Introduction
The Rarity of Freedom and Democracy
“Those of us who have been so fortunate to have been born in a free society, tend to take freedom for granted, to regard it as the natural state of mankind. It is not! It is a rare a precious thing”. Milton Freeman
Most of human history has been the story of the few tyrannising the many.
Though rooted in ancient Greece over 2000 years ago, modern democracies have only developed since the 18th Century and came to prominence last century after World War 2. That makes them extraordinarily young in the history of this planet. Prior to this, monarchs and autocrats prevailed, where the many were ruled by the few, largely through tyranny.
Since WW2 democratic states have grown to encompass 47% of the world’s population. This is a staggering achievement in 300 hundred years, but sadly, that still leaves 53% of the worlds people living under authoritarian rule today.
The 47% of the world’s population living in the relative freedom of democracy has been under siege in the last 2 years since COVID-19, to the point where presently, freedom and democracy live largely in spirit only. At best, freedom and democracy have been paused due to a health emergency, at worst, they have already been lost never to return and are a relic of past golden period in the west.
“Almost certainly we are moving into an age of totalitarian dictatorships – an age in which freedom of thought will be at first a deadly sin and later on a meaningless abstraction. The autonomous individual is going to be stamped out of existence”. George Orwell – Essay on Totalitarianism
Orwell wrote this back in 1941. His prophecy may have arrived in the 2020’s as undoubtedly totalitarian winds have whipped up around the globe once more as they were when he wrote this. The question we face going forward is whether we can resist and reclaim that rare and precious freedom we once enjoyed.
“It can’t happen here is always wrong: a dictatorship can happen anywhere”. Karl Popper
Checks on Power
Governments tend toward tyranny because power corrupts most individuals.
“The line separating good and evil passes not through States, nor between classes, nor between political parties either, but right through every human heart”. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn – The Gulag Archipelago
Knowing this, the founders of modern democracies established governmental systems that constrained power through multiple layers of government with checks and balances. The modern democracy has an Executive and Legislative branch of government which are designed to check each other. These two arms of government and the laws they enact are then overseen and checked by the third arm, the Judiciary.
This three-tiered structure is designed to provide a multi-layered protection from government tyranny.
“The fundamental threat to freedom is the power to coerce, be it in the hands of a monarch, a dictator, an oligarchy, or a momentary majority. The preservation of freedom requires the elimination of such concentration of power.” Milton Freeman
Individual Sovereignty v State Sovereignty
In addition to checks and limits on power, a central tenant of the modern democratic state is recognising the individual as sovereign. This is a revolutionary concept and is in complete opposition to most of history where the sovereign was the Monarch, Autocrat or Tyrant and the people were its subjects.
Individual sovereignty means the individual is paramount, not the State, Monarch or Autocrat. This is critical, for when the State is sovereign the individual becomes irrelevant and dispensable, effectively a slave to State power.
The idea that the State should be paramount is always presented in a seductive manner by totalitarians. It is usually presented as collectivism which sounds good on the surface. We must put the collective above the individual so we can all benefit they say. However, this is just a utopian sales pitch. In truth every totalitarian system throughout history, whether communist/socialist or fascist has carried out horrific crimes against individuals in the name of collective advancement.
Totalitarian regimes in the 20th Century were responsible for countless deaths. It is estimated that Mao in China, Stalin in the U.S.S.R. and Hitler in Nazi Germany alone killed more than 100 million people. The body count grows ever more from the many other murderous totalitarian regimes in North Korea, Cambodia and many more.
When the State or the collective is place above the individual, literally anything can be justified by governments.
Where are we?
We are in the midst of an all-out assault on liberty and human rights.
2020 and 2021 have seen widespread lockdowns, the annihilation of freedom of movement, association, speech, expression, discussion, and even thought.
We are being tracked online, on our mobile phones and everywhere we go in the real world with apps and QR codes.
The latest in this deeply concerning list of totalitarian measures is the spread of vaccine mandates across formerly free western democratic countries coercing people to take a drug or face being locked out of society and from earning a living.
Vaccine passports are really the introduction of a digital ID. I believe we are seeing the first iteration of a social credit system like the one being instituted in communist China and that it will soon be expanded to encompass many more requirements.
