BOOK REVIEW: On Tyranny by Timothy Snyder
A Book to Carry with You after You Read It
Hello, fellow bluestockings. I am feeling under the weather. I hope to have a new post this Tuesday or next Saturday. Today I am republishing my book review on Timothy Snyder’s On Tyranny from last year so we always remember not to obey in advance.
“Americans don’t tend to learn from foreign examples or from the past. We don’t recognize a politics of fear, which makes us vulnerable to it. “ — Timothy Snyder from his February 22, 2024 Substack Thinking about... post “Beware the Weak Man”
The late and iconic oral historian, writer, radio broadcaster and Chicago literary legend Studs Terkel often said that for too many adults and members of the younger generations, “History is Thursday.” If anyone needed proof of Studs’s poignant and cutting observation, the past few weeks and months provide plenty of evidence.
Recent articles about and interviews with inmate number P01135809’s MAGA supporters demonstrate they are just fine and dandy with inmate number P01135809 becoming the United States’ dictator if he is re-elected President this November. On the flip side, a December 2023 YouGov study found that 80% of Americans find a U.S. dictatorship, well, deplorable. While this seems like good news, 44% find U.S. democracy itself is not working at the moment.
History provides plenty of evidence that authoritarian leaders and their minions inside and outside the totalitarian regime inflict violence and punishment on dissenters and make specific groups of citizens “the other.” “Otherizing” people make it much easier for us to deny people from racial and ethnic communities, religions, genders, abilities, educational backgrounds, sexualities and occupations unlike our own their humanity. This makes it easier to for us and our leaders to injure, maim, torture, starve and kill fellow human beings.
The most recent examples of autocracy’s damage and evil is the death of Alexie Navalny in a Russian penal colony located in the Artic Circle. Hitler’s Nazi Germany, Stalin’s Soviet Union and Pol Pot’s Cambodia that even terrorized and killed people who wore glasses serve as the most horrifying and grotesque examples.
The only adjective to describe the dictatorship comments from inmate number P01135809’s supporters is terrifying. The never-ending chaos and normalizing of illegal, immoral and inhumane behavior that intensified in 2015 have proven exhausting and demoralizing for some. For others, it has proven galvanizing. MAGA and any autocrat’s goal in seizing power should not be passively accepted. Throughout peoples lives, a person’s ultimate goal is to wield the necessary mechanisms to support and defend democracy. That goal also requires awareness and a knowledge of history and autocratic patterns.
Historian and Yale professor Timothy Snyder, who writes his own Substack newsletter that I read and recommend that you read too, provides those tools and knowledge in his concise and lucid book On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century. Originally published in 2017 two months into inmate number P01135809’s administration, Snyder updated On Tyranny to include the inmate number P01135809-incited January 6 Insurrection on the U.S. Capitol. Within his early and final pages, Snyder quotes from classical authors and delves into historical examples, including Brexit, to support the lessons and actions concerned citizens must apply and practice to prevent authoritarian movements and authoritarians to take hold of a democratic nation.
Snyder’s engaging and readable book makes his vast knowledge inspirational, resonant and motivating. After finishing the text, readers can easily return to the chapter headings to remind them what to stay aware of and what to do and not do to enable and embolden autocracy. Though the book is brief, Snyder’s does not sacrifice his scholarship and intellect and that challenges the reader throughout his 128 pages.
Snyder provides a prologue and epilogue to frame his 20 lessons. Those lessons require more than knowledge and advice. They require courage. They are:
Do Not Obey in Advance.
Defend Institutions.
Beware of the One-Party State.
Take Responsibility for the Face of the World.
Remember Professional Ethics.
Be Wary of Paramilitaries.
Be Reflective If You Must Be Armed.
Stand Out.
Be Kind to Our Language.
Believe in Truth.
Investigate.
Make Eye Contact and Small Talk.
Practice Corporeal Politics.
Establish a Private Life.
Contribute to Good Causes.
Learn from Peers in Other Countries.
Listen for Dangerous Words.
Be Calm When the Unthinkable Arrives.
Be a Patriot.
Be as Courageous as You Can.
Don’t think I gave the entire book away for you. The most important part of Snyder’s text is his historical education and analysis. Throughout he supports his lessons and necessary actions with the impressive scholarship he has gained through decades of study, research, observation, reading and thinking. Despite a 21st century world consumed by endless content and abbreviated attention spans, Snyder adapts On Tyranny to this cluttered reality while losing none of his substance. It is a testament to his writing talent that his book’s compactness does not excise his historical scholarship. From it, he expects his readers to utilize critical self-reflection and agency.
On Tyranny’s bold and direct first sentence states, “History does not repeat, but it does instruct.” He emphasizes the responsibility of U.S. citizens at home and abroad to not ignore the past but position it at the forefront of their minds “when our political order seems imperiled.” And his criticism and call to action require humility, resilience and mettle:
We might be tempted to think that our democratic heritage automatically protects us from such threats. This is a misguided reflex. In fact, the precedent set by the Founders demands that we examine history to understand the deep sources of tyranny, and to consider the proper responses to it. Americans today are no wiser than the Europeans who saw democracy yield to fascism, Nazism or communism in the twentieth century. Our one advantage is that we might learn from their experience. Now is a good time to do so.
The brutal truths of German citizens and the Czechoslovakians conforming to their autocratic leaders displayed “anticipatory obedience.” In one of the texts most harrowing sentences, Snyder warns, “The first heedless acts of conformity could not then be reversed” after Germany fell to the Nazis and the Czechoslovakia fell to communism.
Snyder says sustaining democracy requires people to challenge and remove symbols and signs that not only dehumanize people but normalize the views behind them. Ignoring these signs and symbols strengthens and “enable[s] the reality of tomorrow.” After Charlottesville in 2017, Paige Blaswell of North Carolina did not ignore a Nazi flag flown by her neighbor. We don’t know if this Nazi’s name is David or Joe Love, but we do know for sure that he threatens Ms. Blaswell. We also know the Nazi is unable to form an intelligent sentence and resorts to shoving his middle finger toward her.
Snyder makes clear that only the people can save democracy and that we all must move from theory to praxis.
Sounds like a book that's applicable to other countries too. We saw the results of misinformation with Brexit. But worse than Brexit itself was the polarised and sometimes violent politics it left us with.
Looks like a great book. I'll add it to my Kindle list.
I should show this to school teachers and school administrators.
When they ask "Why," I'll say, "Tyranny? That's about you."
NO TALKING! EYES ON YOUR OWN PAPER! THAT INSOLENT REMARK ABOUT THE PRINCIPAL WILL GO DOWN ON YOUR PERMANENT RECORD CARD AND ENSURE THAT THE ONLY JOB YOU WILL EVER HAVE WILL BE CLEANING OUT A BOILER!
Do we get the idea?