That’s actually a satisfying answer to the question of why the competing ideologies of that era used the same tactics to achieve the same ends while remaining violently opposed to one another, without seeming to notice how essentially identical they were.
I once saw a comment regarding a political test mentioning that the Authoritarian Left and the Authoritarian Right would actually have a lot in common that they could sit down and talk about.
What I find interesting about the film is that it's a rare example of World War II speculation. It's like what we do now with World War 3 but it's like one of maybe two other pieces of media from the time that I even know about that does that.
Let's also have a moment of respect for Things to Come's set-makers, stage-hands, costumers, and model-makers. They did some hella good-looking futuristic tech with what I assume was mostly wood, cloth, and plaster!
Insightful as always. One of the biggest takeaways is the caution to try to understand how a group sees itself, and the reminder that that's entirely possible to do without adopting that group's views yourself.
I have loved the word grok since the day I came across it in "Stranger in a Strange Land", which, incidentally , is still one of my favorite books of all time. Love your show.
Fiction and slang always give us words to articulate more precisely things that formal and 'proper' language doesn't quite capture. 'Grok', 'Sass', 'Belly-feel', whatever... the closest that real English comes to any of that is the archaic 'Ken', and that's still more intellectual than visceral (not to mention being a dialect word unless you count it as a loan; the status of Scots as either a dialect or a language is still pretty up-in-the-air).
It was almost two books that happened to be sharing the same covers. One of those was absolutely magnificent and the other kind of went in a really weird direction and which I look kind of like one might at a weird uncle whose refrigerator is constantly filled with bizarre types of cheese that he never seems to actually eat. But the weird doesn't detract from the magnificent.
Excellent essay. Wells is truly a man who 'thought about things'. One of my favorite Wells vook is 'The War in the Air". Written around 1908, it's basically 'The Shape of Things to Come' without the hope.
Absolutely fantastically insightful video, it touches brilliantly on matters I've long thought of. Particularly the bold revolutionary and energetic quality of the futurist movements of the 20th century are things that in most scholarship since ww2 have been brushed off as having been nothing but purely aesthetical propaganda. Something I felt really misunderstands such a pivotal component to why these movements captured the interests of so many.
I would argue the problem with acting “for the people” is that the moment you make that invocation you have forsaken the individual, reduced everything and everyone down to a series of abstract principles. Then you try to force flesh and blood people through that abstract mold and get frustrated when not everyone fits through it and the only response you can think of is doubling down on your philosophy because the only alternative then is to forsake your beliefs and thus risk killing a part of who you are. Self reflection is painful, blaming everything else is easy.
I had a political science prof once describe fascism and communism as two sides of the same coin. The main difference was that nazism was fascism based on the national identity (hence National Socialism) while communism was fascism based on an international identity (hence International Communism).
Throw in liberalism with this. All three ideologies essentially revolved around solving the issue of the death of God. Communism wanted to replace God with the proletarian revolution, Fascism wanted to replace God with the racial community and its egregore in the shape of the Führer, and Liberalism tries to replace God with the individual and its liberation from all limitations and chains. All three religions are explicitly trying to replace God, they are biblically speaking antichrist
Yes, and that is the quickest way to summarize. Imposing their respective societies onto humanity by any means, to the exclusion of all others, were their end goals. Calling it "progress". Two flavors of the same poisoned candy.
There was always a thick undercurrent of historical inspiration in GW's fiction/lore, often straying into outright copying and plagiarism. I honestly think that Warhammer/40k is a gold mine well worth digging into for the purposes of comparative analysis even if a person has no interest in the games themselves... a weird distillation of late-20th-century perspectives on everything thus far through the lens of 'there must always be conflict'.
Would love to see your take on Yul Brynner's "The Ultimate Warrior." The 70s were a smorgasbord of post-apocalyptic, urban decay, gangs/cults out of control movies (e.g. "The Warriors" and "The Omega Man") that, when taken as a whole, reveal the societal fears and anxieties of that era.
This is a man who understands the internet. After 18 minutes of insightful commentary on a truly arcane subject, ends it by throwing a bomb at a dead Italian philosopher. Always was fascinated by Things to Come, from how it predicted the Battle of Britain to its portrayal of a post-apocalyptic setting (a first I think). The most difficult part of the film is the third act. He does a fantastic job putting into the context of its time. I (stupidly perhaps) never considered how this tied into Mosley and the Black Shirts.
Without being in the time or place of the original audience, subtle cultural signals are always missed. It's why movies that can stand the test of time are actually pretty rare. For all of Eco's writing skills, he couldn't abstract from his own experiences or impulses. Frankly, you can see Stephen King for a more modern example.
Even striping away all the political and social commentary, this film is still fascinating to watch from a purely visual standpoint. The sets, costumes, and visual effect all had a profound influence on many other productions, well into the modern era. Probably the best example would be: SKY CAPTAIN AND THE WORLD OF TOMORROW. On a side note: Many people will know H.G. Wells as an author of Speculative Fiction/Science Fiction. But many don't realize that he, like his fellow Englishman, George Orwell was an essayist and wrote many no-fiction books on
The same switch in how his books are perceived happened really badly in The Time Machine too. When he’s only interacted with the Eloi and sees the future as a utopia he thinks it’s because of communism. Later he discovers the morlocks and how grim things really are when Wells wrote it he probably intended it to be how the working and capital class would evolve without communism. However when I read it in the 2010s I thought it was about the evolution of the communist party rulers vs the people they ruled, because I knew how the USSR ended up working.
