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jenny_islanderThe full title, by the way, is On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century. I forgot to include that before.
Lesson 1: "Do not obey in advance. Most of the power of authoritarianism is freely given. In times like these, individuals think ahead about what a more repressive government will want, and then offer themselves without being asked. A citizen who adapts in this way is teaching power what it can do."
This chapter is packed with lessons from one specific time and place--one that surprised me. I had grown up with the conventional wisdom that, while your average rank-and-file Nazi was a buffoon, the upper echelons were master planners, kept back from taking Hitler's place at the top only by their competing schemes.
But, Snyder says, the atrocities of the Reich whose names resound with horror--even the genocide--were first thought up by followers, then presented to their leaders; or carried out pre-emptively in full and accurate expectation of approval from above. The leaders then realized that such and such a hideous thing that they had themselves been contemplating could be done without fear of retaliation, due to so much support from below. And they organized something else of that kind or took up their followers' offerings and elaborated on them.
This is how tyranny gains power: people hasten to become its hands and feet. The invasion and occupation of Austria began, says Snyder, with Austrian Nazis kidnapping Jews and forcing them to remove symbols of independent Austria from public spaces. Nobody told them to do it. They just decided that that was what their tyrant wanted; and they provided the first signal that the invasion was feasible.
But it wasn't just them. "Crucially," Snyder says, "people who were not Nazis looked on with interest and amusement."
And that, too, is obeying in advance.
Snyder cites an interpretation of the Milgram Experiment--that if you throw people into a new situation, they will experience a visceral impulse to figure out how it works and fit in. That's as may be. I say that he does not mention those who are eager for the chance to do harm without personal repercussions, or those who simply can't figure out that people to whom they feel no strong personal connection are nevertheless people.
But I am not writing to them. I am writing to the majority who may feel helpless because tyranny is already exulting on live television.
Here's the thing:
Democracy is fallible because it can't instantly penetrate to all corners of human life and change everything. So is tyranny. Democracy is fallible because it knows only what has been brought to its attention. So is tyranny. Democracy is fallible because it is a construct of the human mind that requires daily maintenance by human hands and voices. So is tyranny.
Right now, somewhere near you, there is an opportunity that tyranny has not noticed or not hedged around with the protections of power--one that you can take away.
Your opportunity to defend democracy may be sudden, the action a matter of minutes, and the positive consequences greater than you know. Back in 2017, some subway passengers in New York City noticed that their car had been defaced with graffiti that exalted tyranny and the monstrous acts of tyranny. The intent, most likely, was to hearten the like-minded and frighten everyone else into silently looking away. But someone among the passengers remembered that permanent marker can be cleaned away with alcohol, a key ingredient of hand sanitizer. They pooled their stocks of hand sanitizer and tissues and removed that avenue of fear. Popular Science, picking up the story, identified multiple easy strategies for getting rid of permanent marker, empowering more citizens to silence tyranny. Back in 2020, a Seattle bus driver told somebody from ICE who wanted to make his passengers show their papers to gargle his balls. Now Greyhound refuses bus searches that are not accompanied by a legally admissible warrant. And last month, a bladesmith in Texas refused to repair the paraphernalia of tyranny for a customer. Simply uploading the security video gained his wife and him an international platform, on which she was able to tell millions of people, “We stand our ground and we hold our morals and it’s incredibly important to us to show integrity in our business and our life and in everything we do.”
Sometimes the opportunity may require some planning. If you have never gone to, or called in to, a meeting of your school board, city council, or other local elected group, now may be the time. Pick one issue from the agenda and do a little research ahead of time. When you speak, don't try to educate; use plain words for things, not categorical descriptors (no -isms, no -izations). If something the group is going to vote on is a piece of tyrannical propaganda, call it bullshit. If it is designed to terrify the disenfranchised, say that it would spend taxpayers' money on a problem that does not exist, or that it would cost more than it would save. If it's ripped from the national headlines, say that some outsider got them all riled up over a problem that does not exist locally. And so on. This will let the ardent followers of tyranny know that they are not unopposed and let everyone else know that they are more numerous than they may think.
Remember that the tyrants in charge may be strutting and snorting and thumping their chests about their power on the national or state stage, but it takes willing or fearful compliance by others to make that power real. Take your eyes off the stage. Look around you. Find the opportunity.
