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A party emboldened by a favorable election result or motivated by ideology, or both, might change the system from within. When fascists or Nazis or communists did well in elections in the 1930s or ’40s, what followed was some combination of spectacle, repression, and salami tactics—slicing off layers of opposition
The odd American idea that giving money to political campaigns is free speech means that the very rich have far more speech, and so in effect far more voting power, than other citizens.
Professional ethics must guide us precisely when we are told that the situation is exceptional.
But without the conformists, the great atrocities would have been impossible.
The effort to define the shape and significance of events requires words and concepts that elude us when we are entranced by visual stimuli.
When we repeat the same words and phrases that appear in the daily media, we accept the absence of a larger framework. To have such a framework requires more concepts, and having more concepts requires reading. So get the screens out of your room and surround yourself with books. The characters in Orwell’s and Bradbury’s books could not do this—but we still can.
You submit to tyranny when you renounce the difference between what you want to hear and what is actually the case.
Once truth had become oracular rather than factual, evidence was irrelevant. At the end of the war a worker told Klemperer that “understanding is useless, you have to have faith. I believe in the Führer.”
The individual who investigates is also the citizen who builds. The leader who dislikes the investigators is a potential tyrant.
People going door-to-door to canvass encountered the surprised blinking of American citizens who realized that they would have to talk about politics with a flesh-and-blood human being rather than having their views affirmed by their Facebook feeds.
We need print journalists so that stories can develop on the page and in our minds.
It is derision that is mainstream and easy, and actual journalism that is edgy and difficult.
If we can avoid doing violence to the minds of unseen others on the internet, others will learn to do the same.
You might not be sure, today or tomorrow, who feels threatened in the United States. But if you affirm everyone, you can be sure that certain people will feel better.
Citizens then trade real freedom for fake safety.
For us, the lesson is that our natural fear and grief must not enable the destruction of our institutions.
The whole notion of disruption is adolescent: It assumes that after the teenagers make a mess, the adults will come and clean it up. But there are no adults. We own this mess.
