I'm wondering if Wells' belief in the world state, combined with his racist views, did predict Nazism. A lot of these regimes start out as utopias - they purport that the world will become much better once certain groups of people are eradicated, and this eradication is necessary for the establishment of the new world order. Wells even makes a comment in that passage from Anticipations about how the so-called "inferior races" will "have to go", "die out and disappear," and that's what the Nazi regime attempted to do.
Wells' subsequent dismay at the carnage the Nazis created fails to understand that that's how these types of regimes always go: they start out utopian, they create horrific violence, and then they collapse under their own weight. A non-plural long view, as you write, has this as its natural end, because the establishment of one singular world-view always requires the destruction of other ones to ratify its supremacy. Wells' envisioned utopian future did emerge, but it wasn't what he thought it would look like.
I'll drop in a video here from Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, about "The danger of a single story," which you might be interested in. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D9Ihs241zeg
I'm wondering if Wells' belief in the world state, combined with his racist views, did predict Nazism. A lot of these regimes start out as utopias - they purport that the world will become much better once certain groups of people are eradicated, and this eradication is necessary for the establishment of the new world order. Wells even makes a comment in that passage from Anticipations about how the so-called "inferior races" will "have to go", "die out and disappear," and that's what the Nazi regime attempted to do.
Wells' subsequent dismay at the carnage the Nazis created fails to understand that that's how these types of regimes always go: they start out utopian, they create horrific violence, and then they collapse under their own weight. A non-plural long view, as you write, has this as its natural end, because the establishment of one singular world-view always requires the destruction of other ones to ratify its supremacy. Wells' envisioned utopian future did emerge, but it wasn't what he thought it would look like.
I'll drop in a video here from Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, about "The danger of a single story," which you might be interested in. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D9Ihs241zeg
Yes, I see your point, there's something to that. There's that line about "every utopia needs a gulag for the people who didn't agree"... I think it was Milan Kundera but I may be wrong! https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/172616-totalitarianism-is-not-only-hell-but-all-the-dream-of
That's a great quote, thanks for sharing it!