On Tyranny - Prologue and Lesson 1

Within my first days on BlueSky I found a sense of community with many users. I've seen a ton of book recommendations, but none have entranced me like one friend's posts about On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century by Timothy Snyder. Lobstah Grl has posted brief summaries of each chapter, and by lesson 3 I made plans for a trip to the library because I HAD to check this book out. As the title suggests, it's a book of lessons we learned about tyranny in the 20th Century. It's a relevant topic, as we see a shift towards fascism across the world, but particularly here in the United States. What better way to learn than from history? And how better to learn than together? This begins a series of posts outlining the lessons from this book with my own commentary and ties to our current political landscape.

The prologue lays out the historical context of the founding fathers installing protections from tyranny like checks and balances by analyzing the fall of ancient democracies like Greece and Rome. We are fortunate (or unfortunate) enough to learn from more recent examples. Snyder argues that history doesn't repeat, like the old adage told you. Instead, it informs. As history unfolds in front of us every day, it is informed by centuries past. Snyder contends that "Americans today are no wiser than the Europeans who saw democracy yield to fascism, Naziism, or communism in the twentieth century. Our advantage is that we may learn from their experience. Now is a good time to do so."
With the comparisons being made by top officials and 4-star generals, and the vehement hatred of immigrants and trans people in America, it's hard not to think of Nazi Germany nowadays. Much of the conversation in the public sphere gets tied up in arms about whether to call a spade a spade. Rather than balk at apt comparisons being made because they're inflammatory, we need to zero in and learn about what went wrong then, and what we can do to prevent it from happening in the United States now.

Lesson 1: Do Not Obey in Advance
Anticipatory obedience is to anticipate a tyrant's wishes and obey even before orders are made. In this chapter, Snyder points to Austrian obedience as Germany sought to annex its territory. After the Austrian leader conceded the land, Austrian people took the nod and fell right into line. Austrian Nazis rounded Jews up and made them clear the streets of Austrian symbols. "Crucially, people who were not Nazis looked on with interest and amusement."
My mind immediately jumps to pictures of a recent Nazi march in Ohio, just 8 days ago. Photos circulated online and one shot I saw captured people in a coffee shop, watching out the window as masked men with Nazi flags marched down the street. I thought "Why are they just watching?". We have to stand against Naziism. It can't be just a spectacle to gawk at. If there is nothing else we can all stand together in opposition to, it must be that.

Snyder goes on to describe Stanley Milgram's electric shock experiment in the 60's. Milgram wanted to study the dynamics of authority and obedience. He requested to do so in Germany, but couldn't get permission so he did it at Yale in the US. He brought in Yale students and told them that as they turned a dial it would shock a person on the other side of a wall. The students showed a willingness to comply with authority to an extreme degree. The person on the other side of the wall would shout, pound on the wall, complain of chest pain and heart problems. Still, the students took their cues from the person in the lab coat in the room with them, telling them continuously to turn up the shocks. Milgram found so much obedience in this experiment at Yale, he felt no need to take it back to Germany. Snyder summarizes the results: "..people are remarkably receptive to new rules in a new setting. They are surprisingly willing to harm and kill others in the service of some new purpose if they are so instructed by a new authority." Even those who didn't take the dial the whole way, left without asking about the person on the other side of the wall.
We have to be aware of this impulse. Just because someone is in a position of authority, doesn't mean we should listen to them unquestioningly. We have to trust ourselves and constantly check in with our values and moral compass. Does the request align with both, or are we being moved like pawns by a tyrant? The same notion applies to anticipatory obedience as well. Do not obey in advance, and think before you do obey.