You were at 1000 subs not too long ago, glad to see this channel is getting the recognition it deserves. 500k by Jan 2026 guaranteed! I just love this content, going out into the woods and talking about the philosophy of science fiction settings with my friends was one of my prime leisure activities in my teens and twenties. Good memories brought to life.
I love how every scfi utopia has an underlying tone of benevolent fascism, either as a story trope or as the antagonist. You should review a lot of Anime from Akira to Appleseed to many others commenting on post WWII Japan and progressive thinking
Sci-fi futures always end up somewhere on the fascist scale and political systems all decay into feudalism. All systems are Monarchies, it's just a question of how does one get to be King.
Great, thoughtful video. Ideologies aside, while watching the segments I noticed A) How vastly influential the sets, costumes, and miniature designs were on the science fiction pulp magazine cover art of the 1930s & 1940s; B) The miniature cities seem to be very influential on the 1976 Logan's Run. The design is still pretty amazing.
Fellow Fabian, George Bernard Shaw, pacifist and vegetarian that he was, actually managed to be quite honest about how authoritarian the Fabian system would be after a certain point. Using the hypothetical example of some bohemian man, he said such individuals could never be allowed to work the minimum effort, for just for their own needs, but they must be compelled to work for the greater society, at some determined-from-above minimum surplus output. In both Shaw's and Wells' visits to the Soviet Union, I think both at the height of the planed Ukrainian Famine-Genocide, the Holodomor, they both managed to "overlook" what was going on--well it wouldn't have played very well to the then narrative that the Russians had the future and it "worked". In regards to Wells' "Imperial Progressivism" which the 4th part of _Things to Come_ unironically champions, a good antidote is the first two books of CS Lewis' Space/Ransom Trilogy, where the character of Weston is largely a stand-in for Wells himself.
I did like the movie, and I enjoy your commentary on it. It is a window into Wells and that time in the world. The film also has a scene depicting the horrors of trench warfare and gas warfare. Good review, you said what I was thinking about the subject.
Thank you for an excellent analysis of the era, movie, Wells, and Mosley. I think it's the best you've made. (although as a Gen X Briton, I'm obviously biased)
Wells did touch on something prescient, humans, as a people and culture, need something to push against. If it is not outward, then that energy will be directed inward. Seems we are genetically predisposed to conquest.
I was thinking that on my first FO4 playthrough, taking the elevator down. I was a little disappointed that Father didn't have huge shoulderpads and a little cape.
I really like your videos and approach to history, as a complex multilayered ongoing process with innumerable factors and actors driving it. Personally i dont like easy answers, i find all the nuance makes history a lot more interesting, like solving a really big puzzle.
Considering the quality of “revolutionaryness” when talking about political ideologies is something that is sorely missing in a lot of discourse, at least these days. The constant talking in circles about comparing communism and fascism that you see is understandable when you realize that even though they are very different ideologies they’re both revolutionary.
"He could have been a great dictator If we gave him half the chance But we treated him like a traitor And so he went to live in France!" - Not The 9'o'clock News
Good shit as always, my dude. Look forward to the next segment. Question. You delve into Trek a lot. Have you any future plans to dig into Strange New Worlds?
Franco is an odd case in that he wasn't himself a fascist so much as a conservative monarchist from the start. But he led a coalition that included the Falangists, which were essentially fascists. Franco's policies were very much of the _right wing military dictatorship_ mold rather than fascist. But that gets into the decades long "what is fascism" discussion.
@@feralhistorian Well yes, thats why I said "put in the fascist club". Personally I don't think it matters very much. If youre a Jew in a concentration camp, a Russian in a gulag, or a Spaniard in whatever they had, the technicalities of how the means of production is owned is irrelevant. Its the totalitarianism thats the problem. Saying communism is of the left and fascism is of the right is basically just used as a proxy to 'prove' that anyone on that side is wrong. The difference between a communist and a liberal lefty is much greater that between said lefty and a small c conservative.
@@feralhistorian I suppose, if we reduce terminology down to the bones. Removing the specifics of the Catholics Religion and history, and just deal with absolute basics themselves. Perhaps Franco's Spain could be described as being Socially Conservative with Fascist allies. While Hitler's Germany could be described as being Fascist with Social Conservative allies.
I had to do a book report on this for college, I got to admit, I should have looked more at the facist end. I knew HG Wells was more WW1 era then WW2, so im thinking Kings, Emperors, and Tsars, not Dictators, Presidents, Communism, Democracy, or Fascism. But looked at it a more older end, HG Well felt like a "traditional royalist" but instead of wanting a King proclaimed by God, Things To Come wanted a Technocratic Dictatorship to tell everyone to stop being stupid. Witch is vary British. But it felt like, less Hitler, and more Super Intelligent Ceaser and The Roman concept of a dictator, then Nationalistic Dictators that we got in WW2.
The 20th century was a time of twisting everything good into something... else. The idea of the Philosopher King is an old one. But it became twisted and was mixed with Industrialism. Where it started taking the shape of Technocracy and oppressive Totalitarianism.
Before you say Wells got WW2 wrong Technically WW2 ended with the reunification of Germany………but technically will not end until the Korean War is officially declared over and Korea is reunified
@Feral History Did you ever watch the youtuber TIKHisory? I learned about Walter Mosley by watching his videos and his comparisons of British Fascism to Italian and German Fascism.
First, there’s Power(the capacity to make one’s will manifest), then there’s Authority(being posed of power and having the willingness to use it), and finally there’s Jurisprudence( judgment, the willingness to discern right from wrong and maintain a standard). The acquisition of the first two looks the same no-matter what the third is, they are not given freely and people are going to cry foul no matter what one’s intent is.
