More lessons from the 20th Century

Last Sunday, I wrote a column about a very interesting and revealing book, “20 Lessons from the 20th Century” by Timothy Snyder (Crown Publishing Group, NY, 2017). According to The New York Times, Snyder is a “rising public intellectual unafraid to make bold connections between past and present.”

The publishers explain that even in the long history of man, tyranny has often overcome democracy. They wrote: “Today, our political order faces new threats, not unlike the totalitarianism of the 20th century. We are no wiser than the Europeans who saw democracy yield to fascism, Nazism or communism. Our one advantage is that we might learn from their experience.”

Here are a few more of the lessons that Snyder wrote about.

• Be kind to our language. More than half a century ago, the novels on totalitarianism were already warning of the domination of the screens and the suppression of books. This has resulted in the narrowing of vocabularies and “the associated difficulties of thought.” For example, in Ray Bradbury’s book “Fahrenheit 451” published in 1953, society mandated that all books should be burned and people should just watch interactive television.

In another book, George Orwell’s “1984” published in 1949, all books are banned and television is two-way. This meant that citizens can be observed while watching television. Snyder describes the result: “In ‘1984,’ the language of visual media is highly constrained to starve the public of the concepts needed to think about the present, remember the past and consider the future.”

Snyder’s advice is for everyone to get rid of the screens out of your life and surround yourselves with books. In recommending reading, he says that good novels enlighten our ability to think about ambiguous situations and judge the intentions of others.

He also reminds us what Christ said, “And ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free.” This should motivate us to always be concerned about what is true and what is false.

• Practice corporeal politics. In the past, successful resistance to authoritarian ideas like fascism and communism required that change must engage people of various backgrounds who do not always agree about everything. The one example of successful resistance to tyranny was the Solidarity movement in Poland in 1980-81, which was a coalition of workers and professionals, elements of the Roman Catholic Church and secular groups. One lesson they learned was that if tyrants feel no consequences for their actions in the real world, then nothing will change.

Snyder explains: “Protests can be organized through social media but nothing is real that does not end on the streets.” This movement had its roots in the 1970s when intellectuals and professionals formed a group to assist workers who had been abused by the government. “These were people from both the Right and the Left, believers and atheists who created trust among workers – people who they would not otherwise have met.”

Snyder said, “Power wants your body softening in your chair and your emotions dissipating on the screen. Get outside. Put your body in unfamiliar places with unfamiliar people. Make new friends and march with them.”

• Stand out. When people read history of the Second World War, it creates an image of millions dying as a result of resistance to Hitler. The entire story, however, is that before that war, most Europeans and Americans accepted the seemingly irresistible power of Hitler and Nazi Germany. Under the slogan “America First,” the population opposed any war against the Nazis.

However, today we remember and admire people like Winston Churchill and Franklin Delano Roosevelt who were at that time considered exceptional or eccentric because they were not willing to follow the worldwide trend of kowtowing to Hitler. Even before the Second World War, most European states had abandoned democracy or some form of right-wing authoritarianism. Most of the rest of the world were also colonies of imperial power. There was a time at the beginning of the Second World War when Great Britain was alone in Europe resisting Nazism, fascism and communism.

As the Second World War began, Churchill said that history would be kind to him even though his country’s stance at that time seemed like they were going against the rest of the world. Today, we accept that what Churchill did was right but at that time he had to “stand out” in resisting the tyrannical regimes of Germany and Italy.

• Investigate. What is truth? Snyder said: “Sometimes people ask this question because they wish to do nothing.” In today’s world, it seems that being cynical is considered trendy but it is our ability to discern facts that makes us an individual and it is the individual who investigates that leaders often dislike as potential threats.

Snyder wrote, “Figure things out for yourself. Spend more time with long articles. Subsidize investigative journalism by subscribing to print media. Realize that some of what is on the internet is there to harm you. Learn about sites that investigate propaganda campaigns. Take responsibility for what you communicate with others.”

Each of us must set a good example of what freedom and democracy means for the generations to come.

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Young Writers’ Hangout on July 23 with returning author-facilitator Kim Derla, 2-3 p.m.

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