Layout 8 - Winston Churchill

Giant Marauders:
Scientific War and Tyranny
Churchill’s “Mass Effects in Modern Life” (1931)
“It would be much better to call a halt in material progress and discovery rather than to be mastered
by our own apparatus and the forces which it directs. There are secrets too mysterious for man in
his present state to know, secrets which, once penetrated, may be fatal to human happiness and
glory. But the busy hands of the scientists are already fumbling with the keys of all the chambers
hitherto forbidden to mankind. Without an equal growth of Mercy, Pity, Peace and Love, Science
herself may destroy all that makes human life majestic and tolerable.” —WSC
L A R R Y P. A R N N
Asubject of high concern to
Churchill, “Mass Effects in
Modern Life” has two aspects:
the importance, influence, and virtue
of the great souls in the human race;
and the importance, influence, and
virtue of ordinary people in the human
race.
Churchill was a democrat all his
life, and there can be no doubt that he
is committed to that to the death. He
says of democracy that it is “the association
of us all in the leadership of the
best.” If you think about that quote, it implies a partnership.
I believe Churchill saw these two groups, the great
and the ordinary, their influence, importance, and
rightful sway, as threatened by the same enemy.
Two further aspects we have spoken of often in this
conference: scientific progress, and the new forms of
tyranny: Communism and Nazism. And Churchill saw
both of the latter, and both alike, as enemies.
In Britain, those who leaned to the left were forgiving
of Stalin. Read the huge treatises by Sidney and
Beatrice Webb describing Soviet Russia in terms that
border on utopian. Those who leaned to the right, by
contrast, were forgiving of Hitler: read the fine book by
David Pryce-Jones on Unity Mitford.
In “The Infernal Twins,” a wonderful article in
Collier’s in 1937, Churchill likened
Nazism and Communism to a pair
of twin religions at opposite ends of
the spectrum:
You leave out God and put in the Devil;
you leave out love and put in hate; and
everything thereafter works quite straightforwardly
and logically. They are, in fact,
as alike as two peas. Tweedledum and
Tweedledee are two quite distinctive personalities
compared to these two rival
religions. I am reminded of the North
Pole and South Pole. They are at opposite
ends of the earth, but if you woke up at either Pole tomorrow
morning you could not tell which one it was. Perhaps there
might be more penguins at one, or more Polar bears at the
other; but all around would be ice and snow and the blast of a
biting wind. I have made up my mind, however far I may
travel, whatever countries I may see, I will not go to the Arctic
or to the Antarctic regions. Give me London, give me Paris,
give me New York, give me some of the beautiful capitals of
the British Dominions. Let us go somewhere where our breath
is not frozen on our lips because of the Secret Police. Let us go
somewhere where there are green pastures and the shade of
venerable trees. Let us not wander away from the broad fertile
fields of freedom into these gaunt, grim, dim, gloomy abstractions
of morbid and sterile thought.
Churchill thinks it a major responsibility of the
British and American governments to confront these two
challenges on a global basis. He favors a structure of >>
Early in his career, Dr. Arnn was chief of research for official biographer Sir Martin Gilbert. As President of Hillsdale College
since 2000, he launched an ambitious financing program (the college accepts no government funds) and the reprinting of Sir
Martin’s official biography. In 2004 he won the Finest Hour Somervell Prize for his article, “Never Despair.”
FINEST HOUR 148 / 53