Lesson 1: "Do not obey in advance. Most of the power of authoritarianism is freely given. In times like these, individuals think ahead about what a more repressive government will want, and then offer themselves without being asked. A citizen who adapts in this way is teaching power what it can do."
This chapter is packed with lessons from one specific time and place--one that surprised me. I had grown up with the conventional wisdom that, while your average rank-and-file Nazi was a buffoon, the upper echelons were master planners, kept back from taking Hitler's place at the top only by their competing schemes.
But, Snyder says, the atrocities of the Reich whose names resound with horror--even the genocide--were first thought up by followers, then presented to their leaders; or carried out pre-emptively in full and accurate expectation of approval from above. The leaders then realized that such and such a hideous thing that they had themselves been contemplating could be done without fear of retaliation, due to so much support from below. And they organized something else of that kind or took up their followers' offerings and elaborated on them.
This is how tyranny gains power: people hasten to become its hands and feet. The invasion and occupation of Austria began, says Snyder, with Austrian Nazis kidnapping Jews and forcing them to remove symbols of independent Austria from public spaces. Nobody told them to do it. They just decided that that was what their tyrant wanted; and they provided the first signal that the invasion was feasible.
But it wasn't just them. "Crucially," Snyder says, "people who were not Nazis looked on with interest and amusement."
And that, too, is obeying in advance.
Snyder cites an interpretation of the Milgram Experiment--that if you throw people into a new situation, they will experience a visceral impulse to figure out how it works and fit in. That's as may be. I say that he does not mention those who are eager for the chance to do harm without personal repercussions, or those who simply can't figure out that people to whom they feel no strong personal connection are nevertheless people.
But I am not writing to them. I am writing to the majority who may feel helpless because tyranny is already exulting on live television.
Here's the thing:
Democracy is fallible because it can't instantly penetrate to all corners of human life and change everything. So is tyranny. Democracy is fallible because it knows only what has been brought to its attention. So is tyranny. Democracy is fallible because it is a construct of the human mind that requires daily maintenance by human hands and voices. So is tyranny.
Right now, somewhere near you, there is an opportunity that tyranny has not noticed or not hedged around with the protections of power--one that you can take away.
Your opportunity to defend democracy may be sudden, the action a matter of minutes, and the positive consequences greater than you know. Back in 2017, some subway passengers in New York City noticed that their car had been defaced with graffiti that exalted tyranny and the monstrous acts of tyranny. The intent, most likely, was to hearten the like-minded and frighten everyone else into silently looking away. But someone among the passengers remembered that permanent marker can be cleaned away with alcohol, a key ingredient of hand sanitizer. They pooled their stocks of hand sanitizer and tissues and removed that avenue of fear. Popular Science, picking up the story, identified multiple easy strategies for getting rid of permanent marker, empowering more citizens to silence tyranny. Back in 2020, a Seattle bus driver told somebody from ICE who wanted to make his passengers show their papers to gargle his balls. Now Greyhound refuses bus searches that are not accompanied by a legally admissible warrant. And last month, a bladesmith in Texas refused to repair the paraphernalia of tyranny for a customer. Simply uploading the security video gained his wife and him an international platform, on which she was able to tell millions of people, “We stand our ground and we hold our morals and it’s incredibly important to us to show integrity in our business and our life and in everything we do.”
Sometimes the opportunity may require some planning. If you have never gone to, or called in to, a meeting of your school board, city council, or other local elected group, now may be the time. Pick one issue from the agenda and do a little research ahead of time. When you speak, don't try to educate; use plain words for things, not categorical descriptors (no -isms, no -izations). If something the group is going to vote on is a piece of tyrannical propaganda, call it bullshit. If it is designed to terrify the disenfranchised, say that it would spend taxpayers' money on a problem that does not exist, or that it would cost more than it would save. If it's ripped from the national headlines, say that some outsider got them all riled up over a problem that does not exist locally. And so on. This will let the ardent followers of tyranny know that they are not unopposed and let everyone else know that they are more numerous than they may think.
Remember that the tyrants in charge may be strutting and snorting and thumping their chests about their power on the national or state stage, but it takes willing or fearful compliance by others to make that power real. Take your eyes off the stage. Look around you. Find the opportunity.
