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We in England underrate the danger of this kind of thing, because our traditions and our past security have given us a sentimental belief that it all comes right in the end and the thing you most fear never really happens. Nourished for hundreds of years on a literature in which Right invariably triumphs in the last chapter, we believe half-instinctively that evil always defeats itself in the long run. Pacifism, for instance, is founded largely on this belief. Don't resist evil, and it will somehow destroy itself. But why should it? What evidence is there that it does? And what instance is there of a modern industrialized state collapsing unless conquered from the outside by military force?

George Orwell#86

PoliticsWarSocietyDangerBeliefSecurity

About this quote

What does it mean?
English culture fostered a dangerous belief that good always wins, leading to complacency about threats.
In plain terms
People in England think things will work out so they ignore real dangers.
What can you take from it?
Optimism without evidence can be dangerous.

Where it applies

  • policy making
  • strategic planning
  • education

Putting it to work

  • challenge optimistic assumptions
  • prepare for worst cases
  • evaluate threats realistically

Questions to consider

  • What false sense of security do you hold?
  • When does optimism become denial?

Another view

Sometimes things do work out without direct resistance.

More from George Orwell

  1. But is it perhaps childish or morbid to terrify oneself with visions of a totalitarian future? Before writing off the totalitarian world as a nightmare that ca…

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  2. Consider for instance the re-institution of slavery. Who could have imagined twenty years ago that slavery would return to Europe? Well, slavery has been resto…

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  3. I know it is the fashion to say that most of recorded history is lies anyway. I am willing to believe that history is for the most part inaccurate and biased, …

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