#DailyTimothySnyder #OnFreedom
"We are all born into a blurry storm of circumstance. This is an experience we all share, though none of us recalls it. We know about birth and can consider it only thanks to others. Recalling that we all begin with a shriek...
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open.substack.com/pub/snyder/p...
Heavy-hitting historians, Heather Cox Richardson and Timothy Snyder, in conversation.
An inspiring discussion about freedom, authoritarianism, and what we can do to meet this moment.
Look forward to hearing more!
#LettersFromAnAmerican
#OnTyranny
#OnFreedom
This quote is part of an early section of the book where he discusses French philosopher Simone Weill. LInk to Snyder's 2023 class on the History of Ukraine, which I'm just "taking" now via youtube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLhTRXzDqRJxjwJVIddAFOF3Eg8OESGiSM
#DailyTimothySnyder #OnFreedom
"To be sovereign means to have a sense of what ought to be and how to get there."
Page 40
The book we should all be reading. You can listen to Timothy Snyder discuss this book here: https://youtu.be/zVxuFLBOpvM?si=FbyCS-e17X-JMLIQ
#DailyTimothySnyder #OnFreedom
"History is a foundation of mobility and thus of freedom. We need history to slip free of the time warps and find our way to a more reassuring sense of time."
Page 232
Our slide into fascism was seeded by nixon and put into gear by reagan. Every republican president since has committed crimes, gutted the economy, and ruined the lives of everyday Americans. If and when we get democracy back, republicans must be entirely shunned and prevented from ever holding positions of power again. They don't want a democracy and I think by now that should be abundantly clear.
#DailyTimothySnyder #OnFreedom
"...The American Dream depended on social policies developed after the capitalist collapse of the Great Depression. It lasted until its origins were forgotten and capitalism itself was enthroned as the lone source of freedom. That happened in the 1980s."
Less and less people still read books, but reading books means everything to me. It's shaped who I am. It informs my values and beliefs and understanding of the world in which I live. This book is possibly the most important book I have ever read. I read it twice and will read it again, and very possibly again after that. I urge everyone to get and read On Freedom.
#DailyTimothySnyder #OnFreedom
"My world opened up through reading, a capability I owed to others."
Page 90
chapter Unpredictiability
section IMPROBABLE STATES
"CHILDREN" is the heading for this part of the book, which I found extremely validating. My goal in life is to save democracy, and it's for them, not for me, and it's because I love them so much and want so much for them to live free. https://www.youtube.com/@timothysnyder5948 https://substack.com/@snyder?utm_source=global-search
#DailyTimothySnyder #OnFreedom
"Every single one of those children of the 2020s is just as much an American as Jefferson or Franklin or Washington. And in a sense they are more important, for their lives, in freedom or unfreedom, are America's future."
Page 356
In this section, "PRISONERS," Snyder's brilliant book makes the case that all for profit imprisonment is wrong. I could not agree more. https://www.youtube.com/@timothysnyder5948
#DailyTimothySnyder #OnFreedom
"...money should not be made by detaining human bodies. When the government pays companies to imprison, it creates a lobby for locking people up. Private prisons, private jails, private detention centers, and private concentration camps should all be banned."
Page 365
This book is my lifeline to a future beyond krasnov, oligarchs, autocracy, and the uncertainty and brutality of the present state we are in. https://substack.com/@snyder
#DailyTimothySnyder #OnFreedom
"We live freely in a moment insofar as we can get beyond it and see ourselves in it."
Page 389
"Reporters are an avant-garde. They declare freedom for us every day." FLOWING FOUNTAIN History, philosophy, memoir, and a prescription for creating a free society. This book is the most important book I've read in possibly ever.
#DailyTimothySnyder #OnFreedom
"Freedom of speech means a right to facts. Defending that right means sharing the facts about which people can speak. .... The mass delivery of plagiarism and fiction can be done by machines. Reporting cannnot."
Page 275
Timothy Snyder also has a substack. https://substack.com/home/post/p-189132130 Fascist Failure
#DailyTimothySnyder #OnFreedom
"People's authentic interests were understood to unpredictable and therefore to lead to unpredictable relationships, like that of Havel and the rock musicians, or Michnik and the workers...."
Page 289
This brilliant book was published in 2024 shortly before the election. That ill fated election. Since then, krasnov and company are studiously erasing the real history of the USA. They are the enemies of freedom.
#DailyTimothySnyder #OnFreedom
"Only by taking a hard look at our history can we see the failures in American voting and make them right. Democracy is self-correction."
Page 343
this clip is in the LIFE'S ARC pages of this important and wonderful book. Timothysnyder.org. https://www.youtube.com/@timothysnyder5948 https://www.instagram.com/thetimothysnyder/
#DailyTimothySnyder #OnFreedom
"Care is important, as is the prior confidence that it will be there. We are more mobile when we can count on certain basic human requirements being met....Lacking such confidence, we will be stuck where we are."
Pages 166-7
this quote is from the section titled REPUBLICANS timothysnyder.org
#DailyTimothySnyder #OnFreedom
"The point of freedom of speech is to challenge accumulated power, which means accumulated wealth. Associating freedom of speech with spending private money on elections is therefore perverse in the extreme."