Presently, only the unvaccinated can’t work or participate in society. If you are in the majority, those that have taken the vaccine, then you likely think this is ok. The problem is that once you introduce such a system, the list of requirements governments will demand for you to stay within the system will inevitably grow. So, if you feel safe because this doesn’t affect you, it does, they will be coming for you next with another demand.
“First, they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out –
because I was not a socialist.
Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and again I did not speak out –
because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out –
because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me – and there was no one left to speak for me”.
Niemoller – German Theologian / Pastor
Central banks around the globe are also presently creating their own digital currencies using the blockchain technology invented by Bitcoin. China has already completed theirs and are distributing it to their people.
Blockchain is essentially a ledger which records every transaction made within that system. What this will mean is that if our regular dollars are replaced with ‘digital’ dollars on the blockchain, central banks and governments will be able to see every single transaction made in that currency, period. They will have all the data and every transaction will be centrally recorded.
This has obvious and frightening implications for privacy and freedom. Once this is instituted, central banks and governments will be able to completely control our spending. Theoretically they could block spending for non-approved items or to non-approved vendors. They could without any obstacle or difficulty confiscate the currency in your online wallet. This will provide an ever-greater ability for governments to coerce us in to living in a way they approve.
It would appear as though we are headed into a high tech, high control, totalitarian surveillance state and the Chinese system seems to be the preferred model for the rest of the globe.
This is not conspiracy theory. The direction we are headed is plane for all to see. The elites are not even hiding it. Take a look at the masters of the universe at the World Economic Forum who are promoting the so-called Great Reset. In this brave new world, by 2030, to use their words, ‘you will own nothing, and you will be happy’!? (I’m sure they won’t own nothing – that’s just for us ordinary folk – I’m sure they will own everything they already have plus everything they intend to confiscate from us!).
The trend of the last 2 years toward totalitarianism and the elimination of the liberties our western democratic societies were founded on is terrifying.
It is clear to me that the pandemic is being used to increase government power and reduce our rights and freedoms.
History tells us to beware, as it is rare that governments will willingly give up newly acquired power and control. More likely, most of these changes will be permanent unless we the people do something about it and arrest this slide toward totalitarianism. This is my reason for compiling this work.
This is not about covid, vaccine mandates or passports per say. The real question is, what sort of society do we want to live in? Do we want to live in the free, liberal, democratic societies we enjoyed prior to 2020 or do we want to live in a totalitarian state, where the individual is completely controlled, an irrelevant and dispensable subject to the will and power of the almighty State?
The Source and Purpose of this work
“The more familiar people are with the concepts of thought control and menticide, the more they understand the nature of the propaganda barrage directed against them, the more inner resistance they can put up”. Joost Meerloo – The Rape of the Mind
I have used the following three classic texts about totalitarianism as the basis for this piece.
The Gulag Archipelago by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
The Power of the Powerless by Vaclav Havel
The Rape of the Mind by Joost Meerloo
The Gulag Archipelago is an epic account of life in the Soviet Union and the Gulags (prison labour camps) under Stalin by Solzhenitsyn who experienced both the Gulags and Soviet life. This extraordinary book which was smuggled out of the U.S.S.R and first published in the West played a part in making cracks in the façade of the Soviet system.
The Power of the Powerless is a brilliant and concise exploration of life in Czechoslovakia under Soviet rule by Havel who went on to become President of the Czech Republic after the country was freed.
The Rape of the Mind is a summary of the tools of totalitarian regimes by Meerloo, a Dutch psychologist was who lived through Nazi occupation in WW2.
These three books layout a powerful representation of the tools and mechanisms of totalitarian regimes.
I feel it is essential for us to be aware of this history, as disturbingly, we can see that much of what is going on today played out last century in many different countries around the world. If we are not aware of our history and if we do not learn from it, we are doomed to repeat it.
I am hoping that in bringing light to this subject we can be better equipped to deal with what is going on in our previously free, liberal democratic countries and we can figure out how to resist the rise of totalitarianism.
Other major references used in this work are 1984 by George Orwell, Capitalism and Freedom by Milton Freeman and the autobiographies of Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King and Nelson Mandela.
In the following pages I present quotes from these three main texts to give you the essence of each so you can understand the key components of totalitarian systems. I have done so without my commentary so you can consider this for yourself and see how you think it relates to what is going on in the world now.
I have presented the body of this work in two sections: The Totalitarian Playbook which outlines the tools of totalitarians, and Resisting Totalitarianism, which outlines what we can do to resist and push back.