It is also useful to consider that the Liberal Party had both split, ossified and crumbled from its height, the Labor and Conservatives taking up a two party stand off giving us the left versus right with Liberals moving to a centre or really centre right lean. So a place for aristocratic revolution was lost, the Fabians in their way giving home to radical elites. But as I think you covered well, Fascism and Communism had become two opposing forces on the same mission, here told as the progressive rebuild of the old and corrupt and failed system that was left from the World War. Ironic that Britain was taken to war by its Liberals. So I see how Wells the Englishman is telling a British future that many wanted, anything but the stupidity that got them the last war but blind to how it is always a war that resets society, a reset they were living and did not love.
Hi Feral historian would you please do a video on Pierce Brown's Red rising I do like the classical science fiction but if it would fit your formula could you please do a video on Red rising a more modern science fiction. Always good to see your videos.
I started reading Red Rising a couple years ago after several recommendations and I couldn't get into the first few chapters, it got pushed into the much-neglected "give this another chance later" pile. Since then I've learned more about the lore and what the story is doing, and through that some interesting comparisons with largely forgotten sci-fi from an earlier time, but I haven't picked it up again.
Yeah, when I was writing my bachelor thesis on university I had several problems with my proffesors. It lead to the fact, that they rejected my work as passable because I was humanizing Nazis too much. I was writing exactly about this self image that Nazis of that time had, their optimism for future, how nacism was not some scum of society ideology, how it needs to be understood from lences of that time so you can truly understand why it was appealing for so many. So called professors to this day do not uderstand this and in that way they help to undermine their beloved idea that after WW2 world arrangement is only correct way of things.
"To be GOVERNED is to be watched, inspected, spied upon, directed, law-driven, numbered, regulated, enrolled, indoctrinated, preached at, controlled, checked, estimated, valued, censured, commanded, by creatures who have neither the right nor the wisdom nor the virtue to do so. To be GOVERNED is to be at every operation, at every transaction noted, registered, counted, taxed, stamped, measured, numbered, assessed, licensed, authorized, admonished, prevented, forbidden, reformed, corrected, punished. It is, under pretext of public utility, and in the name of the general interest, to be place under contribution, drilled, fleeced, exploited, monopolized, extorted from, squeezed, hoaxed, robbed; then, at the slightest resistance, the first word of complaint, to be repressed, fined, vilified, harassed, hunted down, abused, clubbed, disarmed, bound, choked, imprisoned, judged, condemned, shot, deported, sacrificed, sold, betrayed; and to crown all, mocked, ridiculed, derided, outraged, dishonored. That is government; that is its justice; that is its morality." -Pierre-Joseph Proudhon
Of course You'll be around, but you will never accomplish anything.Where there is anarchy, there is a vacuum, and tribe forms around hierarchy. The civilization you dream of is fundamentally impossible, even when men were scattered and few in number they didn't live without law or tradition that was passed to them by forefathers.
Hitler was apparently expecting the UK to join him. I don't understand why, but I wasn't around then. Those of my family who were said (when they were alive) they didn't know anyone who liked the nazi's. Given most of those had either fought in the war or been related to those who had this may not have been a correctly balanced sample of the population, but it's all I had. I had the opportunity in the 1980's to read the diary of someone who'd taken part in the expeditionary force of 1939. During this time they encountered a number of massacres perpetrated by the SS early in the war, one being especially unpleasant, having occurred in a Convent, where they found the victims buried just a few inches deep in a ploughed field next to it. This diary was never published because the soldier wasn't famous, just another grunt. I think that in itself was a tragedy since I've no idea if there's any other account like his in existence, if it's even still around, which I doubt.
The British Monarchy was German. Many of the cousins of the British Monarchy served on the German side during the war. King Edward the 8th liked the new German movement. He and his wife, Wallis, went to Germany and was very pleased with what they saw. Then there was the abdication, and they had to get the old King out of there. The Germans were flirting with him, telling him that he would be King of Britain once the Germans took it over. Britain was in a state of absolute political turmoil in the years after WW1. Governments fell constantly, and the whole show was an absolute mess. There was intense negative feelings towards the Soviet Union and the whole Tsar debacle that had happened. With many previous Russian nobles having settled in England. Fun fact. Lord Mountbatten, the Uncle of Prince Phillip who married Princess Elizabeth who became Queen Elizabeth the 2nd. Lord Mountbatten, who later became the Supreme Allied Commander South East Asia Command during WW2. Governor of India, et cetera. He was supposed to marry the eldest daughter of Tsar Nicolas the 2nd, Maria Nikolaevna. Who is the older sister of Anastasia. But, with what happened in the revolution, that did not happen. Yet, he forever kept a picture of her with him. Britain did not have an army. Britain barely had an air force. And France was in the same political turmoil as Britain. Britain and France surrendered the Rhineland. They surrendered to German rearmament. They did nothing for Austria. They caved on the Sudetenland. They caved on the annexation of Bohemia. Which they did together with Hungary and Poland. And so, the world was quite perplexed when war was declared to defend a random belligerent power where no treaty existed, when they had ignored their treaty with Czechoslovakia.
But why does the space gun have a front sight? Did the breed a giant that we never see to aim it? Between Metropolis, which looks at some of the same issues from basically an opposite POV, and SoTtC we can see pretty much the creation of the esthetic of "The Future". Images from both films are definitive.
I laughed at the giant front sight the first time I saw this. I pictured some guy standing in the ground, staring up the barrel, yelling "more left, little more, no back!" trying to line it up with the Moon.
