalist would be. But still, what he said contained a very dangerous fallacy, now very widespread in the countries where totalitarianism has not actually established itself.
The fallacy is to believe that under a dictatorial government you can be free inside. Quite a number of people console themselves with this thought, now that totalitarianism in one form or another is visibly on the up-grade in every part of the world. Out in the street the loudspeakers bellow, the flags flutter from the rooftops, the police with their tommy-guns prowl to and fro, the face of the Leader, four feet wide, glares from every hoarding; but up in the attics the secret enemies of the regime can record their thoughts in perfect freedom -- that is the idea, more or less. And many people are under the impression that this is going on now in Germany and other dictatorial countries.
Why is this idea false? I pass over the fact that modern
dictatorships don't, in fact, leave the loopholes that the old-fashioned
despotisms did; and also the probable weakening of the desire for intellectual
liberty owing to totalitarian methods of education. The greatest mistake
is to imagine that the human being is an autonomous individual. The secret
freedom which you can supposedly enjoy under a despotic government is nonsense,
because your thoughts are never entirely your own. Philosophers, writers,
artists, even scientists, not only need encouragement and an audience,
they need constant stimulation from other people. It is almost impossible
to think without talking. If Defoe had really lived on a desert island,
he could not have written Robinson Crusoe, nor would he have wanted
to. Take away freedom of speech, and the creative faculties dry up. Had
the Germans really got to England my acquaintance of the Cafe Royal would
soon have found his painting deteriorating, even if the Gestapo had let
him alone. And when the lid is taken off Europe, I believe one of the things
that will surprise us will be to find how little worthwhile writing of
any kind -- even such things as diaries, for instance -- has been produced
in secret under the dictators.