Previous
Prologue
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in On Tyranny, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
The Collapse of American Democracy
Tyranny and the Consolidation of Power
Political Action and Civic Responsibility
History and Memory
Summary
Analysis
Throughout history, people have obeyed authoritarians automatically, like when German citizens eagerly supported Adolf Hitler’s newly elected government. Similarly, when Hitler started planning to invade Austria, the Austrian government simply agreed. Austrians started persecuting Jews before the Nazis even took over, and the Nazis modeled their later genocidal policies on these Austrians’ riots. In his famous electroshock experiments, psychologist Stanley Milgram convinced everyday people to electroshock a stranger behind a pane of glass until the stranger apparently died of a heart attack. While the strangers were actors and not actually getting shocked, this experiment shows how people are more willing than they think to commit violence when authority figures order them to.
While people prefer to think of Hitler as a rogue who commandeered the German state over its citizens’ protests, this is a willful misrepresentation of history. It is a particularly dangerous and self-serving one because it leads people to think that something similar couldn’t possibly happen where they live. In reality, Hitler was elected, and he was extremely popular (even outside Germany). Those who did not actively support him passively obeyed. In other words, the people of Germany and the territories it occupied are also responsible for the horrors of the Holocaust, even though they were normal people with normal moral compasses. Milgram's experiment shows that people have trouble maintaining their morality—specifically, their ability to empathize with others and demand fair treatment for everyone—when they are pressed by authorities, and especially under conditions of crisis. Snyder’s message is clear: citizens must never get used to repression and violence, and they cannot trust the government to protect them.
Themes
