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One of the great fallacies of our time is that the Nazis rose to power because they imposed order on chaos. Precisely the opposite is true - they were successful because they imposed chaos on order. They tore up the commandments, they denied the super-ego, what you will. They said, "You may persecute the minority, you may kill, you may torture, you may couple and breed without love." They offered humanity all its great temptations. Nothing is true, everything is permitted.
John Fowles
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Interpretation

What this quote means

The Nazis gained power not by providing order, but by creating chaos and rejecting moral constraints.

In this quote, John Fowles argues that the rise of the Nazis can be attributed to their ability to manipulate societal norms and offer people the allure of unchecked desires and moral ambiguity. By discarding established moral commandments and promoting chaos, they empowered individuals to act on their basest instincts, which contributed to their success and the tragic events that followed. This insight provokes reflection on the dangers of abandoning ethical standards and the seductive pull of extremist ideologies.

Themes

NazisChaosOrderMoralityTemptationPower

In practice

Example use cases

In a history lecture discussing the dangers of totalitarian regimes.

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The bowed head, the buried face. She is silent, she will never speak, never forgive, never reach a hand, never leave this frozen present tense. All waits, suspended. Suspended the autumn trees, the autumn sky, anonymous people. A blackbird, poor fool, sings out of season from the willows by the lake. A flight of pigeons over the houses; fragments of freedom, hazard, an anagram made flesh. And somewhere the stinging smell of burning leaves.
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It came to me…that I didn’t want to be anywhere else in the world at that moment, that what I was feeling at that moment justified all I had been through, because all I had been through was my being there. I was experiencing…a new self-acceptance, a sense that I had to be this mind and this body, its vices and its virtues, and that I had no other chance or choice.
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