[...] we need to dispel with the notion that totalitarianism can be defeated through compliance. Many people cede to the commands of would-be totalitarians because they believe that so doing is the quickest means to return to some semblance of normality.
But this is a cowardly and ignorant way to act.
For compliance only emboldens totalitarian regimes, a point emphasized by the political philosopher Hannah Arendt in her book The Origins of Totalitarianism:
“. . .the most characteristic aspect of totalitarian terror [is that] it is let loose when all organized opposition has died down and the totalitarian ruler knows that he no longer need be afraid.
. . Stalin started his gigantic purges not in 1928 when he conceded, “We have internal enemies,” . . .but in 1934 when all former opponents had “confessed their errors,” and Stalin himself, at the Seventeenth Party Congress . . .declared “. . .there is nothing more to prove and, it seems, no one to fight.””
Still a shame they never quote Political Ponerology and its many insights into both the tyrants and the compliant minions.
Worth reading the comments too.
What has truly shocked me over the past two years, is to have watched very intelligent and well respected academics I once worked with, and doctors and barristers who I've personally known for years, become some of the most ignorant, hateful, gutless cowards I've ever imagined. [tezrh]
You have now been warned far too many times.
For the mistake that was made over and over again in the totalitarian countries of the 20th century was that people didn’t act soon enough.
The proposed solution in the video? A parallel decentralised alternative society. I'm not so sure - I don't see enough power in that one idea. Another idea it somewhat skirts over is that of peak experience - I would prefer to call it transcendence. Being in the flow is not at all the same as being totally, absolutely still.
Years ago when I began doing a deep dive down the rabbit hole of child trafficking here in the U.S., it stunned me as I discovered the government itself was involved in this along with many other evil schemes just as horrific. I had always known of some level of involvement, but always ascribed it to a few loose mavericks abusing their positions. Now I realize the loose mavericks are the ones who AREN'T participating.
I used to ask when confronted with this stuff
Upon diving into this, they were actually quite numerous, and now many quite dead. You won't hear of them when the institutions involved in information sharing are owned/part of this structure. There is a saying right now on Reddit (in the few spaces not controlled completely by the left side) that the revolution won't be televised. Reminds me of when Trump ran for president the first time. He was filling arenas and the various camera crews wouldn't pan over the crowds so they could pretend only a few hundred were there, not 25000. It wouldn't fit the narrative that the opponent was the peoples choice when she was lucky to get 200 to her events. This last cycle, they said screw it, we will rub their faces in it, half the people or more will pretend they didn't see what was blatant for all to see anyway.
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