For almost two decades I have had this actvism for better political education, for more respect for human rights, for better justice, for better democracy, for better citizenship. Join us in this worldwide movement, watch my videos on my YouTube channel, here is the link. https://www.youtube.com/@lucianofietto4773/videos. This post is a summary of an article that is a summary of the book with the title above. it was published at https://carlaseaquist.medium.com/books-for-our-times-on-tyranny-twenty-lessons-from-the-twentieth-century-by-timothy-snyder-dce314bf8f3f
The author, Timothy Snyder, leads with "Tyranny", for good reason: Alarmed at the deteriorating state of democracy, he published this book in 2017. He wants to return us to principles. Tyranny lies ahead us, if we don't save ourselves. First step in saving ourselves is understand our peril. He discusses ideas, ideas undergirding democracy and lying invisible behind our peril that, because they have become "normalized" (a term Snyder doesn't use), we don't recognize them. What he seeks to do is furnish us with new lenses and mindset, so we can see and think anew what an invaluable, but imperiled, thing we have. To do this Snyder avoids the jargon that has jammed current political "debate", using instead evocative but on-point language. For example, introducing the idea of tyranny: "The founding Fathers sought to avoid the evil that they called tyranny. They had in mind the usurpation of power by a single individual or group, or the circumvention of law by rulers for their own profit. "Evil, usurpation, tyranny", all resonate more than autocracy, a term not computing for many. Citing history, Snyder teaches history at Yale University, he writes: As the Founders knew, "Aristotle warned that inequality brought instability, while Plato believed that demagogues exploited free speech to install themselves as tyrants. Most of his historical examples come from the 20th century: Russia's communist and Hitler's manipulation of Germany's nascent democracy into a fascist killing machine. Surveying European democracies, he says, "societies can break, democracies can fall, ethics can collapse, and ordinary men can find themselves standing over deaths pits with guns in their hands. To enable understanding of how tyranny comes, Snyder presents his twenty lessons. 1) Don't obey in advance: Most of the power of authoritarianism is freely given and anticipatory obedience is a political tragedy. 2) Defend institutions: it is institutions that help us to preserve decency. 3) Beware the one-party system: more so than ever, politicians with great power exploit the moment"to make political life impossible for their opponents, trying to demonstrate they must either fear democracy or weaken it. 4) Take responsibility for the face of the world: "notice the swastikas and other signs of hate. Don't look away, and don't get used to them. Remove them yourself and set an example for others to do so. 5) Remember professional ethics: this lessons bears underscoring. Professional commitment to just practice, practice thst is ethical is crucial when a political leader shows authoritarian intent: it is hard to subvert a rule-of-law state without lawyers. Snyder profiles Hitler's Germany: doctors conducting "ghastly" medical experiments in the concentration camps, businessmen exploiting camps' cheap labor, civil servants recording it all. The Nazi atrocities could not happen if lawyers had followers the norm of no executions without trial, if doctors had accepted the rule of no surgery without consent, if businessmen had accepted the prohibition of slavery. Professional codes of ethical conduct, confer power and impose the obrigation to act. Then there is no such thing as just following orders. It takes a people to make a tyranny. Ethical codes of conduct, of course, should be imposed on political leaders themselves. 6) Be wary of paramilitares: armed groups first degrade political order, and then transform it. 7) Be reflective if you must be armed: addressed to members of the military and police, Snyder urges that in response to a tyrant's orders, be ready to say no. 8) Stand out: somebody has to. It is easy to follow along. It can feel strange to do or say something different. But without that unease, there is no freedom. 9) Be kind to language: Think up your own way of speaking, even if only to convey that thing you think everyone is saying. 10) Believe in truth: a lesson taking on supreme importance, "to abandon facts is to abandon freedom. If nothing is true, then no one can criticize power, because there is no basis upon which to do so. Per Victor Klemperer, literary scholar and holocaust survivor, "truth dies in four modes: first, the hostility to verifiable reality. Second, "shamanistic incantation". Third, "magical thinking, or the open embrace of contradiction, for example, a politician promises of cuttng taxes, eliminating national debt and at the same time increasing spending. Accepting untruth of this kind requires a blatant abandonment of reason. And finally, "misplaced faith" in self-deifying claims. In suma: "post-truth is pre-fascism. 11) Investigate: An investigating mind prevents a "generic cynicism". Support investigative reporting and take responsibility for what you communicate to others. 12) Understand whom you should and shouldn't trust. 13) Make new friends and march with them. 14) Establish a private life: Tyrants seek the hook on which to hang you, your legal troubles, your emails. Try not to have hooks. 15) Contribute to good causes: to create an empowered civil society, do good and help others do good. 16) Learn from peers in other countries. 17) Listen for dangerous words: this lesson is key. Be alert to the use of the words extremism and terrorism. Be alive to the fatal notion of emergency and exception. Dissidents, whether they were resisting fascism or communism, were called extremists. In this way the notion of extremism comes to mean virtually everything except what is, in fact, extreme: tyranny. 18) Be calm when the unthinkable comes: "modern tyranny is terror management. The sudden disaster that requires the end of checks and balances, the dissolution of opposition parties, the suspension of freedom of expression, the right to a fair trial, and so on. 19) Be a patriot: a nationalist isn't at all the same as a patriot. A nationalist encourages us to be our worst, and then tell us that we are the best, while a patriot wants the nation to live up to its ideals. 20) Be as courageous as you can, and try to cultivate in ourselves and as voters, a sense of maturity, responsibility and history. Defending democracy is subtle business and this subtle book shows how.
