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jenny_islanderI continue with my reading of On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century by Timothy Snyder.
This is my penultimate post in this series. I have hesitated to make it because this lesson is so short. Here is the entire chapter:
"Lesson 20: Be as courageous as you can. If none of us is prepared to die for freedom, then all of us will die under tyranny."
Do not despair. Do not discount Snyder's words as hyperbole, but do not despair. Despair is the weapon of the enemy.
If you are planning to slowly read or listen to a book the way I have been, but flinch at political books for fear of setting off an avalanche of depression, please choose The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien. Tolkien had seen death come out of the night for people he knew; he had seen war; he had seen the teeth of tyranny. Here are two of his characters talking about what to do about recently uncovered evidence that tyranny is alive and well and on the march.
“I wish it need not have happened in my time," said Frodo.
"So do I," said Gandalf, "and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.”
It is easy for me to sit in my chair and talk about glorious martyrdom, so I'm not going to do that. I say only that the opportunity for you to act may appear at any time, and may not look the way you expected. Keep your attention on the world around you wherever you are. Refusing an order, locking or unlocking a door, telling a lie, keeping a secret, copying public data and hiding the backups, whispering or shouting a warning, blocking a street, speaking when silence is commanded, standing between people with guns and people they want to disappear, livestreaming something that is supposed to be happening invisibly--you simply don't know what may be given to you to do by your own observant conscience (or, as we say in my religion, by the prompting of the Holy Spirit). The immediate cost and benefit of your choice may be apparent to you, or not. You have only to choose and act on that choice.
Do not allow yourself to be so overwhelmed by the scale and pervasiveness of what is upon us that you refuse to do anything on the grounds of not being able to do everything. C.S. Lewis wrote this while bombs were falling nightly on London and the threat of invasion was keenly felt: "Real resignation, at the same moment, to a dozen different and hypothetical fates, is almost impossible." And also, "Fear becomes easier to master when [one's] mind is diverted from the thing feared to the fear itself, considered as a present and undesirable...state of mind." Fear, under tyranny, is also the weapon of the enemy. Take it away from them. You don't have to pretend that you aren't afraid, but, in the words of Jason Isbell, "Be afraid, be very afraid,/But do it anyway."
And do not forget that we are stronger together. What are people organizing, near you? What are existing organizations doing to deny tyranny its mouthfuls? Can you join in?
Do not despair. Do not submit. They cannot conquer forever.
This is my penultimate post in this series. I have hesitated to make it because this lesson is so short. Here is the entire chapter:
"Lesson 20: Be as courageous as you can. If none of us is prepared to die for freedom, then all of us will die under tyranny."
Do not despair. Do not discount Snyder's words as hyperbole, but do not despair. Despair is the weapon of the enemy.
If you are planning to slowly read or listen to a book the way I have been, but flinch at political books for fear of setting off an avalanche of depression, please choose The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien. Tolkien had seen death come out of the night for people he knew; he had seen war; he had seen the teeth of tyranny. Here are two of his characters talking about what to do about recently uncovered evidence that tyranny is alive and well and on the march.
“I wish it need not have happened in my time," said Frodo.
"So do I," said Gandalf, "and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.”
It is easy for me to sit in my chair and talk about glorious martyrdom, so I'm not going to do that. I say only that the opportunity for you to act may appear at any time, and may not look the way you expected. Keep your attention on the world around you wherever you are. Refusing an order, locking or unlocking a door, telling a lie, keeping a secret, copying public data and hiding the backups, whispering or shouting a warning, blocking a street, speaking when silence is commanded, standing between people with guns and people they want to disappear, livestreaming something that is supposed to be happening invisibly--you simply don't know what may be given to you to do by your own observant conscience (or, as we say in my religion, by the prompting of the Holy Spirit). The immediate cost and benefit of your choice may be apparent to you, or not. You have only to choose and act on that choice.
Do not allow yourself to be so overwhelmed by the scale and pervasiveness of what is upon us that you refuse to do anything on the grounds of not being able to do everything. C.S. Lewis wrote this while bombs were falling nightly on London and the threat of invasion was keenly felt: "Real resignation, at the same moment, to a dozen different and hypothetical fates, is almost impossible." And also, "Fear becomes easier to master when [one's] mind is diverted from the thing feared to the fear itself, considered as a present and undesirable...state of mind." Fear, under tyranny, is also the weapon of the enemy. Take it away from them. You don't have to pretend that you aren't afraid, but, in the words of Jason Isbell, "Be afraid, be very afraid,/But do it anyway."
And do not forget that we are stronger together. What are people organizing, near you? What are existing organizations doing to deny tyranny its mouthfuls? Can you join in?
Do not despair. Do not submit. They cannot conquer forever.
