Sharansky on living a double life
Several people have recommended that I read this extraordinarily powerful article by Natan Sharansky on the mental doubling that a person had to do in order to survive in the Soviet Union in which his father lived for most of his life and became disillusioned by, and in which Sharansky himself grew to young manhood. Please read the whole thing.
Here’s Sharansky’s basic theme [words in brackets mine]:
Life in a dictatorship offers two choices: either you overcome your fear and stand for truth, or you remain a slave to fear, no matter how fancy your titles, no matter how big your dacha…
Once I had [declared his intent to move to Israel, which marked him as a dissident], once I was no longer afraid, I realized what it was to be free. I could live in history, a real history, with ups and downs, fits and starts, not the bland, ever-changing history-like-putty dictated by the authorities. I could live with real people and enjoy real friendships, not the cautious, constricted conversations of winks and nods among fellow doublethinkers. Most important, I could live without that permanent self-censorship, that constant checking of what you are going to say to make sure it’s not what you want to say. Only then do you realize what a burden you’ve been carrying, how exhausting it is to say the right thing, do the right thing, while always fighting the fear of being outed for an errant thought, a wrong reaction, an idiosyncratic impulse.
That was in 1973, and there was no turning back for Sharansky. During his imprisonment from 1977 to 1986, he kept that sense of inner freedom even as his outer freedom was more curtailed. Here’s one example he gives:
And that was why, during nine years in prison, when the KGB would try tempting me to restore my freedom and even my life by returning to the life I once had, it was easy to say “no.” I knew what they wanted. They wanted to take me back to this open-caged prison of doublethink…
It was easy enough to remind myself and them who was really free and who is a scared doublethinker. All I had to do was tell some joke about the Soviet leader, Leonid Brezhnev…As I’d tell my interrogators a joke, I’d laugh. And, as normal Soviet doublethinkers themselves, they would want to laugh. But they couldn’t, especially if two of them were there together. Laughter would end their careers.
Sharansky got the last laugh on them. But now he’s seeing the old phenomenon of the doublethinker imposed in a different manner:
In the West today, the pressure to conform doesn’t come from the totalitarian top—our political leaders are not Stalinist dictators. Instead, it comes from the fanatics around us, in our neighborhoods, at school, at work, often using the prospect of Twitter-shaming to bully people into silence—or a fake, politically-correct compliance.
Indeed.
“In the West today, the pressure to conform doesn’t come from the totalitarian top”
A valuable insight.
The Disney actress lady who was un-personed recently posted a quote saying that the old history was forgotten but it was the German people who attacked and vilified German Jews first (of course, the people had been heavily propagandized). It was only later that the German Army came to take them away. Doubtless in some cases those Jews were persuaded that it was for their own safety. Because their neighbors were too menacing to bear.
I’m pretty strongly in favor of Duh People, but I have to admit there are a couple of things troubling to me about our nation’s character lately.
So many people are overly fearful, not confident and bold.
So many people are buying the propaganda. Not showing skepticism, not displaying an independent mind.
I don’t understand how the “pressure to conform” in the West today can have such an impact on people. Just… don’t conform. It’s really not that hard. Or is it? I’ve never been one of those people who felt the need to to wear what everyone else was wearing, watch what everyone else was watching, share what everyone else was sharing on social media, follow “the rules” to a T, etc. I guess resistance must really be hard for a lot of people, or we wouldn’t be in the situation we’re in today. Maybe the world would never have seen the rise of totalitarian governments at all.
That’s not a good enough excuse to me, though. It’s not too late to prevent totalitarianism, if people would just stop being so short-sighted and stop playing along. The fear of losing a job or a friendship or a social media account should pale in comparison to the fear you would feel every day living under a totalitarian regime.
Your apt comment will bring up emotions in all your readers, Neo, because this new fad of critical theories is touching so many close family members and friends–they’ve heard just enough to grasp the wrong meanings– such that you have to tip toe around these concepts like avoiding the plague.
E.g. one doesn’t realize that this au courant ideology is heavily disguised linguistically (because its proponents know its ideas are shocking.) E.g.. “equity” no longer means fairness and equal opportunity, it means equal outcomes.
So our loved ones at the dinner table come out with “BLM sounds like a good idea to me. I’m for it.” And they don’t realize that it has deep ideas about destroying the American family structure and that it has communist founders.
So you have to stay mum because you don’t want to ruin the Thanksgiving dinner. Sharansky lives.
