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Anticipations of The New Republic: TheVision of H.G. Wells
By Daniel Taylor
 In 1901, when Herbert George Wells was around35 years old, he wrote a book titled
Anticipations: Of the Reaction of Mechanical and Scientific Progress upon Human life and Thought.
Thiswork contains many of the same themes as hislater 1928 book
The Open Conspiracy,
as hedetails the rise of the "New Republic", a system ofworld governance and scientific control.
Anticipations 
is a no holds barred explanation ofWells' vision of the New Republic. A watereddown version of these ideas can be found in
The Open Conspiracy 
, but it is my opinion that
Anticipations 
will give us a much clearer andhonest view into what Wells truly foresaw.When reading Anticipations, it is difficult not to be reminded of later works suchas Orwell's
1984 
and Aldous Huxley's
Brave New World.
A scientific, ruthlesselite gains effective control of society - in the case of H.G. Wells New Republic byproclaiming altruistic motives to the general population - and directs the affairs ofmankind.
Anticipations 
was one of the first books dedicated to surveying the future.Binghamton University history professor and futuristW. Warren Wagar writes regarding Wells'
Anticipations 
,
"Anticipations 
ranged widely in its subject matter, from the future of transport tothe future of world order... Wells looked ahead to the first aircraft and to broadhighways teeming with automobiles, busses, and trucks. Suburbia would triumphover city and countryside... one vast unbroken sprawl of middle-class life wouldreach from Boston to Washington. [Wells] foresaw the collapse of capitalism andthe nation state system in great technologically advanced total wars that thetycoons and the politicians could not, ultimately, understand or control. Powerwould slip through their fingers. They would be swiftly replaced by the technicallycompetent, by scientists and engineers and managers, who would learn fromtheir errors and build a world state of peace and plenty."
Anticipations 
contains many startling predictions that have come to pass to onedegree or another. In this book, Wells bluntly states the goals and intentions ofhis envisioned New Republic that will, among many other things, "...have an idealthat will make killing worth the while," and inflict upon deviants, "good
 
scientifically caused pain, that will leave nothing but a memory." Wells evenpredicts the rise of a union of European states complete with "...homologizationof laws and coinage and measures..." through which "...the final peace of theworld may be assured for ever." This "peace" however, means certainenslavement for a large portion of mankind.Wells states - again, this is written in 1901 - that the New Republic will,"...aim to establish, and it will at last, though probably only after a second centuryhas passed, establish a world-state with a common language and a commonrule. All over the world its roads, its standards, its laws, and its apparatus ofcontrol will run."The organization of the New Republic is described by wells as consisting ofwealthy men who "will presently discover with a sort of surprise the commonobject towards which they are all moving." Wells writes,"Now, the more one descends from the open uplands of wide generalization tothe parallel jungle of particulars, the more dangerous does the road ofprophesying become, yet nevertheless there may be some possibility ofspeculating how, in the case of the English-speaking synthesis at least, thiseffective New Republic may begin visibly to shape itself out and appear. It willappear first, I believe, as a conscious organization of intelligent and quitepossibly in some cases wealthy men, as a movement having distinct social andpolitical aims, confessedly ignoring most of the existing apparatus of politicalcontrol, or using it only as an incidental implement in the attainment of theseaims. It will be very loosely organized in its earlier stages, a mere movement of anumber of people in a certain direction, who will presently discover with a sort ofsurprise the common object towards which they are all moving."Wells describes the New Republic as an "outspoken Secret Society" and an"open freemasonry" controlling the apparatus of government. He states,"In its more developed phases I seem to see the New Republic as a sort ofoutspoken Secret Society, with which even the prominent men of the ostensiblestate may be openly affiliated.""The New Republicans will constitute an informal and open freemasonry. In allsorts of ways they will be influencing and controlling the apparatus of theostensible governments..."
The new ethics of death
 Wells' New Republic is largely driven by eugenic policies aimed at what Wellscalls the "people of the Abyss." These classes of people are those who the NewRepublic deems inferior, be they Jews, Blacks, the diseased, the incurablymelancholy, etc. The supposed superiority of the scientific elite, who havepurified themselves of ancient, outdated ideas and restraining morality, places
 
them in a position of dominance in Wells' New Republic. A "reconstructed ethicalsystem" gives rise to a "new ethics" in the New Republic.Wells writes regarding this new ethics,"...the ethical system of these men of the New Republic, the ethical system whichwill dominate the world state, will be shaped primarily to favour the procreation ofwhat is fine and efficient... and to check the procreation of base and serviletypes..."Death, writes Wells, must be called to the aid of mankind,"And the method that nature has followed hitherto in the shaping of the world,whereby weakness was prevented from propagating weakness, and cowardiceand feebleness were saved from the accomplishment of their desires... themethod that must in some cases still be called in to the help of man, is death."A "reconstructed ethical system" governs the elite of the New Republic whichallows for the killing of lesser types as a greater service to the whole of mankind,but a more selfish motivation of total domination seems to cut to the core of thiselite. These men of the New Republic have a "moral justification" for everyaction. Scientific management and a compulsive desire for efficiency guide theirhands. They do display some amount of compassion - if you can call it that - asWells describes their allowance of some defectives to live, but on the conditionthat they do not reproduce. If this agreement is violated, murder is not out of thequestion."They will hold [the men of the New Republic], I anticipate, that a certain portionof the population--the small minority, for example, afflicted with indisputablytransmissible diseases, with transmissible mental disorders, with such hideousincurable habits of mind as the craving for intoxication--exists only on sufferance,out of pity and patience, and on the understanding that they do not propagate;and I do not foresee any reason to suppose that they will hesitate to kill whenthat sufferance is abused."All of this will stand on the "faith" of the men of the New Republic. Wellselaborates,"The men of the New Republic will not be squeamish, either, in facing or inflictingdeath, because they will have a fuller sense of the possibilities of life than wepossess. They will have an ideal that will make killing worth the while; likeAbraham, they will have the faith to kill, and they will have no superstitions aboutdeath. They will naturally regard the modest suicide of incurably melancholy, ordiseased or helpless persons as a high and courageous act of duty rather than acrime."
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