Today's dissenters face only social isolation and economic ruin. We don't face gulags and torture. Yet. However, the UK is now arresting trans and abortion religious dissenters.
Fundamentally, once you decide that those who disagree with you aren't just wrong but evil... the line between financial destruction / imprisonment / torture…
Today's dissenters face only social isolation and economic ruin. We don't face gulags and torture. Yet. However, the UK is now arresting trans and abortion religious dissenters.
Fundamentally, once you decide that those who disagree with you aren't just wrong but evil... the line between financial destruction / imprisonment / torture/ execution is just a matter of degree. How far down that line you will go is merely a function of how convinced you are of your own moral purity.
I like what Solzhenitsyn says: "standing on the street and speaking truth is dangerous. Most can not do it. But let us all commit to at least not agreeing with or consenting to lies." In today's vernacular, this means perhaps you lack the courage to challenge the DEI trainer at your HR mandated sexual harassment training. But you can refuse to attend. You can refuse to put up the rainbow flag of an ally, which is today's "workers of the world unite" sign. Like Havel's greengrocer, this will also incur costs. But it will simultaneously grant you freedom.
Today's dissenters face only social isolation and economic ruin. We don't face gulags and torture. Yet. However, the UK is now arresting trans and abortion religious dissenters.
Fundamentally, once you decide that those who disagree with you aren't just wrong but evil... the line between financial destruction / imprisonment / torture/ execution is just a matter of degree. How far down that line you will go is merely a function of how convinced you are of your own moral purity.
I like what Solzhenitsyn says: "standing on the street and speaking truth is dangerous. Most can not do it. But let us all commit to at least not agreeing with or consenting to lies." In today's vernacular, this means perhaps you lack the courage to challenge the DEI trainer at your HR mandated sexual harassment training. But you can refuse to attend. You can refuse to put up the rainbow flag of an ally, which is today's "workers of the world unite" sign. Like Havel's greengrocer, this will also incur costs. But it will simultaneously grant you freedom.
Yes, if we don't dissent when it is easy then it is harder to dissent when it is hard.
And the longer we wait, the harder it gets.