En este artículo, Orwell da cera a Wells por razones fundamentalmente de política internacional. Wells sería culpable de usar su influencia pública para extender unas ideas de puro wishful thinking sobre el desarrollo de la guerra, como que Alemania la tendría prácticamente perdida y solo haría falta envalentonarse y atacar (¡1941!). Según Orwell, a Wells le ciegan sus ideas tanto sobre el progreso cientificista -por el cual, una victoria de la barbarie nazi sería una retrogresión absurda- como sobre la consecución de un gobierno mundial -ídem-.
Orwell hace entonces una reflexión al más puro estilo "Tú antes molabas, tío". Quizá es más probable que Wells siguiera siendo el mismo y fuese Orwell quien cambiara al pasar de joven a adulto. Orwell hace una valoración más que encomiástica de la importancia de Wells... del Wells visto a través de los ojos de su yo de juventud, claro, no del que ve su yo adulto.
George Orwell (1941). Wells, Hitler and the World State. Horizon, Vol. IV, no. 20, 133-138.
In novels, Utopias, essays, films, pamphlets, the antithesis crops up, always more or less the same. On the one side science, order, progress, internationalism, aeroplanes, steel, concrete, hygiene: on the other side war, nationalism, religion, monarchy, peasants, Greek professors, poets, horses. History as he sees it is a series of victories won by the scientific man over the romantic man. Now, he is probably right in assuming that a ‘reasonable,’ planned form of society, with scientists rather than witch-doctors in control, will prevail sooner or later, but that is a different matter from assuming that it is just round the corner ... The same misconception reappears in an inverted form in Wells's attitude to the Nazis. Hitler is all the war-lords and witch-doctors in history rolled into one. Therefore, argues Wells, he is an absurdity, a ghost from the past, a creature doomed to disappear almost immediately.
But is it not a sort of parricide for a person of my age (thirty-eight) to find fault with H.G. Wells? Thinking people who were born about the beginning of this century are in some sense Wells's own creation. How much influence any mere writer has, and especially a ‘popular’ writer whose work takes effect quickly, is questionable, but I doubt whether anyone who was writing books between 1900 and 1920, at any rate in the English language, influenced the young so much. The minds of all of us, and therefore the physical world, would be perceptibly different if Wells had never existed
A decade or so before aeroplanes were technically feasible Wells knew that within a little while men would be able to fly. He knew that because he himself wanted to be able to fly, and therefore felt sure that research in that direction would continue. On the other hand, even when I was a little boy, at a time when the Wright brothers had actually lifted their machine off the ground for fifty-nine seconds, the generally accepted opinion was that if God had meant us to fly He would have given us wings. Up to 1914 Wells was in the main a true prophet. In physical details his vision of the new world has been fulfilled to a surprising extent.
Si a alguien le emociona especialmente leer el original escaneado, aquí lo tiene. En él verá que el primer párrafo del artículo en realidad forma parte de la cita de Wells, pese a que la tipografía de la versión enlazada más arriba sugiera lo contrario.
Y ya que ha salido el tema del gobierno mundial, quizá haya alguien interesado en A modern utopia (1905), un híbrido de ficción y exposición filosófica en que Wells expone en detalle por primera vez la organización de un estado mundial.
Herbert G. Wells (2004). A modern utopia. Pennsylvania State University, State College.
Existe un obituario de Wells escrito por Orwell, pero no he sido capaz de encontrar una versión gratuita, ni suya ni de un artículo de Patrick Parrinder que lo comenta. Si alguien lo tiene, que no se corte :)
Y lo último último: otro artículo interesante de Orwell sobre la bomba atómica (1945).
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