Lately it seems like I and others I know are finding poems. They are the not-so-happy poems, which capture the zeitgeist of a world slowly unwinding that they thought they knew, but in the end, never did. Or maybe for some, we knew what we knew, and we wanted to pretend we were just overly worried and we were just getting overworked about nothing. Turns out we were overthinking nothing. We were always paying attention and trying to keep things in perspective. We still are.
University of Toronto professor Timothy Snyder (used for editorial comment purposes)
This week, I had a chance to create a new relationship with someone who I didn’t really know.
I did that because I saw someone who did something different—they spoke out, and they did that where it was not expected and was not comfortable. It was something that created a quiet stir, in my opinion.
After that happened I quickly contacted that person and, I hope, created the start of a mutually respectful connection, one built on trust and shared values.
This was necessary because I needed this person to know that they had done something that matters: they stood out and broke the spell of silence. This matters, according to experts on authoritarianism.
One of the most important voices to help people understand how authoritarianism works and how to confront it is University of Toronto historian of authoritarianism, Timothy Snyder. He is best known as the author of Bloodlands, a detailed and magisterial history of genocides, campaigns of starvation and mass murder, and conflicts in eastern and central Europe in the first half of the 20th century, bookmarked between the two horrific wars. I read about a third of it four years ago, and I did not have the stamina to complete it, but I was impressed by the scholarship.
The Path to Wisdom 