Silone does not offer a panacea or a miraculous antidote because there isn’t one. There is no final solution, no theory that will explain everything. There is no road map to a better society, no didactic ideology, no rule book. All we can do is choose our allies and our friends—our comrades, as he puts it—with great care, for only with them, together, is it possible to avoid the temptations of the different forms of authoritarianism once again on offer.
