Abby Martin gives a heartfelt remark about Einstein's 'Circle of Compassion' by reflecting on how to balance personal stability with the plight of humanity by establishing a sense of global empathy.
The following video is possibly one of my favourite videos of all time. Enjoy <3
The speech itself is from a comedy
directed by and starring Charlie Chaplin. First released in October 1940,
Chaplin plays two characters who look strikingly similar- a Jewish barber and a
dictator who looks like Adolf Hitler. Near the end of the film, after a series
of bizarre incidents, the dictator gets replaced by his look-alike, the barber,
and is taken to the capital where he is asked to give a speech.
It's
worth watching because the speech is as relevant today as it was 71 years ago.
The full transcript of the speech can be found below.
'' I'm
sorry but I don't want to be an Emperor -- that's not my business -- 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 all
want to live by each other's happiness, not by each other's misery. We don't
want to hate and despise one another. In this world there is room for everyone
and the 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
goose-stepped us into misery and bloodshed.
We
have developed speed but we have shut ourselves in: 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.
The
aeroplane and the radio have brought us closer together. The very nature of
these inventions cries out for the goodness in men, cries out for universal
brotherhood for the unity of us all. Even now my voice is reaching millions
throughout the world, millions of despairing men, women and little children,
victims of a system that makes men torture and imprison innocent people. To
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 and dictators die
and the power they took from the people, will return to the people and so long
as men die [now] liberty will never perish...
Soldiers
-- don't give yourselves to brutes, men who despise you and 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 as cattle, 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.
Only the unloved and the unnatural. Soldiers -- don't fight for slavery, fight
for liberty.
In the
seventeenth chapter of Saint 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, the people.
You
the people have the power, the power to create machines, the power to create
happiness. You the people have the power to make life free and beautiful, to
make this life a wonderful adventure. Then in the name of democracy let's 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 and old age
and security. By the promise of these things, brutes have risen to power, but
they lie. They do not fulfil their promise, they never will. Dictators free
themselves but they enslave the people. Now let us fight to fulfil that
promise. Let us fight to free the world, to do away with national barriers, do
away with greed, with hate and intolerance. Let us fight for a world of reason,
a world where science and progress will lead to all men's happiness.
Soldiers
-- in the name of democracy, let us all unite!''
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