I conclude this work with some thoughts of my own and some inspirational quotes from great beings that can help us to move forward.
This is a sombre journey. Stay with it.
The Totalitarian Playbook
Fear, Mass Psychosis, Divide and Rule
“Totalitarian leaders, whether right or left, know better than anyone else how to make use of fear. They thrive on chaos and bewilderment… The strategy of fear is one of their most valuable tactics”. Joost Meerloo – The Rape of the Mind
“Feelings of terror, feelings of fear and hopelessness, of being alone, of standing with ones back to the wall, must be instilled”. Joost Meerloo – The Rape of the Mind
“The totalitarian systems of the 20th Century represent a kind of collective psychosis. Whether gradually or suddenly, reason and common decency are no longer possible in such a system, there is only a pervasive atmosphere of terror and a projection of the enemy imagined to be in our midst. Thus, society turns on itself, urged on by the ruling authorities”. Joost Meerloo – The Rape of the Mind
“He is always conscious of control and surveillance, of spying, leering powers lying in wait to chase and punish him”. Joost Meerloo – The Rape of the Mind
“Anxiety can inspire suspicion and the need for scapegoats”. Joost Meerloo – The Rape of the Mind
“Totalitarianism needs the images of outside enemies – imaginary cruel monsters who spread plague and disease”. Joost Meerloo – The Rape of the Mind
“Sudden fright, fear and terror were the old-fashioned methods used to induce hypnosis”. Joost Meerloo – The Rape of the Mind
“Fear and terror freeze the mind and will; they may create a general psychic paralysis”. Joost Meerloo – The Rape of the Mind
“The enemy is fear. We think it is hate, but it is fear”. Mahatma Gandhi
“The average person doesn’t want to be free he simply wants to be safe” H.L Milkin
“Those who would give up essential liberty, to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety”. Benjamin Franklin
“Collective fear stimulates herd instinct and tends to produce ferocity toward those who are not regarded as members of the herd”. Bertrand Russell
“The greatest danger humanity faces is not from any external force, rather from collective psychosis” Carl Jung
“Indeed, it is becoming ever more obvious that it is not famine, not earthquakes, not microbes, not cancer but man himself who is man’s greatest danger to man, for the simple reason that there is no adequate protection against psychic epidemics, which are infinitely more devastating that the worst of natural catastrophes”. Carl Jung
The Totalitarian Playbook
Apathy, Indifference and Helplessness
“Fear and intimidation also have their paradoxical expressions in indifference and apathy… It is of the utmost importance to realise how passive, paralysed, indifferent and submissive people can become under circumstances which should demand the utmost activity”. Joost Meerloo – The Rape of the Mind
“…they become bitter, sceptical, passive and ultimately apathetic – in other words, they end up exactly where the system wants them to be”. Vaclav Havel – The Power of the Powerless
“We are approaching the brink; already a universal spiritual demise is upon us; a physical one is about to flare up and engulf us and our children, while we continue to smile sheepishly and babble: “but what can we do to stop it? We haven’t the strength… But we can do everything! Even if we comfort and lie to ourselves that this is not so. It is not they who are guilty of everything, but we ourselves, only we!”. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn – The Gulag Archipelago
“The cult of passivity and so-called relaxation is one of the most dangerous developments of our time. Essentially it is a camouflage pattern, the double wish not to see the dangers and challenges of life and not to be seen”. Joost Meerloo – The Rape of the Mind
“The system depends on this demoralisation, deepens it, is in fact a projection of it into society”. Vaclav Havel – The Power of the Powerless
“The fear of freedom is the fear of assuming responsibility”. Joost Meerloo – The Rape of the Mind
“We have to become increasingly aware of the internal dangers of democracy: laxity, laziness and unawareness”. Joost Meerloo – The Rape of the Mind
“If…if… We didn’t love freedom enough. And even more – we had no awareness of the real situation… we hurried to submit. We purely and simply deserved everything that happened afterward”. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn – The Gulag Archipelago
“No man loses his freedom except through his own weakness”. Mahatma Gandhi
“It is seldom that liberty of any kind is lost all at once”. David Hume
The Totalitarian Playbook
Propaganda and Indoctrination
