Category: On Tyranny
-
4 Take responsibility for the face of the world
No comments on 4 Take responsibility for the face of the worldYou might one day be offered the opportunity to display symbols of loyalty. Make sure that such symbols include your fellow citizens rather than exclude them. Even the history of lapel pins is far from innocent. In Nazi Germany in 1933, people wore lapel pins that said “Yes” during the elections and referendum that confirmed the one-party state. In Austria in 1938, people who had not previously…
-
2: Defend Institutions
“[C]hoose an institution you care about—a court, a newspaper, a law, a labor union—and take its side.” – from Timothy Snyder’s book On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century (p. 22). The reasoned, learned people running the non-Nazi newspapers in Germany did not believe that the Nazis would really close down non-Nazi media, or change the law to remove rights from non-Nazi citizens, or other such…
-
1: Do not obey in advance.
From Timothy Snyder’s book On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century (p. 17). In early 1938, Adolf Hitler, by then securely in power in Germany, was threatening to annex neighboring Austria. After the Austrian chancellor conceded, it was the Austrians’ anticipatory obedience that decided the fate of Austrian Jews. Local Austrian Nazis captured Jews and forced them to scrub the streets to remove symbols of independent…
-
On Tyranny by Timothy Snyder
This is a small book containing information that’s both obvious and – at times – surprising. I’ve been meaning to post about it and failing. I bribed myself to try again by … getting the ebook from the library, because I can cut-and-paste from the ebook easier than paper. So expect to see some posts in this vein coming up. If you find it interesting, I’d recommend…
Living ~400lbs 