They Thought They Were Free... by Milton Mayer "What no one seemed to notice, ... was the ever widening gap ... between the government and the people. ... And it became always wider. ... the whole process of its coming into being, was above all diverting, it provided an excuse not to think for people who did not want to think anyway ... "

This article sponsored by:

Create Memories for Profit!
The most emotionally evocative and customer-pleasing businesses -- less than $100.

What no one seemed to notice, ... was the ever widening gap ... between the government and the people. ... And it became always wider. ... the whole process of its coming into being, was above all diverting, it provided an excuse not to think for people who did not want to think anyway ...

They gave us some dreadful, fundamental things to think about ... and kept us so busy with continuous changes and 'crises' and so fascinated ... by the machinations of the 'national enemies,' without and within, that we had no time to think about these dreadful things that were growing, little by little, all around us. ... Each step was so small, so inconsequential, so well explained or, on occasion, 'regretted,' that unless one understood what the whole thing was in principle, what all these 'little measures' ... must some day lead to, one no more saw it developing from day to day than a farmer in his field sees the corn growing. ... Each act ... is worse than the last, but only a little worse. You wait for the next and the next. You wait for one great shocking occasion, thinking that others, when such a shock comes, will join you in resisting somehow. You don't want to act, or even talk, alone... you don't want to 'go out of your way to make trouble.' ... And it is not just fear ... that restrains you, it is also genuine uncertainty. ... And you are an alarmist. You are saying that this must lead to this, and you can't prove it. ... But the one great shocking occasion, when tens or hundreds or thousands will join with you, never comes. That's the difficulty. The forms are all there, all untouched, all reassuring, the houses, the shops, the jobs, the mealtimes, the visits, the concerts, the cinema, the holidays. But the spirit, which you never noticed because you made the lifelong mistake of identifying it with the forms, is changed. Now you live in a world of hate and fear, and the people who hate and fear do not even know it themselves, when everyone is transformed, no one is transformed. ... You have accepted things you would not have accepted five years ago, a year ago, things your father ... could never have imagined."

-- Milton Mayer, "They Thought They Were Free, The Germans, 1938-45"

(1955, University of Chicago Press)

	Link to this article from your website.			Send this article to a friend.
	View a printable version of this article.			Subscribe to our free e-mail announcement list
Search for more articles about

Rate this article:
(terrible)
(poor)
(average)
(good)
(excellent!)

Truth

"Timothy, guard what has been entrusted to your care. Turn away from godless chatter and the opposing ideas of what is falsely called knowledge."- Paul, I Timothy 6:20.

New Scofield Reference Note to I Timothy 6:20
Permission for use granted by Oxford University Press.

Truth cannot contradict the Bible, since God, who knows all things, kept the writers of the Bible from error.

If theories that rest upon mere speculation or insufficient evidence are presented as fact, in any area of knowledge, e.g. in religion, philosophy, science, etc., they deserve the description that the apostle gives here: "what is falsely called knowledge," from which they are to "turn away". - Note to I Timothy 6:20, They Holy Bible, New Scofield Study System NIV, 1984 Edition, C.I. Scofield, Oxford University Press.

Genesis 1:11-13

Then God said, "Let the land produce vegetation: seed-bearing plants and trees on the land that bear fruit with seed in it, according to their various kinds." And it was so. The land produced vegetation: plants bearing seed according to their kinds and trees bearing fruit with seed in it according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good. And there was evening, and there was morning--the third day.

I Timothy 4:4 - "For everything God created is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving." - Paul

They Thought They Were Free by Milton Sanford Mayer