Betsy

“Our appetite for the secret, thought Arendt, is dangerously political. Totalitarianism removes the difference between private and public not just to make individuals unfree, but also to draw the whole society away from normal politics and toward conspiracy theories. Rather than defining facts or generating interpretations, we are seduced by the notion of hidden realities and dark conspiracies that explain everything. As we learned from these email bombs, this mechanism works even when what is revealed is of no interest. The revelation of what was once confidential becomes the story itself.”
― Timothy Snyder, On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century

“In the twentieth century, all the major enemies of freedom were hostile to non-governmental organizations, charities, and the like.”
― Timothy Snyder, On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century

“The choice to be in public depends on the ability to maintain a private sphere of life. We are free only when it is we ourselves who draw the line between when we are seen and when we are not seen.”
― Timothy Snyder, On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century

“Ionesco’s aim was to help us see just how bizarre propaganda actually is, but how normal it seems to those who yield to it. By using the absurd image of the rhinoceros, Ionesco was trying to shock people into noticing the strangeness of what was actually happening.”
― Timothy Snyder, On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century