Here’s an interesting piece on him, as one of the fathers of modern American liberalism:
Wells’s “Samurai,” an updated version of the New Republicans, would keep track of their charges through a centralized thumbprint index of all the earth’s inhabitants. Latter-day Puritans in everything except sex, the Samurai would lead lives of irreproachable rectitude, abjuring tobacco, alcohol, trade, and games, which they could neither join nor watch. These elect, “the clean and straight” men and women capable “of self-devotion, of intentional courage, of honest thought, and steady endeavour,” would rule in the name of the new godhead: Progress through Science. As Wells would later put it, science was to be “king of the world.”
“Everything except sex.” Gee, there’s sort of a pattern here.
He, of course, coined the phrase “liberal fascism.” He knew the score, even if modern “liberals” are ignorant of their own intellectual history.
Great call on putting the quote marks around “liberals”.
People who are enslaved by their desires (i.e., think “freedom to explore their sexuality” is the most important thing ever) are too busy chasing the next bed partner (or just sitting around obsessing about their lack of same) to worry about anything else.
I am not!
Er, um, never mind.
Er…. have you ever actually read any of Well’s essays for yourself?
Or is it easier to blog references to stuff you haven’t read these days?
You know, Rand, I understand what you mean, but I’m going to disagree with you here. Wells was profoundly different from the New Left, for the very important reason that fascism had not yet been tried and found so terribly wanting, to tragically malignant, a cure far worse than the diseases — and they were real — of the late 19th century it was supposed to cure.
I think it very likely that if most of us, even here at TT, were put in Wells’ shoes, observed the immense energies of the later stages of industrialism, and observing with dismay and horror how often they seemed perverted, served to only make the rich still richer, reduce those with small hope to none at all, how they seemed to hold such immense promise but be used in retrospect foolishly, or in service of bad ends, I think most of us would feel very similarly.
How could we not? The premises of liberal fascism are very persuasive, strictly from the logical point of view. To rationalize the decisions of society, to have decisions made by the best and the brightest, with a sense of empathy and justice — how can it not sound simple, wise, good?
I think it’s only hard and bitter experience that teaches us that this is a vain and dangerous hope. That to long for the sure guidance and apparent consensus of the family in charge of a wise and affectionate father is to fail to grow up ourselves, and, if we persevere, to turn our fortunes over to deeply cynical con men, who will play on our fears and wishes to aggrandize their own power worse than any robber baron ever could.
I think many men reach that understanding privately by middle age, although self-evidently many do not, but objective evidence for the entire world to see was lacking, or at least not widely known, in the 1920s. It took the horror of 1930s Germany, or 1950s and 60s East Germany, or the stagnation and malaise of Britain and the US in the 70s, or the giant totalitarian slave camp of Stalin’s USSR or Mao’s China for the evidence to become so brutally apparent that only fools or the young and ignorant could ignore it.
Wells strikes me as the guy selling stock in a company that is an empty shell — but he doesn’t know that yet. The front office looks great, the secretaries are bombshells, everyone in the board room seems competent. The hapless salesman really believes the firm is sound and the product real.
That makes him different from the New Left. Those are people who have the evidence, but choose to ignore or obfuscate it. They are selling stock in a company that has already proved to be a giant Ponzi scheme — they’re just trying to find the right combination of slick new advertising and sufficiently naive audience to sell their wares anyway.
DaveOn, you’re being obtuse. No one needs to have personally read every imaginable original source material to have an informed opinion. Perhaps reading Wells’s essays gives some great insight into his personality or opinions that his actions doesn’t. If so, why don’t you lay it out, instead of sneeringly implying that it does, that Rand is misinformed, without taking the trouble to say exactly why.
Sex? Not surprising coming from H.G. IIRC he was an advocate and practitioner of free love.
Er…. have you ever actually read any of Well’s essays for yourself?
There is little, if any, of Wells’ writings that I have not read.
Sex? Not surprising coming from H.G. IIRC he was an advocate and practitioner of free love.
To some extent yes, but he was also a thinker, and very devoted to the scientific method. Todays liberals are feelers. For them, what feels right is what matters. If the evidence doesn’t support what feels right, the evidence must be distracted from, or triangulated.
