If you’re looking for a George Orwell essay that is frighteningly relevant to our times, may I suggest No, Not One his review of No Such Liberty by Alex Comfort. This essay was written in 1941 and I think brilliantly illustrates that if you’re not resisting fascism, then you are enabling it.
Some quotes I found interesting
“Since pacifists have more freedom of action in countries where traces of democracy survive, pacifism can act more effectively against democracy than for it. Objectively the pacifist is pro-Nazi”
“If one clings too closely to the “those who fight against Fascism become Fascist themselves” formula, one is simply led into falsification”
“He wants to get on with his work, wants to be out of reach of Nazi tyranny and regimentation, but he will not act against the Nazis in any other way than by running away from them.”
“The notion that you can somehow defeat violence by submitting to it is simply a flight from fact… it is only possible to people who have money and guns between themselves and reality.”
“Because, rightly hating violence, they do not wish to recognise that it is integral to modern society and that their own fine feelings and noble attitudes are all the fruit of injustice backed up by force. Underneath this lies the hard fact, so difficult for many people to face, that individual salvation is not possible, that the choice before human beings is not, as a rule, between good and evil but between two evils. You can let the Nazis rule the world; that is evil; or you can overthrow them by war, which is also evil. There is no other choice before you, and whichever you choose you will not come out with clean hands… We only have the choice of choosing the lesser evil and of working for the establishment of a new kind of society in which common decency will again be possible. There is no such thing as neutrality in this war.”