After I saw the crackdown after Biden’s inauguration I sent my conservative niece an email advising her to be careful. She wrote a long, outpouring response including this:
__________________________________________________
I got into an argument with a friend recently about the capitol riot that happened and I am in no way defending what happened but in her case she’s pro Black Lives Matter and acts like they are a “peaceful protest” and when I pointed out to her that their whole movement is based on fraud and the damage they’ve have done is incomparable along with antifa she just started looking at me like I was crazy and even questioning me as if I was a racist. Never thought in a million years my friend since elementary would question me like that and it was eye opening but I can’t say surprising
“In the West today, the pressure to conform … comes from the fanatics around us, in our neighborhoods, at school, at work” Natan Sharansky
Trying to reason with fanatics is a waste of time and energy for you are by definition, dealing with a closed mind. Even an encounter with a brutal reality may not crack their mental shell.
All one can do is ignore them when possible and disengage if possible. Parting with a firm, calm “we’ll have to agree, to disagree” is best. And always be prepared to meet force with greater force.
Never forget that some people can’t take no for an answer. An increasing likelihood in today’s America.
The Sharansky piece is excellent.
In related vein, Curtis Yarvin has just released a very long essay on Czes?aw Mi?osz, his ‘The Captive Mind’, Ketman, etc. on his Substack account.
Oops… looks like this blog is raycissss and doesn’t handle many or all UTF-8 encodings.
And in circumstances such as these we discover why courage is a principle virtue. In our current atmosphere, whether or not one discloses in certain circumstances what one believes should be guided by wisdom and discretion. So using Sharansky’s formula I guess we have segued from a freedom to a fear based society. Sharansky points out the harm that social media has loosed on our culture. And now we have corporations ganging up on dissidents of the chosen narrative. I’m old enough to remember when the Democrats decried the evil of corporations. Come to find out that indeed they are dangerous when in league with the Democrats.
shadow,
What if you have a mortgage and are sole provider for a spouse and some kids? I’m very honest and I don’t think I lack courage, but as a frog I’ve definitely put up with outsiders raising the temperature in the pot I sit in to not disrupt my family’s lives.
When your work has mandatory diversity training do you point out some of the premises are invalid, some of the “facts” don’t conform with statistics, or do you keep your mouth shut so you can pay the bills and your family can keep their medical insurance? When co-workers are making extreme, leftist political statements in meetings do you call them out, or put your head down and wait for the discussion to get back to work and the task at hand?
Sharon W,
“Wisdom and discretion.” That’s a good way to phrase it.
More like “Perversity Training”.
The next time anyone has the urge, say,…to save Western Civilization, that person should understand the powers of “diversity”:
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/cambridge-university-panel-winston-churchill-white-supremacist-leading-empire-worse-nazis
Not that this would have perturbed Churchill, I don’t think, since he understood what had to be done and that he was the one who had to do it (though according to an account by his daughter, he was greatly disappointed by the results of the 1945 general election). Nonetheless….
Is the reason a full blown Cultural Revolution has not manifested here is because the US is not a one party system?
We are seeing the equivalent of Struggle Sessions in academia and social media. Cancel culture is limited to non-physical attacks so far but seeing the intensity of the hatred it is easy to see where things could go.
IMO the cause is fear. There is a fear among a large part of the population that manifests as a pathological desire to find protection by conforming. The refusal by this group to even look at anything but an anointed news source such as CNN, NYT, or WAPO is an identifier. Trying to get them to look at anything from a non-anointed source leads to an almost violent reaction.
The fear comes from several sources, lack of any savings for retirement, impossible to pay student debt, observing the immiseration of the working class, guilt from undeserved income by tenured and administrative academia with fear of sudden change, fear of inadequate medical insurance coverage, all topped off with the absence of a credible external enemy and lack of agency in the income that is being experienced. They see all-powerful government as the only protection.
Given the level of real estate taxes and debt on residential property, how many people are only a few months from homelessness? Why are all those people in California living in tents and cars?
As someone who has spent his life in electronic tech and software I see an explosion of job killing technology being planned for implementation. Andrew Yang in his campaign book War on Normal People probably understated it.
Trump is Rodney Dangerfield in Back to School. He triggers the fear reaction in uncontrollable ways. Hatred is the only emotion capable of dealing with it. Conforming is the only apparent path to safety. Government is the only solution. The Trumpian goal of self-sufficiency through restoring American jobs and growth must be ridiculed and its supporters destroyed. Those who Fortified the election are heroes.
Where will things go? What can be done?
I grew up in rural Illinois, once a land of prosperous agriculture and industry, but now dominated by a Democrat big city hellhole.
