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My wording was unclear by positioning it as "the appeal" as opposed to "one of the appeals". Hitler promised a lot of different things to a lot of different pe

My wording was unclear by positioning it as "the appeal" as opposed to "one of the appeals". Hitler promised a lot of different things to a lot of different people. The Nazi party was extremely cynical in its application of promises and even ideology. One of the the most interesting and disturbing pieces of Nazi propaganda was a poster of a banker and a communist holding hands, with the caption, "Marxism is the guardian angel of capitalism." An absurd and nonsensical statement, it was instead appealing to a particular segment of German society's emotional rejection of both the banks and communist movements. What Orwell is referring to is not the totality of Nazi appeal, because they positions themselves to have many, often conflicting with each other, but one particular appeal to a certain segment of society.

watwut 9y ago
> What Orwell is referring to is not the totality of Nazi appeal, because they positions themselves to have many, often conflicting with each other, but one particular appeal to a certain segment of society. What I want to say is that the amount of people who were throwing away comfort, safety and short working-hours in exchange of struggle was smaller then the quote implies. Their choice dont speak for humanity. German history does not give us reason to worry that alienation from having too good life leads to such catastrophe. Struggle seeking segments of society had their own reasons to accept that deal and it was not that their all basic needs were well met. It was not collective identity crisis due to all problems being solved. A lot them were hurt, scared, damaged by WWI experiences, used to violence and inside country that was breaking down. They did not believed the comfort can be gained unless Germany gets to power again and destroys enemies. And the wish for militaristic values did not came out of nowhere either - the boys were raised to be that way. There was a lot of social status to be gained by being in military plus guaranteed state employment (and whole state institutions being all ex-soldiers).

watwut 9y ago

> What Orwell is referring to is not the totality of Nazi appeal, because they positions themselves to have many, often conflicting with each other, but one particular appeal to a certain segment of society. What I want to say is that the amount of people who were throwing away comfort, safety and short working-hours in exchange of struggle was smaller then the quote implies. Their choice dont speak for humanity. German history does not give us reason to worry that alienation from having too good life leads to such catastrophe. Struggle seeking segments of society had their own reasons to accept that deal and it was not that their all basic needs were well met. It was not collective identity crisis due to all problems being solved. A lot them were hurt, scared, damaged by WWI experiences, used to violence and inside country that was breaking down. They did not believed the comfort can be gained unless Germany gets to power again and destroys enemies. And the wish for militaristic values did not came out of nowhere either - the boys were raised to be that way. There was a lot of social status to be gained by being in military plus guaranteed state employment (and whole state institutions being all ex-soldiers).