From the Guardian, Max Hastings:
"Churchill, during the second world war, explained this phenomenon to the head of the army, General Sir Alan Brooke. He called it the "three-inch pipe" theory of human response. Human beings, he said, can only absorb so much drama - up to the capacity of say, a three-inch pipe. Thereafter, everything that happens around them rushes past, along an emotional overflow.
Many people, including Brooke himself, experienced this in Britain in 1940. So many sensations crowded upon each other that many failed to achieve the impact that they deserved - happily for national morale.
A little knowledge of history makes it easier to achieve a perspective upon misfortunes that befall us. Bedtime reading of Samuel Pepys's diary provides a wonderful corrective to anyone silly enough to suppose our own times extravagantly dangerous.
Pepys lived and worked as a government servant, during a period in which almost everybody was frightened for their heads, health and fortune. While he shared in rejoicing at the restoration of the monarchy in 1660, throughout the years which followed King Charles II's polity never seemed less than precarious. Pepys's own career prospered at the Navy Office, but he lacked the slightest sense of security.
In 1665, the great plague struck London. The following year, Pepys witnessed the great fire. The nation's finances tottered. The diarist wrote on September 8: "Up, and ... by water to White-hall. I stopped with Sir G Carteret, to desire him to go with us and enquire after money. But the first he cannot do, and the other as little, or says: 'Where can we get any, or what shall we do for it ?' He, it seems, is imployed [sic] in the correspondence between the City and the King every day, in settling of things."
It seemed to them all in those days that matters could scarcely get worse, but they did. The following June the Dutch fleet sailed up the Medway, and burned Chatham dockyard. Pepys, panic-stricken, sent his money out of London, and wrote: "The truth is, I do fear so much that the whole kingdom is undone ... God help us, and God knows what disorders we may fall into."
The crises of peace, precipitated by disease, natural disaster or financial collapse, are often harder to endure than those of war. People find themselves confined to the role of victims, impotent to influence their own fates.
A significant element of Churchill's genius in 1940-41 was his understanding that the British people needed to feel themselves participants, rather than merely to stand passive in the face of the Nazi juggernaut. All that trench-digging and Dad's Army duty served little practical purpose. But it was invaluable in enabling ordinary people to suppose that they were "doing their bit".
Long after the real threat of German invasion had passed, Churchill kept alive a pretence. He knew that defence against descending Nazi hordes sustained the illusion of useful activity among millions of British citizens who might otherwise have slumped into despondency and inertia."
This is an excellent reflection on our times and times past... worth the read.
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