The thing about our modern society is not that we grew past this futurist techno-progressivism, but that the specific liberal strand of techno-progressivism won. Its victory was so complete and undeniable that our only perspective of its two alternatives is as cartoonish parodies. Liberalism won, enjoyed its brief Patrick Bateman grindset yuppie utopia, and then, once the euphoria of victory wore off, people started asking "what now", and nobody had an answer. And this is where we're now. The liberal paradigm has grown weak from the lack of conflict, and people are desperately looking for a replacement. Some look at AI, others at Islam, even others want to double down on technocracy and make Schwabism a reality, but ultimately the wheels of history aren't turned by philosophers, but by the blood of warrors who die for the philosopher's ideas, and every cultural paradigm shift always arrived with a massive war. There will be a third world war in our lifetimes.
7:15 So on the plus side, weve had the press complaining about the BBC for nearly a century. On the down side, weve gone from actual fascists complaining, to the mainstream press.
Can anybody explain Feral's ending joke? It went completely over my head. Who is Umberto Eco in relation to Fascism or post-WW2 history? (I found the guy's Wiki, but it did not enlighten)
He wrote a big essay about what the qualities of fascism are. But to my remembrance were so broad and vague literally anything could be considered fascist.
The road to hell is paved with good intentions. No amount of education can remove the inherent potential for greed and egotism from the human psyche. Every social system falls prey to mismanagement, a lack of agility, and the corruptive influence of power. Dreams never account for entropy. Which makes them both beautiful and impossible.
I say the whole world must learn of our peaceful ways… by force! - Bender Bending Rodriguez The desired result may be well intended and conceived in optimism, but this seems a hard sell even for the time. Then again, I thought the same for communism, so maybe I'm just not 1930's enough.
I think you’re underestimating how popular these ideas, in their essence, remain. The shameless Utopianism and militarism of the neoliberal-neoconservative Overton window which has dominated international politics for decades are clear echoes of the revolutionary progressive ideologies you’re describing here. The aesthetics and rhetoric have changed, but the core ethos remains the same.
I kinda see the collective west as a prison held together with the comfortable life. not enough to allow you to be able to be free, but also not enough to make it so you would want to rise up and replace the system into something better.
Watched a couple weeks ago incidentally, It's not the best film ever made and the script could be somewhat weak and there of course unfortunate moral implications of what it's advocating for and how it's going to be achieved. But I enjoyed watching It despite all that and it's one of those films that succeeds on execution despite weaknesses in the story. The cinematography is pretty good for the time and still holds up pretty well, as do the models which are quite convincing, set design is excellent. I enjoyed the performances despite being them A bit too theatrical times(Most of the actors in the film were theater actors by training and experience, Go figure!) and I do agree that there was an odd fascist undertone there that was disturbing but not to the point of distracting. I agree that the film is basically in many ways a time capsule into the political thoughts at the time period and there was a strong Star Trek vibes despite Star Trek being decades away. I enjoyed the film as escapist is entertainment that one would regard watching old school movie serials like flash Gordon as stated in the video.
That’s actually a satisfying answer to the question of why the competing ideologies of that era used the same tactics to achieve the same ends while remaining violently opposed to one another, without seeming to notice how essentially identical they were.
Happens to religions all the time. Which is what they really were.
@@MM22966
Religions tend to be culturally richer than ideologies, whose myths are more easily countered by cynicism.
I once saw a comment regarding a political test mentioning that the Authoritarian Left and the Authoritarian Right would actually have a lot in common that they could sit down and talk about.
@@joelnotsure2871
My comment got removed.
@@The_Fat_Controller. something something horseshoe theory
Since I found this channel, it's become one of my favourite watches and I look forward to the weeks upload.
Same, but my favorite shows have a tendency of getting canceled. 😓
Feral Historian drops a video, everything else stops 🤘
Just in time for me to get back from the library and start preparing dinner!
Awesome
Yeah it's zased
@@The-future-is-in-the-past Zased is czinge.
What I find interesting about the film is that it's a rare example of World War II speculation. It's like what we do now with World War 3 but it's like one of maybe two other pieces of media from the time that I even know about that does that.
Let's also have a moment of respect for Things to Come's set-makers, stage-hands, costumers, and model-makers. They did some hella good-looking futuristic tech with what I assume was mostly wood, cloth, and plaster!
WW4 will be fought with mostly wood, cloth, and plaster.
~Albert E. probably
Insightful as always. One of the biggest takeaways is the caution to try to understand how a group sees itself, and the reminder that that's entirely possible to do without adopting that group's views yourself.
Standard operating procedure for a truly intelligent person.
I have loved the word grok since the day I came across it in "Stranger in a Strange Land", which, incidentally , is still one of my favorite books of all time. Love your show.
Used to have a buddy named Grok. Actually, his name was Garth, but he couldn't pronounce that word.
Fiction and slang always give us words to articulate more precisely things that formal and 'proper' language doesn't quite capture. 'Grok', 'Sass', 'Belly-feel', whatever... the closest that real English comes to any of that is the archaic 'Ken', and that's still more intellectual than visceral (not to mention being a dialect word unless you count it as a loan; the status of Scots as either a dialect or a language is still pretty up-in-the-air).
It was almost two books that happened to be sharing the same covers. One of those was absolutely magnificent and the other kind of went in a really weird direction and which I look kind of like one might at a weird uncle whose refrigerator is constantly filled with bizarre types of cheese that he never seems to actually eat. But the weird doesn't detract from the magnificent.
@@MrMortullGerman uses “Ken”
Excellent essay. Wells is truly a man who 'thought about things'. One of my favorite Wells vook is 'The War in the Air". Written around 1908, it's basically 'The Shape of Things to Come' without the hope.
