Over on Timothy Snyder’s web site is a resources page where you can find free resources (posters, postcards, etc.) for you to use. Highly recommended. Also highly recommended is the book it came from: On Tyranny. That page also has links to web sites selling his book. It’s a very smart, very readable, and very useful book to own in these trying times. Get yourself a copy.
P.S. I think a resources page is a great idea. More sites should have one.
There are two ways to be free:
The first way of being free requires a continual effort to remain that way. If you do not expend this effort, you will slip back down and no longer be free.
When political people say “eternal vigilance is the price of liberty”, they are talking about this type of freedom. It’s also true for people that get into shape, or quit a bad habit, or make improvements in other aspects of their life. Indeed, any type of freedom that has to battle decay and entropy is a type of freedom that needs continual effort.
The second way of being free does not require continual effort. When you graduate from school, quit a job, end a relationship, or move away from someplace, you become free of those things. You have transitioned to a different state of being.
You might argue that some people have to work hard to not go back to that old job, that old relationship, or that old home town. I’d counter that even if one does, they are a different person than when they left and what they return to has changed too Additionally I think most people do not go back. People move on. They move away.
It is easy to get discouraged if you think all forms of freedom require continual effort. Many do, but many do not. Sometimes you just need to push to get to the other side to be free, and once you do, you are free once and for all.
P.S. For more on this, see: It takes a daily effort to be free by Austin Kleon. His piece got me thinking along these lines.
P.S.S. If you think of life as being cyclical, you are likely to see freedom as being something you constantly have to work with. If you see life as linear, you are likely to see it as something you can achieve once and be done.
As Austin Kleon highlights in this post:
It is curious to me how often, when people quote Woolf, they quote the room part and leave out the money part — especially when you consider that money buys you both the time and the space
I’m not sure why people leave that out, but it’s an essential part of the freedom required to create fiction or any other artistic endeavour. The money frees you from the basic needs, just like the room gives you the social freedom you need. You can still create art if you are weighed down by poverty and responsibilities, but it’s harder.
I recommend that post by Kleon, and Kleon’s blog in general.
There’s already been some pundits claiming autocratic countries have been handling the pandemic better than democratic countries. This piece on the website for the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace argues differently. It’s worth reading, but a key part of the piece is this:
Despite attempts by politicians to use the crisis to tout their favored political model, the record so far does not show a strong correlation between efficacy and regime type. While some autocracies have performed well, like Singapore, others have done very poorly, like Iran. Similarly, some democracies have stumbled, like Italy and the United States, while others have performed admirably, like South Korea and Taiwan. The disease has not yet ravaged developing countries, making it impossible to include poorer autocracies and democracies in the comparison.
Keep this in mind, especially afterwards, when writers and authorities argue that we need more controls on people to fight future pandemics.
A fascinating exhibit in Washington, DC on the Slave Bible. What is the Slave Bible? It was a heavily reacted book with anything removed that could have supported slaves seeking their freedom. It’s a sad but also interesting story, and more of the details are here: Slave Bible From The 1800s Omitted Key Passages That Could Incite Rebellion : NPR.
Smart People I Know 