Thinking about...

Lesson 9: Avoid pronouncing the phrases everyone else does. Think up your own way of speaking, even if only to convey that thing you think everyone is saying. Make an effort to separate yourself from the internet. Read books.

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Lesson 8: Stand out. Someone has to. It is easy to follow along. It can feel strange to do or say something different. But without that unease, there is no freedom. Remember Rosa Parks. The moment you set an example, the spell of the status quo is broken, and others will follow.

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Lesson 7. “If you carry a weapon in public service, may God bless you and keep you. But know that evils of the past involved policemen and soldiers finding themselves, one day, doing irregular things. Be ready to say no.”

In the podcast, I go into greater depth about the sources of this lesson: the mass atrocities carried out by German policemen and soldiers during the Second World War. I also spend some time on what might help all of us to be more reflective about the past and present.

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Dear All, It’s been one of the great pleasures of my life as a writer to speak about the new graphic edition of On Tyranny with its illustrator, Nora Krug. Her interpretation of the book is astounding and beautiful, and in our public conversations I have much enjoyed making contact with her and with our new public. There has also been a good deal of discussion of the book on television. I am now getting back to these podcasts, and will get them all out to you by Christmas (not by Hanukkah, which is coming very early this year!).

This lesson and this podcast is about paramilitaries. As we approach the anniversary of our coup attempt, with investigation slow and coup plotters defiant, it is, I fear, more timely than ever.

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As you know, I am releasing new discussions of the twenty lessons from On Tyranny, first as videos (notifying subscribers) and then as podcasts (for everyone). We have reached the fifth of twenty podcasts. In the book, the fifth lesson reads:

“Remember professional ethics.  When political leaders set a negative example, professional commitments to just practice become more important. It is hard to subvert a rule-of-law state without lawyers, or to hold show trials without judges.  Authoritarians need obedient civil servants, and concentration camp directors seek businessmen interested in cheap labor.”

We know from these and other examples (which I develop in the book) how quickly professions can adapt (and how the shame of having done so endures). But we also have hopeful signs, for example from 2020, of how professional ethics can adapt in positive ways. It mattered that reputable lawyers stayed away from Mr. Trump’s coup attempt, and that reputable judges insisted on rules of evidence. It mattered that business leaders and organized labor, in an unusual moment of unity, rejected Mr. Trump’s big lie in a timely fashion.

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The text of lesson four reads:

“Take responsibility for the face of the world. The symbols of today enable the reality of tomorrow. Notice the swastikas and the other signs of hate. Do not look away, and do not get used to them. Remove them yourself and set an example for others to do so.”

Now that Nora Krug has made On Tyranny a deeper and better book with her transformative art, this lesson is even closer to me than it was in the past. Like much of On Tyranny, lesson four is about recognition and defense: seeing a problem, resolving it, bearing responsibility. The illustrations in the new On Tyranny suggest a more hopeful reading: we can make the face of the world better, more enlivening, more suggestive of possibility.

I am not an artist; I am convinced, though, that we cannot make it as a democracy without art. We all need to be slightly less predictable versions of ourselves, which is one definition of what art does for us. Democracy needs a future; a future needs imagination; imagination needs art.

I hope you enjoy this podcast, in which I speak about what lesson four means to me now.

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“Lesson 3. Beware the one-party state.  The parties that remade states and suppressed rivals were not omnipotent from the start.  They exploited a historic moment to make political life impossible for their opponents.  So support the multiple-party system and defend the rules of democratic elections.  Vote in local and state elections while you can.  Consider running for office.”

This is the third of twenty podcasts, discussing the twenty lessons of On Tyranny. This one, about the one-party state, is at least as timely as it was in 2017, when the book originally appeared. In the text, I discuss the historical examples of one-party states. I then explain the vicious cycle that begins when a party begins to seek power by subverting elections. The less practiced it becomes in using democratic methods to seek power, the more dangerous it becomes in power. In the podcast, I describe how this has played out these last few years, and what I expect by 2025.

PS: In the graphic edition, Nora Krug’s artwork brings out a point that was only implicit in the original book: that the South after 1877 was in effect a one-party state.

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The last podcast was about lesson one, not obeying in advance. That is the first lesson of On Tyranny because all of the others depend upon it. If we do obey in advance, if we normalize what is coming before it even arrives, we are part of the problem of tyranny. If we can preserve our own sense of values, if "normal” for us means what is good and right and not just whatever happens, then we have a chance to follow some of the other lessons. Number two is about defending institutions, and this could hardly be more timely. Our American democracy is under threat: not just from a violent attempt to overthrow it, not just by a big lie about the last election, but from a nasty legalism that instructs us that whatever becomes the law must be democratic. This is not true. All around the world democracies are ending because parliaments pass laws that make democratic institutions ever less so. Defending institutions means defending the values that should inform them, not just following along with whatever happens. Ultimately the only way to defend institutions is to make them better. This is the second podcast in a series of twenty to come, accompanying the publication of the graphic edition of On Tyranny. It was published earlier this week, and quickly (thanks to Nora Krug’s stunning graphic adaptation, and thanks to the support of you and others like you) became, on that day at least, the bestselling book in the country. I hope that means that this and the other lessons will continue to help us.

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Today is the publication day of a new graphic edition of my book On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century. Thanks to the extraordinary artwork of Nora Krug, it is now a deeper and better book. I have kept the lessons exactly as they were, but changed some of the supporting text to account for experiences of the past five years, and for the challenges of the years to come. In that spirit, I have also made new recordings discussing each of the twenty lessons. As promised, I will be uploading podcasts of every lesson, twice a week, for the next ten weeks. This is the first one! Let me know what you think.

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Dear Friends, this essay elicited touching and interesting reactions, and I am encouraged to think and write more about our melancholy politics of parenting. This was also my most widely read essay at the time it was published, which was 20 May. Because it is very personal, I liked reading it. I hope you appreciate this version, which I am sending to everyone. In general, the writing will be for everyone, and the podcasts for subscribers. If you are not a subscriber and would like access to all of the podcasts, please do sign up. TS

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