“Readymade opinions can be distributed through the press, radio, and so on, again and again, till they reach the nerve cell and implant a fixed pattern of thought in the brain… the seducer conditions him to catchwords, verbal stereotypes, slogans, formulas, symbols… endless repetitions and constant sloganizing… Such is the Pavlovian device: repeat mechanically your assumptions and suggestions, diminish the opportunity of communicating dissent and opposition. This is the simple formula for political conditioning of the masses”. Joost Meerloo – The Rape of the Mind
“Threat, tension, and anxiety, in general, may accelerate the establishment of conditioned responses, particularly when those responses tend to diminish fear and panic”. Joost Meerloo – The Rape of the Mind
“Freedom of discussion and free intellectual exchange hinder conditioning. Feelings of terror, feelings of fear and hopelessness, of being alone, of standing with ones back to the wall, must be instilled”. Joost Meerloo – The Rape of the Mind
“Official oversimplifications induce the captive audience into acceptance and indoctrination… People become herds – indoctrinated and obsessed herds”. Joost Meerloo – The Rape of the Mind
“Sudden fright, fear and terror were the old-fashioned methods used to induce hypnosis… Another easy technique is to work with especially suggestive words, repeating them monotonously”. Joost Meerloo – The Rape of the Mind
“Man learns to think in words and in the speech figures given to him, these gradually condition his entire outlook on life and the world”. Joost Meerloo – The Rape of the Mind
“Through daily propagandistic noise backed up by forceful verbal cues, people can more and more be forced to identify with the powerful noisemaker. Big Brother’s voice resounds in all the little brothers”. Joost Meerloo – The Rape of the Mind
“Continual suggestion and slow hypnosis in the wake of mechanical mass communication promotes uniformity of the mind”. Joost Meerloo – The Rape of the Mind
“…so that finally they will no longer see and hear with their own eyes and ears but will look at the world through the fog of official catchwords and will develop the automatic responses appropriate to the totalitarian mythology”. Joost Meerloo – The Rape of the Mind
“…facts are replaced by fantasy and distortion. People are taught systematically and intentionally to lie. History is reconstructed, new myths are built up whose purpose is twofold: to strengthen and flatter the totalitarian leader, and to confuse the luckless citizens of the country”. Joost Meerloo – The Rape of the Mind
“People have to be aware of the tendency of technology to automatise their minds. They have to become aware of the fact that mass media and modern communication are able to imprint all kinds of suggestions on our brains”. (This was written in 1956 – imagine what he would think now!!) Joost Meerloo – The Rape of the Mind
“Peace is war and war is peace. Democracy is tyranny and freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength. Virtue is vice and truth is a lie”. George Orwell – 1984
The Totalitarian Playbook
Conformity, Herding and becoming Automatons
“The manager of a fruit and vegetable shop places in his window, among the onions and carrots, the slogan: “Workers of the World, Unite!”. Why does he do it? What is he trying to communicate to the world?
He does it because these things must be done if one is to get along in life. It is one of the thousands of details that guarantee him a relatively tranquil life ‘in harmony with society’ as they say. If he were to refuse, there would be trouble. He could be reproached for not having the proper ‘decoration’ in his window; someone might even accuse him of disloyalty.
The slogan is really a sign, and as such it contains a subliminal but very direct message. Verbally, it might be expresses this way: ‘I, the greengrocer XY, live here and I know what I must do. I behave in the manner expected of me. I can be depended upon and am beyond reproach. I am obedient and therefore I have the right to be left in peace.
The sign helps the greengrocer to conceal from himself the low foundations of his obedience, at the same time concealing the low foundations of power.
(The sign) reminds people where they are living and what is expected of them. It tells them what everyone else is doing, and it indicates to them what they must do as well, if they don’t want to be excluded, to fall into isolation, alienate themselves from society, break the rules of the game, and risk the loss of their peace and tranquillity and security.
The greengrocer and the office worker have both adapted to the conditions in which they live, but in so doing, they help to create those conditions. They conform to a peculiar environment and in so doing they themselves perpetuate that requirement.
In reality, by exhibiting their slogans, each compels the other to accept the rules of the game and to confirm thereby the power that requires the slogans in the first place. Quite simply, each helps the other to be obedient. Both are objects in a system of control, but at the same time they are subjects as well”.