Absolutely fantastically insightful video, it touches brilliantly on matters I've long thought of. Particularly the bold revolutionary and energetic quality of the futurist movements of the 20th century are things that in most scholarship since ww2 have been brushed off as having been nothing but purely aesthetical propaganda. Something I felt really misunderstands such a pivotal component to why these movements captured the interests of so many.
I would argue the problem with acting “for the people” is that the moment you make that invocation you have forsaken the individual, reduced everything and everyone down to a series of abstract principles. Then you try to force flesh and blood people through that abstract mold and get frustrated when not everyone fits through it and the only response you can think of is doubling down on your philosophy because the only alternative then is to forsake your beliefs and thus risk killing a part of who you are. Self reflection is painful, blaming everything else is easy.
I had a political science prof once describe fascism and communism as two sides of the same coin. The main difference was that nazism was fascism based on the national identity (hence National Socialism) while communism was fascism based on an international identity (hence International Communism).
Throw in liberalism with this. All three ideologies essentially revolved around solving the issue of the death of God. Communism wanted to replace God with the proletarian revolution, Fascism wanted to replace God with the racial community and its egregore in the shape of the Führer, and Liberalism tries to replace God with the individual and its liberation from all limitations and chains. All three religions are explicitly trying to replace God, they are biblically speaking antichrist
They are all the bastard children of Marx
@@Svevsky As a Puritan, I give your comment a solid thumbs up.
Yes, and that is the quickest way to summarize. Imposing their respective societies onto humanity by any means, to the exclusion of all others, were their end goals. Calling it "progress". Two flavors of the same poisoned candy.
The Unification Wars of Terra from 40k is definitely inspired by this. If you haven't yet you should check out the short story 'The Last Church'
There was always a thick undercurrent of historical inspiration in GW's fiction/lore, often straying into outright copying and plagiarism. I honestly think that Warhammer/40k is a gold mine well worth digging into for the purposes of comparative analysis even if a person has no interest in the games themselves... a weird distillation of late-20th-century perspectives on everything thus far through the lens of 'there must always be conflict'.
Now that you've looked at Wells' presentation of his utopian optimism, you could look at Lewis' critique of Wells in the space trilogy.
My man!
We need to boost your signal, so many people need to hear your wisdom. Great stuff as always brother.
Someone dropped FH's name in a super chat in a recent Nerdrotic live stream.
Would love to see your take on Yul Brynner's "The Ultimate Warrior." The 70s were a smorgasbord of post-apocalyptic, urban decay, gangs/cults out of control movies (e.g. "The Warriors" and "The Omega Man") that, when taken as a whole, reveal the societal fears and anxieties of that era.
Fresh Feral? Hell yeah.
I'll tell you what's to come; a good time watching Feral Historian.
This is a man who understands the internet. After 18 minutes of insightful commentary on a truly arcane subject, ends it by throwing a bomb at a dead Italian philosopher.
Always was fascinated by Things to Come, from how it predicted the Battle of Britain to its portrayal of a post-apocalyptic setting (a first I think). The most difficult part of the film is the third act. He does a fantastic job putting into the context of its time. I (stupidly perhaps) never considered how this tied into Mosley and the Black Shirts.
Without being in the time or place of the original audience, subtle cultural signals are always missed. It's why movies that can stand the test of time are actually pretty rare.
For all of Eco's writing skills, he couldn't abstract from his own experiences or impulses. Frankly, you can see Stephen King for a more modern example.
Even striping away all the political and social commentary, this film is still fascinating to watch from a purely visual standpoint. The sets, costumes, and visual effect all had a profound influence on many other productions, well into the modern era. Probably the best example would be: SKY CAPTAIN AND THE WORLD OF TOMORROW. On a side note: Many people will know H.G. Wells as an author of Speculative Fiction/Science Fiction. But many don't realize that he, like his fellow Englishman, George Orwell was an essayist and wrote many no-fiction books on
The same switch in how his books are perceived happened really badly in The Time Machine too. When he’s only interacted with the Eloi and sees the future as a utopia he thinks it’s because of communism. Later he discovers the morlocks and how grim things really are when Wells wrote it he probably intended it to be how the working and capital class would evolve without communism. However when I read it in the 2010s I thought it was about the evolution of the communist party rulers vs the people they ruled, because I knew how the USSR ended up working.
Thank you. I always look forward to these hitting my feed late Friday evening.
New insights from the Feral Historian? What's not to love!?
Always a great day when I see a new video from feral
So glad that the algorithm brought me to your channel. Excellent content and a fellow historian!
You were at 1000 subs not too long ago, glad to see this channel is getting the recognition it deserves. 500k by Jan 2026 guaranteed! I just love this content, going out into the woods and talking about the philosophy of science fiction settings with my friends was one of my prime leisure activities in my teens and twenties. Good memories brought to life.
always a pleasure. such a sweet format.
I love how every scfi utopia has an underlying tone of benevolent fascism, either as a story trope or as the antagonist. You should review a lot of Anime from Akira to Appleseed to many others commenting on post WWII Japan and progressive thinking
Sci-fi futures always end up somewhere on the fascist scale and political systems all decay into feudalism. All systems are Monarchies, it's just a question of how does one get to be King.
Nail, head, etc. Spectacular video.
Hey! New video, thanks! And great job calling out Umberto Eco, I appreciate that.
I love the space gun’s front sight!!!
Fahrenheit 451 coming soon maybe? Love your videos
I really enjoy these reviews. And he gets enough right to keep it interesting 😎
Another excellent video essay...thanks very much
Fresh Feral means this IS a good morning.