I used to travel often on business to California, once a middle class paradise and now dominated by LA and San Francisco, both Democrat hellholes.
I now live in near rural Texas, still a middle class paradise but being taken over by big city Democrat hellholes and clueless Blue State immigrants. Inner city Dallas, San Antonio, Austin, Houston, and others are a mess.
I am optimistic. I think the GOP will be taken over by Trumpians, and this time they will be proposing specific policies. The Boomers are aging out of both parties and the RINO’s are bailing. The old GOP was filled with people who loved being in the opposition and comfortable with their secure positions as opposing without the necessity of doing anything. The single issue pro-lifers dominated all levels, but are being overwhelmed by the awakening of the non-Woke. The country needs a public debate on specific policies and will finally get it in 2022 and 2024.
I work in academia and am going to retire next year. I’m getting out at a good time since the pressure to be woke and to buy into all things Diversity, Inclusion and Equity is ramping up big time. I am old enough to remember the tail end of Jim Crow and I vividly remember that from a very young age I knew that to discriminate because of skin color was wrong and I have never veered from that. Now, I see reverse discrimination taking place and I don’t like it. I don’t want to live in a country that these DIE people are advocating for and I will NOT go along with it.
I don’t understand how the “pressure to conform” in the West today can have such an impact on people. Just… don’t conform. It’s really not that hard. Or is it?
When “pressure to conform” means a threat to your livelihood if you voice your opinions, never mind physical threats to you and your family, then yes, it’s hard. I had a job offer retracted at the last minute because someone there objected to what he inferred about my politics. Ok for me because I’m financially secure, but maybe not for someone in a more fragile situation.
Banks are refusing to work with businesses or industries they disapprove of. Parler may be shut down for good. Where does it end?
When Sharansky’s jailers got a glint of humor in their eyes but wouldn’t laugh, he taunted them: “You want to laugh but you can’t. And you think you’re free and I’m the one in prison?”
Maybe the more social the species, the more pressure to conform?
Maybe liberals are at one end of the conformity range–they need to conform the most and have the least amount of social courage; and conservatives are at the other end–they need to conform the least?….and accordingly have the most social courage?
Would this variation in the need to conform include every aspect of life: clothing?
shoes? cars?, books?, vacations? occupations? love objects?…
I do recall that every retired liberal female in Berkeley had a Volvo 240D. What was that about?
Could we predict who is liberal and who is conservative by measuring this conformity index in some quantitative way?
I realize that people are afraid of losing their jobs and 401ks and some of their social connections, but… won’t they have a great deal more to be afraid of once the tyrants take over? I think so, anyway.
I think the tendency among so-called liberals to conform is pretty funny, because they’re the first to describe themselves as freethinkers, and their political opponents as brainwashed. Don’t they also have some theory that liberals are smarter than conservatives because smart people tend to be more open to new things and therefore gravitate towards liberalism?
Banks are refusing to work with businesses or industries they disapprove of.
There are thousands of banks and credit unions. This isn’t a problem until you have state and federal regulators prodding them to do this or particular choke points are doing this (e.g. Visa or Mastercard).
Always a nonconformist, I never read one of Oprah’s recommended books, don’t care for the Beatles, don’t watch most of US TV, etc. I’m guessing the popularity of Volvos among liberals
beginning a few decades ago had to do with that old “Scandinavian Socialism” misunderstanding. I did buy one 3 years ago because it was a darn good car. Then I sold it a year later after learning it was owned by China.
There are thousands of banks and credit unions.
Check with Parler about how easy it is. It’s taken them a month and they’re still not fully back up, and I’m sure have lost millions in the interim. The app no longer works on most phones since it’s apparently been disabled by Google and Apple. And they’re the lucky ones, since they have a billionaire backer.
Dick Illyes – very interesting comment. Thanks. I had not thought about Andrew Yang much before. His thoughts on Universal Basic Income from the election primaries I dismissed almost out of hand, and I never heard much about him beyond that, which I guess is unfortunate. Now of course that he is running for mayor of NYC, I feel more like taking him seriously. But I didn’t realize he was born in Schenectady!
But as to your larger thought about fear as the motivator for many people – fear of destitution or social exclusion, as I take it (I wasn’t fully clear on what exactly you believe people are afraid of, so I’m doing my best to put the components that you bullet-pointed together): it does make intuitive sense. As non-State institutions wither and fail over time – in some cases, precisely because the State has acted to undermine them as competitors – it is natural for a certain cohort to look to the State for protection. I feel as if I’m about to stumble into a tautology, so I’ll stop there.
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