Vaclav Havel – The Power of the Powerless
“The need to conform, to be accepted, to be safe and respectable, is deeply embedded in man”. Joost Meerloo – The Rape of the Mind
“To create man in the totalitarian image through levelling and equalization means to supress what is essentially personal and human in him, the uniqueness, and the variety, and to create a society of robots, not men… The ordinary citizen becomes as dependant and obedient as a child”. Joost Meerloo – The Rape of the Mind
“The mechanisation for modern life has already influenced man to become more passive and to adjust himself to ready-made conformity”. Joost Meerloo – The Rape of the Mind
“This protection seeking instinctual reaction is also directed against dissent and individualism… We see in this a regression toward a more primitive state of mass participation”. Joost Meerloo – The Rape of the Mind
“Fear and catastrophe fortify the need to identify with a strong leader. They lead to a herding together of people, who shy away from wanting to be individual cells any longer”. Joost Meerloo – The Rape of the Mind
“Even delights of self-chosen silence are forbidden. Every citizen must join in the singing and the slogan shouting”. Joost Meerloo – The Rape of the Mind
“Totalitaria is constantly on the alert for social sinners”. Joost Meerloo – The Rape of the Mind
“The post-totalitarian system demands conformity, uniformity and discipline”. Vaclav Havel – The Power of the Powerless
“In everyone there is some willingness to merge with the anonymous crowd and to flow comfortably along with it down the river of pseudo-life”. Vaclav Havel – The Power of the Powerless
“…blind automatism which drives the system. No matter what position individuals hold in the hierarchy of power, they are not considered by the system to be worth anything in themselves, but only as things intended to fuel and serve this automatism”. Vaclav Havel – The Power of the Powerless
“The mental automaton becomes the ideal of education”. Joost Meerloo – The Rape of the Mind
“A general state education is a mere contrivance for moulding people to be exactly like one another, and as the mould in which it is casts them is that which pleases the dominant power in the government”. John Stuart Mill
“He could not fight against the Party any longer… It was merely a question of learning to think as they thought… He wrote first in large clumsy capitals: FREEDOM IS SLAVERY. Then almost without a pause he wrote beneath it: TWO AND TWO MAKE FIVE… the struggle was finished. He had won the victory over himself. He loved Big Brother.” George Orwell – 1984
“Crimes the individual alone could never stand are freely committed by the group”. Carl Jung
“Conformity is the jailer of freedom and the enemy of growth”. John F. Kennedy
The Totalitarian Playbook
Free Speech, Censorship, and Isolation
“…there is no open policy, no free discussion, no honest difference of opinion; there is only intrigue and denunciation, with their frightening action on the masses”. Joost Meerloo – The Rape of the Mind
“…civilian populations of the totalitarian countries are not permitted to travel freely and are kept away from mental and political contamination”. Joost Meerloo – The Rape of the Mind
“If one can isolate the mass, allow no free thinking, no free exchange, no outside corrective, and can hypnotise the group daily with noises, with press and radio and television, with fear and pseudo-enthusiasms, any delusion can be installed. People will begin to accept the most primitive and inappropriate acts”. Joost Meerloo – The Rape of the Mind
“(Totalitarians) know they can condition their political victims most quickly if they are kept in isolation”. Joost Meerloo – The Rape of the Mind
“Puzzlement and doubt are however already crimes in the totalitarian state. The mind that is open for questions is open for dissent. In the totalitarian regime the doubting, inquisitive and imaginative mind has to be supressed. The totalitarian slave is only allowed to memorise, to salivate when the bell rings”. Joost Meerloo – The Rape of the Mind
“All silencing of discussion is an assumption of infallibility” John Stuart Mill
“Intellectual freedom is essential to human society – freedom to obtain and distribute information, freedom for open-minded and unfearing debate, and freedom from pressure by officialdom and prejudices. Such freedom of thought is the only guarantee against an infection of people by mass myths, which, in the hands of treacherous hypocrites and demagogues, can be transformed into bloody dictatorship”. Andrei Sakharov
The Totalitarian Playbook
Lies upon Lies
“(The system) is built on a very unstable foundation. It is built on lies. It works only as long as people are willing to live within the lie”. Vaclav Havel – The Power of the Powerless
“Individuals need not believe all these mystifications, but the must behave as though they did… they must live within a lie… For by this very fact, individuals confirm the system, fulfil the system, make the system, are the system”. Vaclav Havel – The Power of the Powerless
“Because the regime is captive to its own lies, it must falsify everything. It falsifies the past. It falsifies the present, and it falsifies the future. It falsifies statistics. It pretends not to possess an omnipotent and unprincipled police apparatus. It pretends to respect human rights. It pretends to prosecute no one. It pretends to fear nothing. It pretends to pretend nothing”. Vaclav Havel – The Power of the Powerless
