On Tyranny

On Tyranny makes you more vigilant of the warning signs of oppression by identifying it’s political nature, how to protect yourself and society, and what you can do to resist dangerous leadership.

Sometimes it’s hard to avoid the constant noise of the political ads and slogans around us, particularly during election time. Their catchy slogans are meant to get caught in our heads. To avoid getting sucked into the groupthink, Snyder encourages you to seek out ways to find and express your own ideas.

One of the best ways to think for yourself is to turn off the media and read books instead. No, he’s not suggesting you avoid the internet completely, but make sure you get diverse and reliable sources of information if you do get it online.

If all you do is listen to one source or listen to what the mainstream media has to say only, you will hear exactly what politicians want you to hear.

Books are the best way to go if you want to think for yourself and get truly informed. They can offer more context as well as show you the gray areas that mainstream media will not. They can help you experience how other people live, which will help you be more well-rounded. Even a fiction book will help you think about ideas you may not normally consider.

Connections with the people around us give us our humanity. Too often we walk through our day to day activities looking only at devices and not at each other. Making eye contact makes you a connected part of the community.

When communities are divided, tyranny can isolate and distract us with social barriers. We can resist this by taking down these barriers and bringing together a diverse group of people who can think together.

In short, we can resist tyranny by bringing different social circles together. Poland was finally able to resist Communism when the Solidarity labor movement pulled together a diverse coalition of people.

The Communist regime successfully turned workers against protesting students in 1968. In 1970, when these workers were on strike, they were violently suppressed. It took until 1976 when the intellectuals and workers finally banded together to make change in the government.

The alliance grew stronger until 1980 when the workers were on strike again, but this time they had students, lawyers, and other workers on their side. Soon, they were 10 million strong. They were able to regain seats in the government and this marked the beginning of an end of the communist regime in Poland. Soon after, eastern Europe and the Soviet Union followed suit.