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time-worn instrumentalities of coercion. But now he has in his handsinstruments of positive propaganda such as the world has neverknown—the radio, the moving-picture projector, and the school.After all, the school, which commands the attendance of all youthat the public expense, is something comparatively new. And therethe dictator can take possession of the minds of the oncoming generation.This is the explanation of Hitler's war not so much upon religionas upon the churches, particularly the Catholic Church. He willendure no competition in the business of indoctrinating the mindsof the youth. And this also is the explanation of the cult of adventureand romanticism, the cult of Greatness. For since the dictator,having promised the good life and universal freedom from wantand the new kind of freedom implied in this and being forced toexact from his people the most intensive and endless sacrifices, hasto hold up before their eyes, particularly the eyes of youth, greatsuper-objectives, glamorous programs of national conquests—conquestsof wealth or power or safety—that will distract the mindfrom the irritations of his system and provide an aim, some grandpurpose, some heroic pursuit adequate to the sacrifices demanded.Thus the program which was to give jobs to the unemployed, to putfood into the mouths of the poor, provide education and nourishmentfor all the young, and a niche somewhere in security fromwant for the old becomes after a while a program in which all,young and old, rich and poor, capitalist and worker, are pouringout their energies and their very lives to achieve the Time forGreatness.X · Good Fascists and Bad FascistsWE ARE NOW PREPARED to examine some of the forces that areat work here, some of the streams of thought and desires that runin our own society, and to appraise them in the light of what wehave seen in Italy and Germany. Before we do this, however, it is160