“And the lie has, in fact, led us so far away from a normal society that you cannot even orient yourself any longer; in its dense, grey fog not even one pillar can be seen”. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn – The Gulag Archipelago
“Logic can be met with logic, while illogic cannot – it confuses those who think straight. The Big Lie and monotonously repeated non-sense have more emotional appeal in a cold war than logic and reason. While the enemy is still searching for a reasonable counter argument to the first lie, the totalitarians an assault him with another”. Joost Meerloo – The Rape of the Mind
“Flowery catchwords help the individual to rationalise immorality and evil into morality and good… the totalitarian dictator destroys the conscience of his followers…The process of criminalisation requires deculturization of the people… People are told not to believe in intellect and objective truth”. Joost Meerloo – The Rape of the Mind
The Totalitarian Playbook
The State as Omnipotent and as Religious Ideology
“(The totalitarian state) is almost a secularised religion. It offers a ready-made answer to any question whatsoever. In an era when metaphysical and existential certainties are in a state of crisis, when people are being uprooted and alienated and are losing their sense of what this world means, this ideology inevitably has a certain hypnotic charm. To wandering humankind, it offers an immediately available home: all one has to do is accept it, and suddenly everything becomes clear once more, life takes on new meaning, and all mysteries, unanswered questions, anxiety and loneliness vanish… the price is abdication of one’s own reason, conscience, and responsibility, for an essential aspect of this ideology is the consignment of reason and conscience to a higher authority”. Vaclav Havel – The Power of the Powerless
“Ideology is a specious way of relating to the world. It offers human being the illusion of an identity, of dignity, and of morality while making it easier for them to part with them… It enables people to deceive their conscience and conceal their true position and their inglorious modus vivendi (mode of living), both from the world and from themselves… It is a veil behind which human beings can hide their own ‘fallen existence’, their trivialisation, and their adaption to the status quo…” Vaclav Havel – The Power of the Powerless
“The primary excusatory function of ideology, therefore, is to provide people… with the illusion that the system is in harmony with the human order and the order of the universe”. Vaclav Havel – The Power of the Powerless
“… the totalitarian state sets up unquestionable dogmas, and it alters them from day to day. It needs dogmas, because it needs absolute obedience from its subjects, but it cannot avoid the changes, which are dictated by the needs of power politics”. George Orwell – Essay on Totalitarianism
“The fear of freedom is the fear of assuming responsibility… They long to take flight into a condition of thoughtless security. Often, they would prefer the government, or some individual personification of the state, to solve their problems for them. It is this desire that makes totalitarians and conformists. Like an infant, the conformist can sleep quietly and transfer all his worries to Father State”. Joost Meerloo – The Rape of the Mind
Resisting Totalitarianism
Truth
“Let us now imagine that one day something in our greengrocer snaps and he stops putting up the slogans… His revolt is an attempt to live within the truth… The greengrocer has not committed a simple individual offence, isolated in its own uniqueness, but something incomparably more serious. By breaking the rules of the game he has disrupted the game as such. He has exposed it as a mere game. He has shattered the world of appearances, the fundamental pillar of the system. He has upset the power structure by tearing apart what holds it together. He has demonstrated that living a lie is living a lie… He has enabled everyone to peer behind the curtain. He has shown everyone that it is possible to live within the truth. Living within the lie can constitute the system only if it is universal… everyone who steps out of line denies it in principle and threatens it in its entirety. This is understandable: as long as appearance is not confronted with reality, it does not seem to be appearance. As long as living a lie is not confronted with living the truth, the perspective needed to expose its mendacity is lacking… If the main pillar of the system is living within a lie, then it is not surprising that the fundamental threat to it is living the truth”. Vaclav Havel – The Power of the Powerless
“For the crust presented by the life of lies is made of strange stuff. As long as it seals off hermetically the entire society, it appears to be made of stone. But the moment someone breaks through in one place… when a single person breaks the rules of the game… everything suddenly appears in another light and the whole crust seems then to be made of a tissue on the point of tearing and disintegrating uncontrollably”. Vaclav Havel – The Power of the Powerless
“And therein we find, neglected by us, the simplest, the most accessible key to our liberation: a personal nonparticipation in lies! Even if all is covered by lies, even if all is under their rule, let us resist in the smallest way: Let their rule not hold through me! Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn – Live not by Lies
