On Tyranny

A patriot, by contrast, wants the nation to live up to its ideals, which means asking us to be our best selves.

A nationalist encourages us to be our worst, and then tells us that we are the best.

Rather than defining facts or generating interpretations, we are seduced by the notion of hidden realities and dark conspiracies that explain everything.

Totalitarianism removes the difference between private and public not just to make individuals unfree, but also to draw the whole society away from normal politics and toward conspiracy theories.

We are free only insofar as we exercise control over what people know about us, and in what circumstances they come to know it.

totalitarianism was not an all-powerful state, but the erasure of the difference between private and public life.

We are free only when it is we ourselves who draw the line between when we are seen and when we are not seen.

Fascists despised the small truths of daily existence, loved slogans that resonated like a new religion, and preferred creative myths to history or journalism. They used new media, which at the time was radio, to create a drumbeat of propaganda that aroused feelings before people had time to ascertain facts. And now, as then, many people confused faith in a hugely flawed leader with the truth about the world we all share.

Post-truth is pre-fascism.

Accepting untruth of this radical kind requires a blatant abandonment of reason.