And having
started in that mood you cannot stop. A real danger exists. To meet it
you have to invoke more absolute principles in order to defend what is
open to attack. Then you have to defend the defenses, erect buffers,
and buffers for the buffers, until the whole affair is so scrambled
that it seems less dangerous to fight than to keep on talking.
There are certain clues which often help in detecting the false
absolutism of a stereotype. In the case of the Ruritanian propaganda
the principles blanketed each other so rapidly that one could readily
see how the argument had been constructed. The series of
contradictions showed that for each sector that stereotype was
employed which would obliterate all the facts that interfered with the
claim. Contradiction of this sort is often a good clue.
2
Inability to take account of space is another. In the spring of 1918,
for example, large numbers of people, appalled by the withdrawal of
Russia, demanded the "reestablishment of an Eastern Front." The war,
as they had conceived it, was on two fronts, and when one of them
disappeared there was an instant demand that it be recreated. The
unemployed Japanese army was to man the front, substituting for the
Russian. But there was one insuperable obstacle. Between Vladivostok
and the eastern battleline there were five thousand miles of country,
spanned by one broken down railway.
Pages:
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140
141
142
143
144
145
146