“Our way must be: never knowingly support the lies!” Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn – Live not by Lies
“One man who stopped lying could bring down the tyranny”.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn – Live not by Lies
“This power (living within the truth) does not participate in any direct struggle for power; rather it makes its influence felt in the obscure arena of being itself”. Vaclav Havel – The Power of the Powerless
“(Living within the truth) is an existential solution, it takes individuals back to the solid ground of their own identity”. Vaclav Havel – The Power of the Powerless
“Living within the truth… is an attempt to regain control over one’s own sense of responsibility”. Vaclav Havel – The Power of the Powerless
“Blind belief in authority is the greatest enemy of the truth”. Albert Einstein
Resisting Totalitarianism
Courage
“Courage is the first of human qualities because it is the quality which guarantees all others”. Aristotle
“There is also spiritual bravery, a mental courage that goes beyond the self. It serves an idea. It asks not only what the price of life is, but also for what that price is being asked…It requires continual mental alertness and spiritual strength to resist the dragging current of conformist thought. Man has to be stronger than the mere will for self-protection and self-assertion; he has to be able to go beyond himself in the service of an idea… Such courage dares to break through old traditions, taboos, prejudices and dares to doubt dogma… these brave heroes fight their inner battle against rigidity, cowardice, and the wish to surrender conviction for the sake of ease. This courage is like remaining awake when others want to soothe themselves with sleep and oblivion… the true hero is true to his ideals”. Joost Meerloo – The Rape of the Mind
“There is nothing more majestic than the determined courage of individuals willing to suffer and sacrifice for their freedom and dignity”. Dr Martin Luther King Jnr
“It’s easy to stand in the crowd but it takes courage to stand alone”. Mahatma Gandhi
“I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it. The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear.” Nelson Mandela
“The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands in moments of challenge and controversy”. Dr Martin Luther King Jnr
“Silence becomes cowardice when occasion demands speaking out the whole truth and acting accordingly”. Mahatma Gandhi
“The only tyrant I accept in this world is the still voice within”. Mahatma Gandhi
“In this age, the mere example of non-conformity, the mere refusal to bend the knee to custom, is itself a service. Precisely because the tyranny of opinion is such as to make eccentricity a reproach, it is desirable, in order to break through tyranny, that people should be eccentric”. John Stuart Mill
Resisting Totalitarianism
Love
“I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality. This is why right, temporarily defeated is stronger than evil in triumph”. Dr Martin Luther King Jnr
“Love alone is capable of uniting living beings in such a way as to complete and fulfil them, for it alone takes them by what is deepest in themselves”. Teilhard de Chardin
“If man can be properly said to love something, it must be clear that he feels affection for it as a whole and does not love part of it to the exclusion of the rest”. Plato
“Love is the expansion of the self to include another. My happiness is your happiness. I am not separate from you”. Charles Eisenstein
“The real love is to love those that hate you, to love your neighbour even though you distrust them”. Mahatma Gandhi
“Darkness cannot drive out darkness, only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that”. Dr Martin Luther King Jnr
“He who is filled with love is filled with God”. St. Augustine
“No man truly has fulfilment unless he lives in love”. St. Thomas Aquinas
“To love our neighbour as ourselves is such a truth for regulating human society, that by that alone one might determine all the cases in social morality”. John Locke
“Not all of us can do great things. But we can do small things with great love.” Mother Teresa
Resisting Totalitarianism
Conclusion
“A small group of determined spirits, fired by a faith in their mission, can change the course of history”. Mahatma Gandhi
Many think that complying with the demands of government is the quickest way back to freedom, but it’s not. Compliance only emboldens totalitarians. Many are burying their head in the sand, obeying all commands, and hoping this will all blow over and that things will go back to the way they were pre covid. But they won’t. They won’t unless we the people demand it.
There is an ever-increasing belief in elite circles that the populous are too ignorant to be allowed the freedom to rule their own lives, and that accordingly, the state should take ever increasing levels of control. The belief in democracy and liberalism, and their corresponding values of liberty and personal responsibility, is waning.
The seductive, socialist collectivist ideas are on the rise once more. These utopian systems sound wonderful on paper, but history demonstrates that they do not work. Each time they have been tried it has always ended in mass deterioration, suffering, and death of the people.