Great, thoughtful video. Ideologies aside, while watching the segments I noticed A) How vastly influential the sets, costumes, and miniature designs were on the science fiction pulp magazine cover art of the 1930s & 1940s; B) The miniature cities seem to be very influential on the 1976 Logan's Run. The design is still pretty amazing.
Thank you for posting another great video
Fellow Fabian, George Bernard Shaw, pacifist and vegetarian that he was, actually managed to be quite honest about how authoritarian the Fabian system would be after a certain point. Using the hypothetical example of some bohemian man, he said such individuals could never be allowed to work the minimum effort, for just for their own needs, but they must be compelled to work for the greater society, at some determined-from-above minimum surplus output.
In both Shaw's and Wells' visits to the Soviet Union, I think both at the height of the planed Ukrainian Famine-Genocide, the Holodomor, they both managed to "overlook" what was going on--well it wouldn't have played very well to the then narrative that the Russians had the future and it "worked".
In regards to Wells' "Imperial Progressivism" which the 4th part of _Things to Come_ unironically champions, a good antidote is the first two books of CS Lewis' Space/Ransom Trilogy, where the character of Weston is largely a stand-in for Wells himself.
Been waiting for this one. So many great lines "for the people" in this film.
Glad to see your videos are catching on
I remember watching this back in the day.
I did like the movie, and I enjoy your commentary on it. It is a window into Wells and that time in the world. The film also has a scene depicting the horrors of trench warfare and gas warfare. Good review, you said what I was thinking about the subject.
Thank you for an excellent analysis of the era, movie, Wells, and Mosley. I think it's the best you've made. (although as a Gen X Briton, I'm obviously biased)
Ahh been waiting for this to drop.
I also watched the video you recommended a while back on the same subject. It also was fabulous.
Brilliant. Now do one on Heinlein's Future History.
Wells did touch on something prescient, humans, as a people and culture, need something to push against. If it is not outward, then that energy will be directed inward. Seems we are genetically predisposed to conquest.
"I'm escaping to the one place that hasn't been corrupted by capitalism: SPACE!"
If you look at the model of the futuristic underground city, it's got to be the inspiration for the institute in fallout 4.
I was thinking that on my first FO4 playthrough, taking the elevator down. I was a little disappointed that Father didn't have huge shoulderpads and a little cape.
@@feralhistorian I was thinking Hunger Games/PanAm.
The film is on youtube for anyone who is interested. The Historian's points give it new perspectives.
I'd love to see your take on Kipling's scifi (With the Night Mail & As Easy as ABC)
Love the videos, as always, warrior. :)
I really like your videos and approach to history, as a complex multilayered ongoing process with innumerable factors and actors driving it. Personally i dont like easy answers, i find all the nuance makes history a lot more interesting, like solving a really big puzzle.
Feral Historian uploads, I click. 👍
Considering the quality of “revolutionaryness” when talking about political ideologies is something that is sorely missing in a lot of discourse, at least these days. The constant talking in circles about comparing communism and fascism that you see is understandable when you realize that even though they are very different ideologies they’re both revolutionary.
can i ask do you play sid meier's alpha centauri or have a plan to make a video about this game?
That is a great game.
@@Kerrvillian1962 YES
great stuff
"He could have been a great dictator
If we gave him half the chance
But we treated him like a traitor
And so he went to live in France!"
- Not The 9'o'clock News
Some people thought he was mad!! LOL
Thank you, Captain! May I have another?
There are very few things better than Fresh Feral in the morning- mickey mouse 1933. Great post, lots to consider here.
A useful reminder that Wells coined the phrase “liberal fascism” and meant it as a good thing.
Good shit as always, my dude.
Look forward to the next segment.
Question.
You delve into Trek a lot.
Have you any future plans to dig into Strange New Worlds?
Now do "That Hideous Strength".
On the other hand General Franco, which is also put in the fascist club was pro royalist, and handed power over to the king when he died.
Franco is an odd case in that he wasn't himself a fascist so much as a conservative monarchist from the start. But he led a coalition that included the Falangists, which were essentially fascists. Franco's policies were very much of the _right wing military dictatorship_ mold rather than fascist. But that gets into the decades long "what is fascism" discussion.
@@feralhistorian Well yes, thats why I said "put in the fascist club".
Personally I don't think it matters very much. If youre a Jew in a concentration camp, a Russian in a gulag, or a Spaniard in whatever they had, the technicalities of how the means of production is owned is irrelevant. Its the totalitarianism thats the problem. Saying communism is of the left and fascism is of the right is basically just used as a proxy to 'prove' that anyone on that side is wrong. The difference between a communist and a liberal lefty is much greater that between said lefty and a small c conservative.
@@feralhistorian I suppose, if we reduce terminology down to the bones. Removing the specifics of the Catholics Religion and history, and just deal with absolute basics themselves.
Perhaps Franco's Spain could be described as being Socially Conservative with Fascist allies.
While Hitler's Germany could be described as being Fascist with Social Conservative allies.
Was umberto Eco the guy who took the WebMD approach to diagnosing fascism?
I often notice the parallels in this story and WH40k.
The novel was probably one of the many inspirations for Warhammer 40k.
Breakfast of champions right here.
Starship Troopers (the book) is an interesting vision of "liberal fascism." It's basically a political treatise on intergalactic martial liberalism
I'm be very interested if you do video on Earth Federation from Gundam if you want a somewhat good example what one world government may end up.
I had to do a book report on this for college, I got to admit, I should have looked more at the facist end. I knew HG Wells was more WW1 era then WW2, so im thinking Kings, Emperors, and Tsars, not Dictators, Presidents, Communism, Democracy, or Fascism. But looked at it a more older end, HG Well felt like a "traditional royalist" but instead of wanting a King proclaimed by God, Things To Come wanted a Technocratic Dictatorship to tell everyone to stop being stupid. Witch is vary British. But it felt like, less Hitler, and more Super Intelligent Ceaser and The Roman concept of a dictator, then Nationalistic Dictators that we got in WW2.
