28/04/2022
From the movie The Great Dictator (1940), the Great Speech for Humanity (Charlie Chaplin). One of the best speeches ever, even if you don't agree with every point:
“I’m sorry, but I don’t want to be an emperor. I don’t want to rule or conquer anyone. I should like to help everyone if possible—Jew, Gentile, black man, white. We all want to help one another. Human beings are like that. We want to live by each other’s happiness, not by each other’s misery. There’s room everyone and the good earth is rich and can provide for everyone. The way of life can be free and beautiful.
But we have lost the way. Greed has poisoned men’s souls, has barricaded the world with hate, has goosestepped us into misery and bloodshed. Machinery that gives abundance has left us in want. Our knowledge has made us cynical, our cleverness hard and unkind.
We think too much and feel too little. More than machinery, we need humanity. More than cleverness, we need kindness and gentleness. Without these qualities life will be violent and all will be lost.
my voice is reaching millions throughout the world, millions of despairing men, women, and children—victims of a system that makes men torture and imprison innocent people.
For those who can hear me I say: Do not despair. The misery that is now upon us is but the passing of greed, the bitterness of men who fear the way of human progress. The hate of men will pass & dictators die. And the power they took from the people will return to the people.
Soldiers! Don’t give yourselves to brutes! Men who despise you, enslave you. Who regiment your lives. Tell you what to do, what to think, and what to feel. Who drill you, diet you, treat you like cattle, use you as cannon fodder. Don’t give yourselves to these unnatural men, machine men with machine minds and machine hearts. You are not machines. You are not cattle. You are men. You have the love of humanity in your hearts. You don’t hate. Only the unloved hate.
Soldiers! Don’t fight for slavery! Fight for liberty! In the 17th chapter of St. Luke, it is written: The kingdom of God is within man. Not one man nor a group of men, but in all men.
In you! You the people have the power. The power to create machines. The power to create happiness. You the people have the power to make this life free and beautiful, to make this life a wonderful adventure.
Then in the name of democracy, let us use that power. Let us all unite! Let us fight for a new world. A decent world. That will give men a chance to work. That will give you the future.
By the promise of these things, brutes have risen to power. But they lie. They do not fulfill that promise. They never will. Dictators free themselves but they enslave the people.
Now let us fight to fulfill that promise! Let us fight to free the world. To do away with national barriers. To do away with greed, with hate & intolerance.
Let us fight for a world of reason. A world where science and progress will lead to all men’s happiness."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J7GY1Xg6X20
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