The reason they don’t work is, as we said in the introduction, power corrupts most individuals and when we concentrate power in the hands of an all-powerful leader or party, corruption, suffering and mass loss of life ultimately ensue.
To ensure we do not head down that deadly road once more, the individual must be affirmed as sovereign and the primary unit of society. We must affirm that the individual is endowed with inalienable human rights by virtue of their existence alone and that these rights do not need to be earned by good behaviour as defined by government.
“The dissident movement grows out of the principle of equality, founded on the notion that human rights and freedoms are indivisible.” Vaclav Havel – The Power of the Powerless
We must resist the temptation to bury our head in the sand and convince ourselves it is ok to comply with the demands and observe the rules.
“Every actual state is corrupt. Good men must not obey laws too well.” Ralph Waldo Emerson
“When a man is denied the right to live the life he believes in, he has no choice but to become an outlaw”. Nelson Mandela
We must resist the constant barrage of propaganda aimed at us indoctrinating us into their narratives of fear and hate and blame.
We must have the courage to live our lives in the truth, to say what we believe, to not comply with unjust laws, to not conform to a uniform way of thinking and being and thereby retain our individual sovereignty.
“A no uttered from the deepest conviction is better and greater than a yes merely uttered to please, or what is worse, to avoid trouble”. Mahatma Gandhi
“Disobedience is the true foundation of Liberty. The obedient must be slaves.” Henry David Thoreau
There is only one power that the individual should subordinate to and that is the voice within. It is this voice within delivers to us the guidance of our true Self / Soul / God. We stray from this guidance at our own peril.
“Conscience is God’s presence in humans”. Emanuel Swedenborg
“Never do anything against conscience, even if the state demands it”. Albert Einstein
We must get involved. There is no longer a choice for people who wish to be free to direct their own lives. I too waited and watched, hoping it would all blow over and that we’d be back to pre-2020, but it won’t.
The old world isn’t coming back unless we demand it. Unless we claim it. Governments will do all they can to retain the dictatorial powers they have enjoyed for the last 2 years.
“You do not become a dissident just because you decide one day to take up this most unusual career. You are thrown into it by your personal sense of responsibility, combined with a complex set of external circumstances. You are cast out of the existing structures and placed in a position of conflict with them”. Vaclav Havel – The Power of the Powerless
It is up to us. If we don’t let world leaders know that we are not willing to go along with a dictatorial totalitarian state, then freedom will become a long-lost dream.
“The moral to be drawn from this dangerous nightmare situation is a simple one. Don’t let is happen. It depends on you”. George Orwell
The good news is we have the power, the power of numbers. As the historian Neil Oliver recently said; they (the ruling elites) are few, but we are many (billions in fact), and it’s up to us to stop the advance. I concur with this absolutely.
Totalitarianism cannot prevail without our acquiescence. It requires us to surrender to fear and propaganda. It requires us to accept their stories and not think for ourselves. It requires us to comply with their demands, follow their rules and conform to a singular way of living.
“If…if… We didn’t love freedom enough. And even more – we had no awareness of the real situation… we hurried to submit. We purely and simply deserved everything that happened afterward”. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn – The Gulag Archipelago
Martin Luther King, Gandhi, Mandela, and many other great and wise beings have advised us that it is our duty not to obey unjust laws which breach our human rights. They also demonstrated that with truth, love and courage, virtues we can all access, we can change the world. We must heed that call and follow in their footsteps now.
Non-compliance is essential. Our fate is still within our hands. We can think for ourselves. We can refuse to partake in the lies. We can refuse to be ruled by fear. We can refuse to close our hearts to others, and we can instead be open and kind. We can refuse to conform and comply. We can be conscientious objectors to a society losing its mind. We can stand up, speak the truth, and resist totalising control with non-violence and love. We will not let them divide us.
“I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality”. Dr Martin Luther King Jnr
Every human being deserves to have liberty and responsibility for their own life. Our western democratic countries were built on these two primary and corresponding values, and I am not willing to give them up.
“I prefer liberty with danger than peace with slavery”. Rousseau
I am hoping that you feel the same and will figure out have you can resist in your own way.
“Only when people have learned to accept individual responsibility can the world be helped by the combined efforts of many individuals”. Joost Meerloo – The Rape of the Mind