The 20th century was a time of twisting everything good into something... else. The idea of the Philosopher King is an old one. But it became twisted and was mixed with Industrialism. Where it started taking the shape of Technocracy and oppressive Totalitarianism.
If I were to make you some outro graphics and music .... what should they be like?
Solidarity 🤘
Best birthday gift ever! Lord I am old. 😂 Oh and technocrats are exactly the type of jerk that would invent Zima.
Before you say Wells got WW2 wrong Technically WW2 ended with the reunification of Germany………but technically will not end until the Korean War is officially declared over and Korea is reunified
How do you figure that? Most wars can be linked together through human history if you stare hard enough, but why those specifically?
@Feral History Did you ever watch the youtuber TIKHisory? I learned about Walter Mosley by watching his videos and his comparisons of British Fascism to Italian and German Fascism.
You might enjoy "It's Not Fascism Bro" by PilgrimsPass. :)
First, there’s Power(the capacity to make one’s will manifest), then there’s Authority(being posed of power and having the willingness to use it), and finally there’s Jurisprudence( judgment, the willingness to discern right from wrong and maintain a standard). The acquisition of the first two looks the same no-matter what the third is, they are not given freely and people are going to cry foul no matter what one’s intent is.
Grok mentioned. Heinlein inbound
Like a shipping container full of moon rocks shot from a railgun.
It is also useful to consider that the Liberal Party had both split, ossified and crumbled from its height, the Labor and Conservatives taking up a two party stand off giving us the left versus right with Liberals moving to a centre or really centre right lean. So a place for aristocratic revolution was lost, the Fabians in their way giving home to radical elites. But as I think you covered well, Fascism and Communism had become two opposing forces on the same mission, here told as the progressive rebuild of the old and corrupt and failed system that was left from the World War. Ironic that Britain was taken to war by its Liberals. So I see how Wells the Englishman is telling a British future that many wanted, anything but the stupidity that got them the last war but blind to how it is always a war that resets society, a reset they were living and did not love.
Hi Feral historian would you please do a video on Pierce Brown's Red rising I do like the classical science fiction but if it would fit your formula could you please do a video on Red rising a more modern science fiction. Always good to see your videos.
I started reading Red Rising a couple years ago after several recommendations and I couldn't get into the first few chapters, it got pushed into the much-neglected "give this another chance later" pile. Since then I've learned more about the lore and what the story is doing, and through that some interesting comparisons with largely forgotten sci-fi from an earlier time, but I haven't picked it up again.
Yeah, when I was writing my bachelor thesis on university I had several problems with my proffesors. It lead to the fact, that they rejected my work as passable because I was humanizing Nazis too much. I was writing exactly about this self image that Nazis of that time had, their optimism for future, how nacism was not some scum of society ideology, how it needs to be understood from lences of that time so you can truly understand why it was appealing for so many. So called professors to this day do not uderstand this and in that way they help to undermine their beloved idea that after WW2 world arrangement is only correct way of things.
Dang in early. Morning!
Nice.
"To be GOVERNED is to be watched, inspected, spied upon, directed, law-driven, numbered, regulated, enrolled, indoctrinated, preached at, controlled, checked, estimated, valued, censured, commanded, by creatures who have neither the right nor the wisdom nor the virtue to do so. To be GOVERNED is to be at every operation, at every transaction noted, registered, counted, taxed, stamped, measured, numbered, assessed, licensed, authorized, admonished, prevented, forbidden, reformed, corrected, punished. It is, under pretext of public utility, and in the name of the general interest, to be place under contribution, drilled, fleeced, exploited, monopolized, extorted from, squeezed, hoaxed, robbed; then, at the slightest resistance, the first word of complaint, to be repressed, fined, vilified, harassed, hunted down, abused, clubbed, disarmed, bound, choked, imprisoned, judged, condemned, shot, deported, sacrificed, sold, betrayed; and to crown all, mocked, ridiculed, derided, outraged, dishonored. That is government; that is its justice; that is its morality."
-Pierre-Joseph Proudhon
Always good to see Proudhon dropped into the comments.
That sounds like a guy who didn't have a working toilet.
@@MM22966 Prisons have working toilets.
Anarchism wasn't at a high point in the 1930s. Our forebears were still around, and we still are 🏴🏴🏴🏴🏴
Of all of the anarchists I've met, they're either drug-using Stalin apologists, or doughy-faced anarchocapitalists. Neither hold much appeal.
Of course You'll be around, but you will never accomplish anything.Where there is anarchy, there is a vacuum, and tribe forms around hierarchy. The civilization you dream of is fundamentally impossible, even when men were scattered and few in number they didn't live without law or tradition that was passed to them by forefathers.
Hitler was apparently expecting the UK to join him. I don't understand why, but I wasn't around then. Those of my family who were said (when they were alive) they didn't know anyone who liked the nazi's. Given most of those had either fought in the war or been related to those who had this may not have been a correctly balanced sample of the population, but it's all I had.
I had the opportunity in the 1980's to read the diary of someone who'd taken part in the expeditionary force of 1939. During this time they encountered a number of massacres perpetrated by the SS early in the war, one being especially unpleasant, having occurred in a Convent, where they found the victims buried just a few inches deep in a ploughed field next to it. This diary was never published because the soldier wasn't famous, just another grunt. I think that in itself was a tragedy since I've no idea if there's any other account like his in existence, if it's even still around, which I doubt.