Page 352
Timothy Snyder's brilliant book On Freedom some memoir, some history, some philosophy. Everyone should read it. There is a way to save democracy. https://www.thriftbooks.com/w/on-freedom_timothy-snyder/51865150/all-editions/
#DailyTimothySnyder #OnFreedom
"Our political divisions draw us away from freedom as principle, making it harder to get to freedom as practice. They have been hardened by the collapse of local news, the rise of oligarchy, and the reach of social media."
Page 338, DIVISIONS
The section is titled ENTROPY AND GRAVITY timothysnyder.org
#DailyTimothySnyder #OnFreedom
"We learn about our Korper and the physical world to reach its edges, to better understand our own Leib and extend our chances. We need knowledge of both what is and what should be to experience that "restlessness of transcendence" ....
pages 98-9
"...If there is no Leib, no truth, no risk, then the concept of freedom is being debased."
#DailyTimothySnyder #OnFreedom
"When "free speech" is invoked, here are the questions that can help ascertain whether it is a con: Where is the Leib? Where is the truth? What is the risk to the Leib taken by that person in telling that truth?"
Page 277
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"...that someone else's bodily experience has a dignity that I can understand even if the experience was not mine." https://www.youtube.com/@timothysnyder5948
#DailyTimothySnyder #OnFreedom
"We cannot be free unless our truths can be greeted by others, which means that we and they must share a common human understanding that there is such a thing as truth..."
Pages 285-6
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This is part of a larger discussion about libertarianism and the false myth of the "free market." It's all worth reading as is the entire book.
#DailyTimothySnyder #OnFreedom
"The notion that freedom is state inaction makes sense only for the tiny minority who can protect their families without a representative government."
Page 314 OLIGARCH HYPOCRISY
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2024/sep/23/on-freedom-by-timothy-snyder-review-an-essential-manifesto-for-change "On Freedom by Timothy Snyder review – an essential manifesto for change"
#DailyTimothySnyder #OnFreedom
"We experience the restraints of the external world and push against them, in the company of others who are doing the same. We are free when we know in which direction we wish to push and how we can do so."
Page 39
"It is less shocking now than it was just a few years ago when a presidential candidate calls people 'vermin,' promises to imprison political opponents, plans to disassemble the government, and glorifies concentration camps. For the algorithms to get our attention, they need ever more drastic material." Page 153
#DailyTimothySnyder #OnFreedom
"A politician who wins office with the help of algorithms is unlikely to lead us into a human future. Such a person is a character in a digital story, not its author, a mouthpiece of a politics of 'us and them,' contributing dwindling creativity to brain hacks.
more
https://timothysnyder.org/
#DailyTimothySnyder #OnFreedom
"....American laws also allow the very richest to avoid paying taxes and to influence elections (and then policy) by spending money. Such laws disenfranchise all nonbillionaires by granting to the few electoral power not enjoyed by the many...."
Page 344
@timothysnyder.bsky.social coming up on Lawrence later this hour.
#OnTyranny
#OnFreedom
Page 341 of Timothy Snyder's great book On Freedom
#DailyTimothySnyder #OnFreedom
"We link the words democracy and freedom, and rightly so. Freedom is the value of values, and the case for democracy must begin with it. Democracy is the system toward which the forms of freedom lead, the best resolution of freedom as a principle."
Page 341
This is my copy of On Freedom. I wish everyone would read this book.
#DailyTimothySnyder #OnFreedom
"Ukrainian resistance reminds us that freedom cannot be entrusted to impersonal forces, or to wealthy people or powerful corporations that tell us that there are no alternatives and that there is nothing that we can do."
Page 331
#SlavaUkraini
It lasted until its origins were forgotten and capitalism itself was enthroned as the lone source of freedom. That happened in the 1980s." note by me: reagan, republicans. yeah
#DailyTimothySnyder #OnFreedom
"Although sometimes presented as the natural result of capitalism, the American Dream depended on social policies developed after the capitalist collapse of the Great Depression.
pages 190-91 continued in Alt text
The book is so deep, it's not an easy read, but for me I found it useful, enlightening, and in a way, validating, because I was able to recognize that throughout my life I never gave up my values, no matter how hopeless they seemed. Peace, for instance. Years ago I expressed how I deplore war and value peace, and a friend said, "War's never going to end." I said, "Not in my lifetime, I get that, but that doesn't mean I can't keep advocating for peace."
#DailyTimothySnyder #OnFreedom
"The first trick in reconciling values is to avoid the trapdoors: submission, totalitarianism, notalitarianism, the false tragedy of choice. We must not give up on a value just because we cannot realize it right now."
"...We can be free, if we see what freedom is. We can see creativity in the past, possibility in the present, liberty in the future. We can recognize one another, create a good government, and make our own luck."
#DailyTimothySnyder #OnFreedom
"...This world could be ever so much better.
"As I look at my daughter's smiling face, I think of what I can leave behind: an idea about freedom. Our problem is not the world; our problem is us. And so we can solve it."
pages 398-99
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