Russ
@esprusso
A creator on the inside.
Russ
bsky.app
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.
Timothy Snyder • On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century
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.
Timothy Snyder • On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century
For the Hegelian left, all that people had to do to become free was to think themselves free, to rid themselves of the “illusion of unfreedom.”
Alex Callinicos • The Revolutionary Ideas of Karl Marx
The materialist conception of history—“the simple fact,” as Marx’s lifelong collaborator Friedrich Engels put it at his graveside, “hitherto concealed by an overgrowth of ideology, that mankind must first of all eat, drink, have shelter and clothing, before it can pursue politics, science, art, religion, etc.” (SW iii 162)—is so powerful that even
... See moreAlex Callinicos • The Revolutionary Ideas of Karl Marx
We believe that we have checks and balances, but have rarely faced a situation like the present: when the less popular of the two parties suppresses voting, claims fraud when it loses elections, and controls the majority of statehouses.
Timothy Snyder • On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century
I reach… the idea… that behind the cotton wool is hidden a pattern; that we — I mean all human beings — are connected with this; that the whole world is a work of art; that we are parts of the work of art. Hamlet or a Beethoven quartet is the truth about this vast mass that we call the world. But there is no Shakespeare, there is no Beethoven;
... See moreMaria Popova • Living Against Time: Virginia Woolf on Reaping the “Moments of Being” That Make You Who You Are
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 multi-party system and defend the rules of democratic elections. Vote in local and state elections while you can. Consider running for office.
Timothy Snyder • On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century
Other forces were at work besides conformism. But without the conformists, the great atrocities would have been impossible.
Timothy Snyder • On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century
The mistake is to assume that rulers who came to power through institutions cannot change or destroy those very institutions—even when that is exactly what they have announced that they will do.