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Chapter 8
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
People must find their own voices, separate from the majority’s, especially through books. Scholar Victor Klemperer noted that Hitler dismissed his opposition by carefully using words like “the people,” “struggles,” and “defamation” to present his policies as the only legitimate ones. Today, television does the same thing: it repeats political clichés, distracts people by moving fast, and uses image to lull audiences into a “collective trance.”
By distorting the meanings of words, authoritarians deprive people of the ability to think clearly. For instance, imagine that someone is used to thinking about “the people” of their nation as a complex group that disagrees on major issues and negotiates solutions to those issues through politics. But then imagine that this person starts hearing a populist candidate proclaim that “the people” really want one thing, and everyone who disagrees is an enemy of “the people.” Even if they do not agree with this candidate, this citizen might become confused about which “people” really count in politics, and they might have trouble talking clearly about “the people” of the country when they discuss politics with others, because it becomes unclear whose version of “the people” is being discussed. The concept of “the people” becomes muddled. Similarly, even when the media disagrees with such a candidate, by discussing politics in terms of the candidate’s own distorted concepts, they contribute to the sense of “collective trance,” in which people cannot distinguish fact from fiction.
Themes
In fact, famous novels about totalitarianism, like Fahrenheit 451 and 1984, predicted this strategy: tyrants and their media prevent people from understanding the present and conceptualizing its relationship to history. To analyze politics, people need to develop “a mental armory” of concepts. To build these concepts, Snyder recommends several novels, scholarly works of political theory and history, and even the Bible.
Even if candidates do not brainwash people, they do confuse them and muddle their concepts in a way that makes it difficult to discuss and reconcile political differences. This helps them advance their picture of politics as a “struggle” for victory over one’s enemies—rather than a conflict among the differing worldviews of equal citizens. This idea allows authoritarians to portray those who oppose them not as fellow citizens who also deserve rights and protections but as hostile foes who must be defeated at any cost. The purpose of developing a “mental armory” of clear concepts by reading and studying history is to have ways of understanding and discussing politics that do not fall into this trap. By using these independent concepts, people can help others start thinking for themselves.
Themes