The British Monarchy was German. Many of the cousins of the British Monarchy served on the German side during the war.
King Edward the 8th liked the new German movement. He and his wife, Wallis, went to Germany and was very pleased with what they saw.
Then there was the abdication, and they had to get the old King out of there. The Germans were flirting with him, telling him that he would be King of Britain once the Germans took it over.
Britain was in a state of absolute political turmoil in the years after WW1. Governments fell constantly, and the whole show was an absolute mess.
There was intense negative feelings towards the Soviet Union and the whole Tsar debacle that had happened. With many previous Russian nobles having settled in England.
Fun fact.
Lord Mountbatten, the Uncle of Prince Phillip who married Princess Elizabeth who became Queen Elizabeth the 2nd.
Lord Mountbatten, who later became the Supreme Allied Commander South East Asia Command during WW2. Governor of India, et cetera.
He was supposed to marry the eldest daughter of Tsar Nicolas the 2nd, Maria Nikolaevna. Who is the older sister of Anastasia.
But, with what happened in the revolution, that did not happen. Yet, he forever kept a picture of her with him.
Britain did not have an army. Britain barely had an air force. And France was in the same political turmoil as Britain.
Britain and France surrendered the Rhineland.
They surrendered to German rearmament.
They did nothing for Austria.
They caved on the Sudetenland.
They caved on the annexation of Bohemia. Which they did together with Hungary and Poland.
And so, the world was quite perplexed when war was declared to defend a random belligerent power where no treaty existed, when they had ignored their treaty with Czechoslovakia.
But why does the space gun have a front sight? Did the breed a giant that we never see to aim it? Between Metropolis, which looks at some of the same issues from basically an opposite POV, and SoTtC we can see pretty much the creation of the esthetic of "The Future". Images from both films are definitive.
I laughed at the giant front sight the first time I saw this. I pictured some guy standing in the ground, staring up the barrel, yelling "more left, little more, no back!" trying to line it up with the Moon.
The thing about our modern society is not that we grew past this futurist techno-progressivism, but that the specific liberal strand of techno-progressivism won. Its victory was so complete and undeniable that our only perspective of its two alternatives is as cartoonish parodies.
Liberalism won, enjoyed its brief Patrick Bateman grindset yuppie utopia, and then, once the euphoria of victory wore off, people started asking "what now", and nobody had an answer.
And this is where we're now. The liberal paradigm has grown weak from the lack of conflict, and people are desperately looking for a replacement. Some look at AI, others at Islam, even others want to double down on technocracy and make Schwabism a reality, but ultimately the wheels of history aren't turned by philosophers, but by the blood of warrors who die for the philosopher's ideas, and every cultural paradigm shift always arrived with a massive war. There will be a third world war in our lifetimes.
7:15
So on the plus side, weve had the press complaining about the BBC for nearly a century.
On the down side, weve gone from actual fascists complaining, to the mainstream press.
Can anybody explain Feral's ending joke? It went completely over my head. Who is Umberto Eco in relation to Fascism or post-WW2 history?
(I found the guy's Wiki, but it did not enlighten)
He wrote a big essay about what the qualities of fascism are. But to my remembrance were so broad and vague literally anything could be considered fascist.
The video he did on Starwars and revised definitions of fascism should help get the joke.
Suffice to say he does not have much confidence in the man.
@@80krauser Ah, I see. I found the essay wiki, but I still didn't understand what the joke was.
Good
The road to hell is paved with good intentions. No amount of education can remove the inherent potential for greed and egotism from the human psyche. Every social system falls prey to mismanagement, a lack of agility, and the corruptive influence of power.
Dreams never account for entropy. Which makes them both beautiful and impossible.
It's simply me.
I say the whole world must learn of our peaceful ways… by force! - Bender Bending Rodriguez
The desired result may be well intended and conceived in optimism, but this seems a hard sell even for the time. Then again, I thought the same for communism, so maybe I'm just not 1930's enough.
Subtlety certainly was not one of the film's strong points.
Keep going with the british films. Do world of men and v for vendetta and the BNP shadow over it.
I think you’re underestimating how popular these ideas, in their essence, remain. The shameless Utopianism and militarism of the neoliberal-neoconservative Overton window which has dominated international politics for decades are clear echoes of the revolutionary progressive ideologies you’re describing here. The aesthetics and rhetoric have changed, but the core ethos remains the same.
I kinda see the collective west as a prison held together with the comfortable life. not enough to allow you to be able to be free, but also not enough to make it so you would want to rise up and replace the system into something better.
"I'm looking at you Umberto Eco"? Ooh, the new challenger. Luckily for you he's dead.
Samething happened in the manga Appleseed
Ahhhh, good catch! I always remember the quiet reveal: "80% of our society are bioroids..."
Watched a couple weeks ago incidentally, It's not the best film ever made and the script could be somewhat weak and there of course unfortunate moral implications of what it's advocating for and how it's going to be achieved. But I enjoyed watching It despite all that and it's one of those films that succeeds on execution despite weaknesses in the story. The cinematography is pretty good for the time and still holds up pretty well, as do the models which are quite convincing, set design is excellent. I enjoyed the performances despite being them A bit too theatrical times(Most of the actors in the film were theater actors by training and experience, Go figure!) and I do agree that there was an odd fascist undertone there that was disturbing but not to the point of distracting. I agree that the film is basically in many ways a time capsule into the political thoughts at the time period and there was a strong Star Trek vibes despite Star Trek being decades away. I enjoyed the film as escapist is entertainment that one would regard watching old school movie serials like flash Gordon as stated in the video.