It is presumably comparatively simple to overthrow a régime and start a new one if you have sufficient resources, either of good-will, of money or of arms, or a judicious mixture of the three. Whether this is likely to be a practical method of ushering in the millennium, as opposed to more limited goals like making things a bit better for some people, is a debatable problem. The evidence is not coercive, and in any case I have no intention of debating it. My point, to put it crudely, is that in England and America, at least, this method of changing society doesn’t seem likely to be possible for some time to come, and that to assume it is the only way must lead either to the abandonment of effort, or the watering down of aims, or to a lot of self-delusion about what the possibilities actually are. This last is quite prevalent, because if you deeply believe that drastic change is essential, and that life is scarcely bearable except in the hope that it will come, there is a strong motive for persuading oneself that it will come soon. This is bolstered up by much discussion among groups of like-minded people, especially young ones.

The trouble about this is that when someone with this kind of belief moves out of the inner circle of the faithful, and comes up against the ignorance, indifference or sheer perverseness of other people, he is appalled and disgusted, and often very much surprised. This is especially likely when the people concerned are very young.