Word: cynically
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Dates: during 1930-1939
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...School for Dictators consists entirely of dialogues, between three characters. One, Silone's mouthpiece, is an exiled Italian Socialist nicknamed Thomas the Cynic, who, using mainly Italian and German sources, is writing a political treatise on the art of deception. He believes that "the deceivers have nothing to learn from it, while the deceived have." His pupils are two Americans: Mr. W., a well-known U. S. politician and ex-jazz musician, regarded as the coming U. S. dictator, and Professor Pickup, a decayed Billy Sunday sort of fanatic, who originated "Neo-Sociology...
Thomas the Cynic assures Mr. W. that his inhibited childhood, his artistic frustration, fake War record, headaches and schizophrenia constitute excellent personal assets for a dictator. He explains how these handicaps can be turned into heroic myths, explains how to fight Socialism with the catch phrases of Socialism, how to provoke disorder and terror as a pretext to establish order, how to avoid all argument based on rationality, how to exploit the plentiful relics of primitive barbarism which still survive in modern man, and thus turn to Fascist account a Freudian discovery which Socialists naively underrated...
...wants to know what the chances are of starting a Fascist dictatorship in the U. S. That depends on the Americans, replies Thomas the Cynic. The Fascists' main advantage, he says, lies in the inertia of democratic leaders who tend to live "on the yield of their ancestors' conquests," are prone to be morally defeated before the fight begins. After a big crisis from which there is no return to the status quo, these leaders cannot hold power and Socialists are too timid or too weak to take it. Says the Cynic: Mr. W., there's your...
Compared with his first novel, Starting Point shows a marked improvement-its theme is more mature, its prose less fluttery. Its four central characters are Oxford roommates: Theodore, a small, plump, precocious, post-Huxleyan cynic; effeminate, peace-loving Henry; John, a shy, radical, brilliant science student; and Anthony, popular, versatile, idealistic son of a rich, liberal M. P. The time...
Seriously, "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" is our nomination for the picture of the year; it gives new life to the cynic, new hope to the skeptic, new faith to the agnostic; to the weary it gives strength, to the fool wisdom, to the frenzied calm. In short, every man, woman, and child in the country should consider it their duty to live, love, and learn with Snow White...