Mobs, Messiahs, and Markets

Two Kinds of World Improvers

Can you really improve the world by telling it what to do? Or does it have to follow its own course to its own destination in its own good time?

We saw the two approaches to world improvement standing almost side by side one weekend in early 2005. The one on the silver screen wore a Nazi uniform. The other, in rural Normandy, wore the simple frock of a priest.

“I have devoted my entire life to making the world a better place,” said Adolf Hitler, or words to that effect.

“But, mein Führer,” explained one of his generals, “Berlin is nearly surrounded. We have no more ammunition. We must try to negotiate.”

“You, too? I am surrounded by incompetents and traitors,” came the reply. “We can never surrender. I'd rather put a bullet into my head. We have done all we could, so far. We must go all the way—to the end, if that is what is coming.”

“But, mein Führer, think of the suffering of the German people.”

“You want me to have compassion? My work was too important to let compassion or any personal motives interfere. So, don't expect me to be compassionate now. And besides, the German people deserve to die, too; they let me down. They aren't worthy of the great new world we were offering them.”

It was on a Friday evening that we went to see the new German film, Downfall. It was everything that Alexander the Great was not. While Alexander was made to look absurd and laughable, Adolf Hitler looked very real—and pathetic. In Downfall, we see the Thousand‐Year Reich ...