The premises of liberal fascism ties back to the old saw of “what the world really needs is a benevolent dictator”. Communists saw the people as draft animals to be harnessed together to pull in selfless unison toward the glorious goal, with the reigns all leeding to one enlightened iron first. Liberals see common people as things to be disciplined and trained into correct thoughts and attitudes, to create their vision of “what America could become”. Religions see people as primitive evil animals only capable of doing right if lead by the fear of retribution of a powerfull all seeing god.
Freedom (in the second or third person) is not a popular concept. Its ironic that the universe seems to favor it as the most effective way toward progress.
I knew a bit about Wells personal and public life adn attitudes, but I liked Wells a lot better before I read this article.
Carl Pham Says:
May 26th, 2009 at 10:58 pm
“Wells was profoundly different from the New Left, for the very important reason that fascism had not yet been tried and found so terribly wanting”
As the left today likes to pretend that fascism still hasn’t been tried or at the very least done correctly (right wingers keep screwing it up).
There is little, if any, of Wells’ writings that I have not read.
Really?
Wow.
I haven’t red much beyond the basic SF classics. Pray, DaveOn: enlighten us. Was Wells NOT a complete State-shtupper? Did he NOT coin the term “liberal fascism”? Was he actually a libertarian who has been unfairly characterized as one of the 20th Century’s biggest State groupies? Inquiring minds want to know.
Carl Pham,
I disagree that fascism (in the rule by merit sense you say Wells championed) had not been tried. It has been tried repeatedly, since antiquity. Consider the Persian Empire. Consider the many Grecian tyrants. Consider Alexander. Consider the Roman Empire. Consider the mandarians. Consider the many caliphates. All embraced rule by merit at one time or another. And – this is important – don’t be overawed by their greatness and the length of their rule. Instead consider how completely repressive and murderous they were. Power worship of wise rulers is as old as civilization itself.
I’d say it was more a case where people thought, ‘Sure, but this time we’ll get it right.’
Yours,
Tom DeGisi, aka Wince and Nod
One of the hardest things for an intellectual to do is understand the limits of the intellect. Or separate intelligence and leadership.
Wells was a smart guy. I don’t fault him for that common failing. Without Hayek’s help and an unusual upbringing, I’d still think the world would be a better place if I was King.
Tom, it’s not just rule by merit. it’s scientific rule. The socialists were very big on scientific planning and rule. So nothing before the Enlightenment counts. Now, I grant you, not a lot of the planning the fascists did turned out to be scientific, with some interesting exceptions, e.g. in Germany in particular in the 30s and 40s. But in principle that’s what they meant. Lots of experiment, a ruthless rejection of unproved hypotheses, a cold and analytical sorting of what works from what doesn’t, backed up by the most rigorous math. You’ll note this ring of “science” that still clings to their fantasies today.
Ironic indeed, is it not, that they can only cling to those fantasies by resolutely ignoring the most potent and important evidence of all, the history of the Western World in the 20th century.
Wow. Carl Pham and I are largely in agreement this time. Like some of us I have seen the folly and error of even the best and brightest. Given the fact that I am a member of both Mensa and the Triple Nine Society, I get far more opportunities to see that than normal people. Good grief — all I have to do is see the mistakes I have made in things that I am really good at to, shall we say, take with a grain of salt the pronouncements of the “best and brightest.” Perhaps that’s why I take such a democratic view of the world.
I would extend Mr. Pham’s point in that in addition to the historical record, there is also the experience of the Computer Science field with complex systems which (IMHO) illuminates the historical experience. This is also different in that we have never before consciously worked with such complex systems because that complexity could be hidden in vague instructions to humans. Using computers made the complexity explicit and we know far more about the reasons for the failures of central planning than we did back in Wells’ day.
Read the “World of Things to Come” for a full flavor of said vision.
This is very information article. I must say there are plenty of examples where these social structures appear to some degree: environmentalism, most forms of socialism ,psychiatry in the early years. Even some packages that aren’t traditionally considered liberal.